Andrew Flintoff had struggled through his final Test but then he ran out Ricky Ponting and it provided a memory for the ages
I was a relative latecomer to Test cricket. The 2005 Ashes kickstarted it all; the summer of Michael Vaughan’s heroes coincided with the birth of my first son, a blur of hot, restless nights spent watching recorded Channel 4 coverage (the last year Test
Cricket was shown on free-to-air TV) while trying to jiggle a baby back to sleep. I never made it to a game that year but the seed was sown.
For some reason, in those years of small children, a full day out of the house, getting gently drunk with a few
Friends and a bag of sausage rolls, became an incredibly compelling prospect. There was also the cricket, of course. Each summer I started block-booking tickets for a day at my local ground, the Oval. Takers down at the Dads’ Club were never hard to find.