I was bewildered by the media comment after the first day of the world championship test against India. The tenor was broadly that we’d done well. With our world’s best pace attack and only three wickets down at day’s end, it was certainly not the way I saw it.
Last night I lay in bed watching, aware of the psychological importance of quick wickets. When they weren’t forthcoming it was time to intervene and I applied an age-old gilt-edge technique. Specifically, I got out of bed, went downstairs, sat in the library for three minutes which was sufficient, and sure enough, back upstairs to find a wicket had fallen.
I waited a while, fingers crossed as we needed another wicket urgently to demoralise the Indians.
So I did my duty, went back downstairs, made a coffee and then returned to find that certainly (my absence) had secured that critical wicket.
After those interventions I left it to the chaps to take care of the remaining five without my help.