The Ashes diary of Australia’s 13th man Andrew Nother Mitchell

Brad Haddin almost won the first Test for the Australians

Disclaimer: The article was written in jest, and should be taken with a pinch (no, make that a bowl) of salt.

And so the first Test is done. We lost, but bloody hell that Brad Haddin fought his bum off, didn’t he? Matty has agreed to give him foot massages all week. But it wasn’t just him, of course.

Rogers, Patto and Twatto contributed a bit and then there was the help that came from splashing Eddie’s freshly drawn blood across a hastily thrown together altar on Radcliffe road for the benefit of Goddess Ganesha.

Poor Ed – we do mock him. If he wasn’t so bloody useless, we wouldn’t have to, but he is and so he must be punished, if only because we might very well be stuck with Davo now.

After a loss, of course, there was the post-match strip down. Pup was actually pretty chuffed with the efforts and made us carry Brad around on our shoulders for a while. When we got tired and decided to stop, though, he reviewed the decision with Boof. Then we got Eddie and Shane to fight each other with soggy bananas and general hair pulling, but when Shane started biting (he always does!), Pup reviewed the decision to have them fight.

I know, I know – he’s out of control. There’s nothing Pup loves more than a good review. We put up with it because, you know, he’s Pup but when Phil and I got the pizzas in and the restaurant had forgotten to leave the pineapple off, we reached the end of our collective tethers. Pup hates pineapple and wanted to ring and review the decision to leave it on, but we just tied him to a chair and force-fed it to him.

Enough with the reviews, Mike!

And so, we are one-down and off to Lord‘s. Davo thinks he might get to play this time around. So, it’s strictly alcohol free beer and boxing gloves for him at the moment. As for Shane … well, he can be as shit as he likes, he’ll still get to play at the top and I’ll still have to put his highlights in for him. Oh, the life of a 13th man!

Until Lord‘s …

A. Nother Mitchell