By The Bug’s chief cricket writer

Seeing I couldn’t bear to watch Australia’s second innings unfold (fall apart?) at Old Trafford overnight, I got up at 6am and put down my predictions about where we’d be by stumps.

I then went online to ABC sports news to confirm my worst fears. Okay, I was out by a bit but I’d like to explain why I’ve rather immodestly given myself a B-plus for effort.

For starters, I didn’t think the Poms would end up 275 runs ahead. I went to bed at the lunch interval and how the fuck was I to know that Jonny Bairstow, who couldn’t keep bees, would end up stranded on 99.

Think about that for a second. The fat man on a fourth-day wicket misses out on a ton by one lousy run against arguably some of the finest fast bowlers going around and later on, four top-order Aussie batsmen with superior averages can’t achieve that same total collectively. They scrambled together 64 runs to Bairstow’s 99.

So the Aussies didn’t bat for as long as I thought they would. If the truth be known, they would have been 4 for 113 at some stage on my figures and who’s to say that if the rain lets up long enough over the weekend, the Aussies will be 6 for 154 at some stage.

Here’s my beef. After Lord’s, the Aussies have needed one – fucking one! – monster score to retain the Ashes. It’s still to come in the Mark Wood era and quite frankly I can’t see it happening at The Oval if that cooked goose David Warner stays in the side as he most likely will.

I hope there’s enough play left in this Test for the Poms to give us the massive defeat we deserve. The hosts deserve to go to London two-all. And if that’s the case, I find it rather amusing that if the aforementioned Bairstow had followed the basic laws of the game at Lord’s and not stupidly wandered down the pitch like one of Brown’s cows, the Poms could very well have regained the Ashes by then.

Finally, Pat Cummins is a very handsome man, seems a very nice chap as well and is a great bowler – generally – but he’s a shit captain.

Don Gordon-Brown