Last Tuesday Michael Jennings and I recorded another of our little chats, about cricket. In general this time, mostly.  Twenty20 versus 50 overs versus test cricket - club versus country - India and Indian money - how the Australians speeded up test cricket.  That kind of thing.  Only at the beginning did we talk about the final Ashes test, then about to begin, now nearing its end.

Sadly, I got into a microphone muddle, which meant I had to spend far more time editing the thing than we took creating it in the first place.  Which defeats the entire purpose of such chats, for the original reason for doing them is that they are, if done with technical adequacy, so much less laborious than writing.  Things get said that might never get written.  Thoughts get provoked that might otherwise never be put out there.  Anyway, I have done as much editing and cleaning up as I could bear to do, and I hope the result is at least audible.  I plan to use a different microphone next time, either the small ones I already have, that fit on your lapel, or a new a better one obtained early next week in Tottenham Court Road.  Meanwhile, apologies for the frequent sound oddities, such as background variations when I had to beef up the sound, and strange clickings.

The final and deciding test match is proving quite surprising, and could yet spring further surprises.  As mentioned in our chat, Michael has lent me his Sky Sports internet connection for the duration of the game, while he is in Scandinavia.  (I didn’t ask him why he was going to Scandinavia, in case he said: yes, why am I going to Scandinavia?) It is fun being able to watch everything live, just like in the far off days when the BBC used to show test cricket live, and without buying overpriced fizzy drinks or fruit juices in pubs.  However, the effort of receiving this signal seems to put my computer on the permanent edge of crashing, or to put it another way, make it unable to do anything else with any reliability other than show Sky Sports.  (Which is all part of why that editing took so long to do.)

Michael was confident that Australia, having crushed England so very crushingly at Leeds, would likewise be too good for England at the Oval.  Both he and I reckoned without Stuart Broad.  Like many England fans, I had, until yesterday, wondered what Broad was doing in the England side, good-batsman-considering-he’s-a-bowler-but-not-much-of-a-bowler being, in the eyes of me and of many others, an insufficient qualification for inclusion.  But yesterday Broad bowled very well.  Instead it is Harmison, Flintoff and Anderson who now appear tired, old and innocuous by comparison.  Michael reckoned the England batting to be too feeble, but yesterday it was the Australian batters who crumpled, to Broad.

England’s other deadly weapon yesterday was the hyphenated spinner-stroke-umpire Swann-Rauf, who chipped in with two wickets, one of them being North, with Swann also picking up a further brace of wickets all on his own.

England’s trump card today was Trott, who got only the second England century of the series, and who I did foresee doing well (purely on the strength of his South African background – see also: Kevin Pietersen), and in particular better than the sacked Bopara.  Trott is one of those big men with small legs, with an identical hairdo (the will be bald soon look) to Andrew Strauss.  (By the way, Bopara yesterday completed a double century for Essex against Surrey, while Ramprakash of Surrey did less well, which meant that Surrey today lost heavily.  Could Bopara be the next Ramprakash?  Brilliant, that is to say, in county cricket, but never making it as an international.)

In many ways, England’s position today was rather like their position on the final day at the Oval in 2005.  Now as then, the only way England could lose this (i.e. not win this) was for them to be bowled out for a very small second innings score, and at 39-3 yesterday evening, that seemed all too liable to happen, just as it had around lunchtime on the final day in 2005.  Some dogged batting was needed, and some inspired slogging.  In 2005 Collingwood and Giles provided the doggedness and Pietersen the inspired slogging.  This time around, debutante Trott held down one end, while England’s bowlers-who-can-bat – Flintoff, Broad and Swann - slogged away merrily, especially Swann, and England nerves were likewise calmed.

Or were they?  When, earlier this evening, Australia started their second innings needing the small matter of 546 runs to win, on a pitch which yesterday looked about to collapse into a cloud of dust, their cause seemed hopeless.  But they have now made 80 without loss or fuss, and suddenly England supporters are pondering the possibility that, what with England having made nearly 400 in their second innings, the pitch might actually be getting better.  Actually, what I think is happening is that conditions today were better.  It was sunnier, which meant that there was less swing.  The forecast is good for the rest of the match, which means that Australia still have an outside chance of springing a major surprise.  Put it this way.  I had been assuming that, win or lose (but not draw), all would be concluded some time around tomorrow afternoon.  Which would have been annoying for me because I am busy tomorrow afternoon and will be unable to stay home and watch, despite now having the technology.  But now I think that there may be plenty left of this game to amuse me on Monday.  And if there isn’t, that’ll be because England will have won tomorrow, which will be good too, even if I have to make do with the recorded Channel 5 highlights, as per the previous four games.