The Ashes diary of Australia’s 13th man, Andrew Nother Mitchell #6

I know, I know – I’ve been a bit quiet. Well, it’s all been very depressing, hasn’t it? Plus, we’ve all been getting our a**** kicked.

Not for losing, although yes we do need our butts kicking for that. Mostly, we’ve been in trouble because someone stole Shane’s glitter nail polish and painted his bat with it. Naturally, Shane went running to Boof and dobbed. That didn’t do him any good, of course, because Boof just punched him, so instead Shane went to Pup and cried.

That didn’t really work, either, so Shane called his mum who called someone at CA and they sent Pup a stern email and now we are all in trouble. We are banned from socialising with the women in the hotel; our beer is all alcohol free for a week, there is to be no pizza and, worst of all, we have to go to Brighton.

It’s possible we had to go to Brighton anyway but, nonetheless, I blame Shane. As does everyone. He was very angry about the whole thing, I understand, but there really was no need to attack Patto like that and kick him in the back. Now Patto has to go home and, although Boof is saying otherwise, it opens the way for another bowler to come in.

Now, I don’t want to speak out of turn, but I have an idea of who it could be. As 13th man, I could step in at a moment’s notice. I could get a swish new tattoo in celebration. I’d even consider doing the homework this time. Shane is not using my glitter nail polish, though!

Some are saying that if someone must come in, they’d like it to be Traffic Cone. It probably won’t be, though, because the new favourite, Stevie Smith doesn’t like him very much. And then there was that incident with the stop sign in Soho …

We’ll see what happens.

Until next time,

A. Nother Mitchell