Ashes

Every year, a team of local Aussies plays a team of local English in a battle for the Ashes. For various reasons, I missed the game for the past two seasons so was looking forward to this match very much. Also, the Poms held the trophy amid much controversy last year, so we were all well motivated to try to win it back in 2008. Another twist to the match is that many of my regular team mates played on the English team, so it was a chance to get bragging rights for the rest of the year as well.

The day was one of the hottest days of the year and unfortunately, we lost the toss so had to field in the worst of the conditions. We all bowled and fielded well, bowling them out for 172 in their final over (35). One of their players who is a Mad Dog as well carried his bat scoring 106 n.o., quite an achievement in the conditions. I picked up a couple of wickets and bowled OK, but still too many full tosses to make me happy.

I opened the batting and we got off to a flying start, reaching 60 after 6 overs. A couple of wickets fell and then I got out for 39 with the score around 90. Things were chugging along nicely, we were 6 down with 13 to get for the victory and still 10+ overs to go when they took a hat trick! Fortunately our #4 Darren was still there and playing well so we felt that if our #11 could survive, that Darren could get us home. A few defended balls, singles and a hurried two set up the finale, when Darren hit consecutive balls over square leg for 6 to bring up the win! It was a great result, despite us almost throwing it all away at the end.

Earlier in the day, I had watched us beat South Africa in the rugby. Certainly a good result but I feel the real test will come this weekend against NZ. I think we have improved over every game this season so that is positive and also, the newer players seem to be showing they are worth their place.

Sunday brought another hot day and I did not feel like doing anything much at all. Mindy spent the afternoon with her friend Holly, so Gary and I got together to watch the kids. It also seemed like a good time to test out his two new reclining chairs and we both grabbed some nap time while the kids were playing. We had two when we arrived and we left with two, so I guess nothing bad happened while we were asleep!

Mindy and I are also slogging through my recordings of Babylon 5 from years ago. I have all of the episodes on tape from when it first aired in the USA and it is actually good to watch them again. Mindy has not seen it and I kind of remember the basic plot, but not well enough to spoil the viewing this time around. It is quite intimidating though...110 episodes lined up and waiting for us. Right now we are about 35 episodes into it. I think Mindy is enjoying it...if not, it will probably be a pretty rough 6 weeks or so for her.