Seagulls and Church Bells and "Test Match Special"

Thanks for watching and welcome to Part 14 from my self-published book in August 2023, "The Spirit of Cricket".

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Here's a snippet from the chapter being read here, chapter number 31 of a total of 41 from a book I'm immensely proud of:

"With the television otherwise engaged and next to zero chance of watching any of today’s action from Taunton live or even the late night highlights, I turned to the radio once more and that British institution of “Test Match Special” (TMS) for all the colour and cricketing circumstance surrounding the final match in the ladies Ashes series. With the stump microphones turned up capturing the incessant chatter from England’s Amy Jones and Australia’s Alyssa Healy behind the stumps, and other assorted microphones capturing a persistent flock of seagulls as clear and as nearby as the bells from a local church, TMS never seems to fail in bringing such an audio flavour for its listening audience.

In short, and perfectly in keeping with this spectacular Summer of Ashes cricket so far, England won by 69 runs sealing the One Day International (ODI) portion of the series 2–1 to go alongside their 2–1 triumph in the IT20 (International T20) section of The Ashes and yet, even with 4 overall victories against Australia’s 3, both teams end up with 8 points each, The Ashes shared but, and it’s the biggest but of them all, as holders, Australia retain The Ashes even after 4 defeats in 5 games.

The series commencing Test Match at Trent Bridge in Nottingham was always going to play a pivotal role in not only the series as a whole but with 4 points for the victor, a huge step on the road to winning or indeed retaining The Ashes, and so it proved. The Aussies 89 run victory was the largest run differential or winning margin between the two teams in the entire series and after winning the first IT20 match they held an almost unbeatable 6–0 points lead. Back came Heather Knight’s England to win the IT20 series 2–1 and the series score to 6–4 before levelling matters at 6–6 with a brilliant 2 wicket victory last Wednesday courtesy of a captain’s innings from Knight. The impossible mission of a comeback win for the ages against the World Champions was thwarted on the south coast of Hampshire just 3 days ago and by the margin of just 3 runs and despite today’s more comprehensive win and, lest we forget, beating a virtually unbeatable Australian team in both shorter forms of the game, the 8–8 series tie sees the Ashes urn returning to Australia in the hands of their captain Alyssa Healy".

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