ah I love it! Test cricket, this evening, found a completely new emotional articulation. It was certainly an historical moment. Cricket is often hilarious but it has never been as greatly hilarious for such a sustained period as it was during the final session today. The demolition of New Zealand did come about, as it was bound to, and it came about at the hands of McGrath, as had been suggested it may – but who would have thought the Mutter-man magic would be cast through his bat! McGrath left aside the muttering as he took up, seriously, batting. When he brought up his 40, passing his previous highest test score of 39, the crowd rose to their feet, the Australian team rose to their feet, and every single one of them was just laughing laughing laughing. Mutter-man was laughing his own head off. Gilgamesh, drawing close to his own maiden test half century (tomorrow morning perhaps?), had already been laughing for a long time. (Even the New Zealanders must have been laughing somewhere deep inside – it must have had hold on them). I’m in a good mood for at least a week now – the whole of the country must be.

Good old channel 9 managed to leave the live telecast of the cricket for the news just in time to deny its eastern daylight savings time states from witnessing the immense joy that must have come about with the 50, but when I saw the score summary on the sports news – Clarke 141; Gilchrist 126; McGrath 54*, I just laughed and laughed and laughed all over again. Such a ridiculous text! A totally new test emotion.