Swanny's Agenda

Shooting Stars?! Come on Graeme, you need to get out more.

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An Apology

Sorry, this blog never really got going did it? Well, it got going and then it stopped. And didn't start again. The reason for this is fairly simple. The Strauss v Ponting Twitter account. It was not as much hard work, proved pretty popular and was great for banter. So I kind of got stuck on there.

Yesterday I announced Strauss v Ponting was going on holiday until November 2010, but then I was inundated with at least four desperate pleas for it to continue. This couldn't happen on the basis that I do not have the power to move the Ashes series. We came to a compromise though. @SirStraussy was born. He'll be tweeting until he retires. Or until Graeme Swann gets involved and suggests someone is 'posing' as him. Which happened tonight.

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Twits Affected Our Batting

I guess I should have seen it coming really. As captain I should be thinking a couple of steps ahead. For this I apologise to England supporters everywhere. It just wasn't on my radar.

The truth is that twitter is indicative of our batting at the moment. Quick. Sometimes inspired. Mostly irrelevant. I am as much to blame as anyone. I have been twittering over the last few weeks and look at my innings. They have been over before anyone can type, 'spilt drink on a glove'. KP has been at it too, even twittering from the field of play - which probably isn't strictly in the spirit of the game (I'll ask Ricky). Jimmy and Swanny are also telling anyone who cares to listen what music they are listening to on the journey into the ground.

And if we're not twittering ourselves we are certainly reading what other twits are saying. Jonathan 'Aggers' Agnew and David 'Bumble' Lloyd particularly. Cooky couldn't bear to be out of the changing room for five minutes for fear of missing something. His mind was all agog in the middle. Completely distracted from the job in hand because he was wondering whether Aggers had helped CMJ fix his new laptop yet and whether the mystery of David 'Davey-Boy' Gowers tie had been resolved. With that sort of gibberish in your mind it's hard to play straight down the ground.

It really is no surprise that Colly was the only one to last longer than 140 characters worth of time in the middle. He's still trapped in the age of the blog and hasn't set foot near a twit since Michael Atherton offered him some dirt from his pocket during the Twenty20 World Cup.

I am not stupid. I know full well that my captaincy has come under a bit of criticism from certain people in the last few days so it's about time I show how good I am. I've been having a think and this is what I have worked out. It would seem that the twitter mentality is suited to Twenty20. The blogging mentality is suited to ODI's. The book writing mentality is suited to a Test Match. Which in my mind seems to suggest that the Steve Waugh autobiography writing mentality is suited to an Ashes Test Series. (That is one long book - 72,183 pages if I remember correctly). So this week all the guys are going to start penning their own Steve Waugh biographies. Simple but brilliant. By the time we get to the 2021 Ashes we will be just about immovable.

Thanks for the support at Cardiff. Really appreciated. Especially from the Welsh.

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Cardiff Teas Cost Us

Ah look guys, a lot has been made of my comments last night, but it's not the reason we lost the Test. Sure, I wasn't impressed with England's tactics late in the day, but at the same time I wasn't impressed with the Cardiff teas. Five days in a row we had to endure cheese and onion sandwiches, hula-hoops and battenberg cake. It's always gonna be a tough challenge to take twenty wickets on that sort of diet. Unfortunately, we fell just short.

I don't think the quality of battenberg was particularly good for a Test Match venue, no. And I don't think another Test Match should be held here until that's sorted out. It's no secret that the Poms prefer fairy cakes so for the ECB to provide us with stodgy battenberg was pretty bad form actually. You just have to look at the height of Mitchell Johnson's bowling arm in the final session to see how much it was weighing him down. If it had been any lower he would have been called the 'New Trevor Chappell'. I don't want to make a big thing out of it, but I am sure others will be taking this up with the England hierarchy. As they should. All I'll say is that I didn't feel it was in the spirit of cricket teas. But they can do what they want. We'll always provide them with Milo and vegemite.

But look, we've got to concentrate on the positives, of which there were many. We'll walk away very proud of what we have achieved here. We've proved a lot to ourselves and know we can overcome most types of hula-hoop. Many members of the English press doubted we could do this without Warney so that's a big confidence boost for the likes of Nathan Hauritz. We'll just have to be a bit more careful when it comes to cake in future. Maybe take the marzipan off or something. We'll take a look at that in the next twenty-four hours and reassess where we are at. The good thing for us is that it's Lord's next and we haven't had a bad cricket tea there since 1934.

Until next time. Waltz like Matilda.

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Puppy Love

Evening Aussies and Poms. So an interesting development over the last few days. And I'm not talking about Steve Harmison's new found cricket wicket sat-nav. I'm talking about one of our guys. One of our guys has fallen head over heals in love with BBC cricket correspondent Alison Mitchell. What a time to do it! Just before the First Test. She's a fine looking sheila and everything but talk about unprofessional. (Him I mean. Not her).

I can't out him for legal reasons (like the fact that he has a wife), but he has become completely infatuated with her siren song. It's unbelievable. He's in a totally different world now. Daydreaming. Not eating. And spending far too long staring at her twitter account profile picture. It's like Shane Warne and those three girls from the Advanced Hair Studio all over again. Bloody nightmare to manage.

Mind you it could be worse I guess. It came to light on Wednesday evening. I was room sharing with Player X during our game against the Pommy 2nd XI. All of a sudden he starts muttering in his sleep. It started innocently enough with, 'I'll get the bill', but soon it was, 'I love you Mitchell! I love you!'. What is a captain to think? First thing that crossed my mind was that he was calling out for Mitchell Johnson. Worrying as that was, it wasn't half as worrying as when he again shouted, 'I'll get the bill!' Alarm bells are then really ringing. One of my players wants a threesome with Mitchell Johnson and Bill Lawry! Now look, I'm a fairly liberal bloke when it comes to that sort of thing, but Bill Lawry is seventy-bloody-two. I mean that's just wrong in anyones language.

Well I jumped out of bed as you do in this kind of circumstance and started edging towards the door. I'm a good looking bloke. I'm therefore thinking I am the next candidate if Player X is organising an orgy. I don't want to listen to that. I'm just about to open the door when I hear, 'I love you Mitchell! I love you Alison Mitchell!' You can imagine my relief. The last time I was that relieved was during David Boon's Annual Lager party.

That's not the end of the problem though. He could be a liability come Wednesday if Alison Mitchell is walking around the boundary. Especially if we're batting at the time. Got some tough talking to have with him over the next day. A captain's work is never done.

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Goodbye Michael

Good afternoon all. The chaps and I are back from our bonding trip to Belgium. I think we are a much closer unit now. But then I have to say that don't I? It's in my contract. Only an hour or so ago I had a slap on the wrist from Giles Clarke for suggesting that there was a time keeping issue in the camp. It's going to be worse now he's smashed my watch to smithereens. There is some very muddy thinking in the higher echelons of the ECB.

We all settled down to watch Michael Vaughan's press conference this morning. The tension was palpable. When was he going to breakdown? My money was on the fifth minute when he would no doubt mention that Gunn & Moore had ended their sponsorship with him. I was wrong. He didn't breakdown at all and he didn't even mention his bat. Unbelievable. To make matters worse Colly won all the money. He's already on a high after he was commissioned to write his own Shane Warne biography. Now the ginger ninja is just unbearable to be around.

Warwickshire tomorrow. Should be interesting playing against a county as England. First though, we are off to Laser Quest to give Vaughany a proper send off. We're not playing there of course. That's where Vaughany now works.

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Bonding Trip: Day One

I awoke early this morning in order to make the trip up to Birmingham. The chosen sixteen were told to meet outside HMV - in the Bullring - with our passports. All we knew is that we were going to embark on a bonding exercise. Naturally I was the first there. Swanny was next to arrive. Although I didn't recognise him in all his leather gear.

"What on earth are you dressed like, Graeme?" I asked.

"I thought I may as well come dressed ready for the occasion," he replied.

"What occasion?" I asked, confused.

"Our bondage session of course!"

"It's bonding, Graeme. Bonding." I took £50 out of my wallet, "H&M is over there, now go and buy yourself something slightly less kinky and certainly something less revealing. And I want change!"

Spinners! I hear Jim Laker was the same. It's disgusting.

Half an hour later we had all assembled and were being bored to death by Freddie going on about how he hit 93 from 41 balls last night. "It's Derbyshire mate, not Pakistan," said Andy 'Flowery' Flower, all of a sudden. That shut him up. Flowery then proceeded to hand out spare England ties. "These are not for your neck, they are to cover your eyes. All watch Monty while he shows you how to perfect the blind Rambo look." We all looked at Monty as Flowery threw him a tie. He misjudged it terribly and promptly dropped it down to level one. "He better not be playing this summer," I heard Broady mumble behind me. I back-heeled him in the shin. Bonding already.

"When you've got your ties on your head come over here and line up," said Flowery, marking out a line with a piece of chalk. "Then when I say 'Eddo Brandes' I want you all to pull your ties over your eyes. To make sure the press don't know where we are going, you aren't going to know either. I am mainly talking to you here KP. I don't want any News of the World exclusives again. Are we all ready? Okay. Eddo Brandes!"

I felt a nudge on my arm then the dulcet tones of Swanny, "Told you skip. Please can I room with you?"

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