Are you Scotland in disguise?

...we sang with glee! What a horrible insult, and what delight we took in hurling it upon the best cricket side in the world. Monday was a beautiful day. It was my first experience of a live test match, and of course, it was wonderful because it was the last day of the Ashes, the first England winning Ashes side since 1987, but also because I got to see one of the most magnificently brave and fearless innings played in Ashes history. To see Pietersen hit so many sixes with such ease (he certainly made it look easy) was extroardinary, given the kind of pressure the side was under.
There were a number of other wonderful moments throughout the day. Singing "Warney dropped the Ashes" to the brilliant spin bowler was lovely (as the clip of him dropping that catch from Pietersen was replayed throughout the day on the big screen), as well as witnessing the huge admiration Warne received from the crowd - he nearly got as much praise as Pietersen, I think he became a little embarrassed at one point ("There's only one Shane Warne", "We only wish you were English", "We love you Warney, we do..." etc.). The man truly is a legend.
Elsewhere, when Glenn McGrath came to our boundary, all we needed to sing was "5-0!, 5-0!, 5-0!" after his prediction of a series win of said score after Lord's. Very enjoyable. What was disappointing was hearing the very unimaginative shouts of "Oi Fatty!", "Wanker!", "Fat arse!" directed at Matthew Hayden when he came to the boundary, to which he replied, when McGrath got a wicket, by giving us the bird (a footballer could never have gotten away with that). Ponting soon moved him to a safer fielding position. He did the same with Tait, who, after making a terrible fielding mistake and then over throwing the ball, was applauded rapturously all day long by fans across from us on the off side. Every time he managed to successfully field a ball, a huge cheer went up from the fans. The poor guy.

What struck me when I first entered the ground (as I said, it was my first visit to a cricket match) was how close we were to the players. We were on the fourth row from the front, and Brett Lee was fielding right on the boundary. It was weird, he was so close. One guy was bantering with him, and Lee seemed to enjoy bantering back. Amazing. Nothing like a football match. On the subject of Brett Lee, I have to say that he was my Australian of the Series. I love the guy. So aggressive and competitive. A brilliant fielder, excellent with the bat, and devastating with the ball. HE also seems to have a really good attitude - that time he hit Strauss in the face and went up to see if he was ok, you've got to respect him. None of the England players ever did that, even went Ponting was bleeding from a fast ball.

It was a wonderful day. I'll never forget it.