ah the frustration! Wating waiting waiting for some Australian player to lead a true and spirited fightback. Waiting for someone to launch themselves (in this topsy turvy world it is Flintoff who keeps launching himself deep into the spheres, taking his comrades with him) out of the hole that the Australians just keep digging themselves deeper and deeper into. They remind me of the creature in Kafka’s story ‘The Burrow’. It begins with a line something like, ‘I have just completed my burrow and I believe it to be perfect’. The rest of the story has the creature becoming more and more desperately paranoid about the noises of the small fry that he can hear tunneling in the earth around his burrow – he becomes convinced that the sounds he hears are being made by one massive predator against which his burrow will be no safeguard, slowly getting closer and closer. Despite this the creature is enamoured of his construction and will leave it only for the shortest snatches and only to watch over its entrance like a guard. Though it is clearly inadequate, he is unable to launch forth from his underground dwelling and the burrow becomes a trap. But of course there is still hope. In Deleuze and Guattari’s reading of ‘The Burrow’ the creature’s description of the dwelling is a ruse to trick the enemy. It is the enemy that will be trapped by the perfectly functioning machine that the burrow in fact is. The burrow is not a defensive trench, the creature fears nothing. Australia have forced England to make Australia follow on. Michael Clarke will never be in a better position to realise his full potential and free himself from the burden of restraint.