The natural balance restored

I can hear it building as the sun half-heartedly rises on London, passing to us beneath the oceans, an invisible wave of familiar disappointment, of a prowess blunted, a bubble burst, a city of gold turned mirage, yep, its the sad mutterings of the defeated English.

The cheap champagne flowed way too long in their national imagination. Fifteen months later they awoke on a park bench, just as the hangover kicked in. Ba Ba BANG! How garish the jubilant product endorsements peppering london's underground now appear - arms raised high, grins wide, muscles flexed, success inevitable - oops. Dave on a building site reckons cricket in England is too bloody middle class. They need some mongrel. They need to want it more. Class based or not, an invisible ingredient was missing from the fray.

I'm sad for Captain Flintoff. He was let down, deserted, and overburdened. His leadership deserved better followership. Along with Kevin 'Lekka' Peterson he would push for a baggy green were he born on sunnier shores. And most frustratingly, his lurking predecessor is absolved of responsibility - an unjust reward for physical incapacity. No cheap photographic juxtaposition of the searing agony with soaring ecstasy for Mr Vaughan. History is cruel to valiant men like Freddy. And our revenge is somehow asymetric.

As for us, well, we wanted it it, and we needed it (if only to ease the path for future generations of exiles in London). We may not be the centre of the universe, but we're bloody good at sport - cue VB-laced grunts of agreement. And unlike the shadow of empire, you have to keep winning to maintain the reputation. A drought of medals, trophies and the urn would do more emotional damage to us than a few years without rain. Bragging rights are the mining rights of the post-colonial world.

Five-nil would be cruel, but fair. That which they stole last year (and I'm not just referring to an entire nation's sleep) can only be restored thus. So onward to the G, and Warney's Hollywood moment led by Captain Punter, the most determined man ever to emerge from the wilderness island. A more stoic protector of the national reputation would be hard to find.

As the bushfires around Melbourne smoulder, from the ashes emerge new shoots, regeneration, a canopy of the future - the bush is lost, but returns doublefold. This is the natural order of things down under.