The Ashes

July rolled around, and before heading home to Australia for the Summer holidays, I had one more glorious sporting event to attend. It was all thanks to the most amazing and generous Captain, who procured tickets to the second Ashes test at Lords, and who found herself with a spare ticket thanks to a bit of a muck up with dates.

The tickets were for the day one of the test - a Thursday, and literally the day before I left my job and flew out. I feigned a migraine, threw on my Australian cricket shirt, and headed into London to meet up with the Captain. We got off the tube (after I gave a guy in a suit a lesson about sportsmanship when he booed me), and joined the masses heading for Lords. We had to queue for a bit, and were anxious to make it inside for the first ball. We ended up missing it, because I had to go through the rigmarole of having my bag searched and my flag confiscated (although I got it back at the end of the day). Somehow the Captain managed to get through with hers - rather unfair I thought!

We found our seats and settled in for some good cricket. Unfortunately for us, England had their best ever opening stand against Australia. Andrew Strauss also brought up his 5000th career test run. We were on our feet applauding all of the achievements, and had our good sportsmanship commented upon by the British guys beside us - take that, Nasty Tube Man! Eventually though, wickets began to fall, and we were rubbing it in wholeheartedly.

Ricky Ponting is second from the left.

Mitchell Johnson

The Australian end of the Member's Pavillion

It was a great day, and I'm glad I can say I've been to the Ashes at Lords. Next time though, I'll try to get tickets for somewhere with a bit of atmosphere. Somewhere that I can keep hold of my flag. Somewhere that people don't wear suits to!