The Ashes diary of Australia’s 13th man, Andrew Nother Mitchell #8

Michael Clarke

It’s been difficult, we know it. There have been one or two high points but, ultimately, we’ve been s***.

I’m here today to assure the Australian fans that we have been whipped, starved, forced to watch Big Brother, amongst many other punishments, and finally we have sat down together and come up with ways to prevent us losing the final test.

(Yes, it was homework. Get your jokes in now.)

And so, we gathered; we brainstormed; we shared and then we wrote everything out in words of two syllables or less and let Shane into the room.

Here’s the plan:

1. Play better
2. Hope the England team all get food poisoning
3. Stop listening to Shane Warne’s drivel
4. Land piles of hope onto Pup’s shoulders and hope the pressure doesn’t adversely affect him
5. Pray

The list adapted for Shane:

1. Bat well
2. Feed bad fish
3. Other man called Shane is no-no
4. Pup can’t do it all
5. Pray

And if that lost doesn’t work, we’ll just pretend none of it is really happening (which, let’s be honest, is pretty much what we’ve been doing anyway).

Fingers crossed

A. Nother Mitchell