After day 1 we were both in shock. By day 4 it was just same-old same-old. The English batsmen had no clue whatsoever how to play McGrath, so every one of his deliveries looked like it would get a wicket. I recall thinking that England could still pull off the draw on Day 5 (there had been rain). But no.

On day 6 Aussie boy came into work wearing his strayan flag tie, and he put up a strayan flag on his office wall. Later that day, someone removed the useless three-quarters with a pair of scissors, which pissed him off immensely.

We analysed the match later in the pub. The main reason why beating Australia is so much fun is because whenever they win anything, they assume that the victory is due to largely to the quality of Australian-ness, which of course they all share. They don’t (didn’t) look at Warne and McGrath and Gilchrist and just admire their skills, as an Englishman might do with Vaughan. They see those players as an extension of themselves – better at cricket, yes, but probably not by all that much.

It’s been said above that Day 1 of the next test was key. This is true, the reason being that it stripped away the idea that Australian-ness was unbeatable, and without that too many of their players had very little else to give.

My abiding memory was returning to our seats after lunch – a group of “lads” in front of us had bought the London Standard at lunch and were talking in loud celebratory voices about our boys having “got” one of the terrorists. I remember thinking that the story didn’t stack up and saying to my friend, I thought quite softly “I just hope the police haven’t screwed up on this one”. The lads overheard, turned around and let me have it in the neck for daring to suggest that the police might make such a mistake.

I wonder whether those lads remembered that conversation as clearly as I did when the Jean Charles de Menezes story unfolded.

But I digress.

I was in no doubt that we were heading for a loss more or less all the way through that Lord’s test, with the only mitigating factor being the risk of rain as the match continued.

In Big Dev Malcolm’s case, it brought on The Rage.

Unfortunately, cases of cricketers getting The Rage are few and far between…at least the ones where The Rage actually helped rather than hindered.