Adelaide Test – Day 3: whatever.

Heavy skies greeted the heavy hearts of the Australian fans as they came to (half) life this Sunday morning. The cathedral bells rang out across the parklands as we trudged, lemming-like, down the hill, dodging the Moreton Bay figs, towards the light of the tents and bars which had drained our wallets (at $7 for a cup) the day before. Or should I say towards the heavy of the tents and bars, as you can get heavy in the members. Only XXXX Gold in the outer.

England were about to resume at 2/317 with Cook looking to break more records. The best way to describe the ground was ‘hungover’. The restaurants and pubs of Adelaide had been filled with celebrating Poms the night before. And with shouts and tables of miserable Australians spending time apportioning blame, re-casting those in the side now, and re-picking the side for Perth. “What have we done?” “How has it come to this?”

I had settled on moving Watson to no. 6, Ponting to No. 5, Hussey to No. 3, and opening with Khawaja. No Smith for me; no White for me. Definitely no Doherty who looks like he is bowling billiard balls on to fibre glass. Bring back Hauritz and let the bloke bowl how he likes to. And if, given that last chance, he doesn’t hold up, then it’s time to find a genuine spinner – perhaps Krejza.

But I was only one voice among many.

A more immediate task beckoned, and that was to take eight more English wickets on a perfect deck with a bureaucratic attack. I wasn’t the only one sick of hearing about plans and areas and the only execution I wanted to see was those who administer the side to suffer death by one thousand tomatoes in stocks in the banks of the Torrens (I know the perfect place just near the Festival Centre).

Fair dinkum: sport is about heart and passion. And emotion. This crew have been sold the pup of process to such an extent they make Justin Langer look charismatic. We need a Randall P. McMurphy type character to drive the bus. Which is probably what Warney was and is.

Things got off to a reasonable start when Cook’s inside edge was gloved cleanly by Haddin. (Another two miracles and he will be the second Australian saint). Then Harris bowled a couple of sharp overs at Pietersen who, with his big lean forward, didn’t handle the couple at his throat, one of which spooned over the square leg umpire’s head, like an Ian Harvey slower ball. No-one could make the ground to get to it.

Pietersen survived and pushed on to bring up his hundred and then celebrate in a fashion that even the Poms thought was over the top. I’m not a great one for this term but, “Whatever.”

Collingwood began to accumulate (easily). The skies closed in further. My meteorologist BD Dutschke had assured me there was an 80% chance of rain on the third day and he was starting to look like even more of a genius.

Doherty didn’t look like it.  The Poms didn’t go hard, in the way they didn’t go hard in 2006 when Collingwood and Pietersen were in a position to take the attack apart. Well, here they were in the same position, and still they didn’t smash a broken Australian side. They continued to take their 3 or 4 an over.

Collingwood missed one from Watson and was LBW. Bell wanted his share of the fun. There was no great urgency in him either. By that stage I was at the bar at the southern end talking about the prospects of West Ham with Andy Gemmell (a blind cricket fan from England) who bemused wine-maker Robert O’Callaghan (also with us) by telling him he had found a batch of Robert’s Rockford Basket Press shiraz in an off license in north London. This is like Cricket Australia going to the Adelaide Atco factory to buy a new mower and finding the bloke behind the jump is the best South Australian leg-spinner since Grimmett.

Then it started to rain. Good-sized drops of the sub-tropical variety, but not many of them. And then a few more of them. And the drops started to swell. Until we were standing on the lawn in the rain, which was heavy enough for water to be dripping (steadily) off the umbrellas and for kids to be sliding around.

Stumps were drawn, with the draw looking a real possibility. The principal question being considered was the forecast, and whether Swann could bowl the Australians out in a day and a half. The evidence – that there were (unconfirmed) reports that Marcus North had turned one – suggests he can.

He just needs to be given a chance. Which would suggest an overnight declaration and the pressure on from the first ball Monday morning.

The Australians will do well to sneak out of this. But between the humid conditions which promise more rain, and the relatively healthy state of the wicket, I reckon they can.