A trio of commemorative cakes - the profiterole mountain is for Justin Langer © Andrew Miller

In the otherwise venerable SCG museum, there is one hideously mawkish souvenir - a commemorative red hankie, one of several thousand handed out by the Sydney Daily Telegraph on the occasion of Steve Waugh's retirement in January 2004. So the legend goes, Waugh never took the field without his lucky red snot-rag, and the paper rightly thought that such an item would come in handy for the 40,000 people bidding farewell to their hero.

For if there is one thing that the Australians do better than cricket, it is sentimentality. For instance, it is now 23 years since Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh all bowed out in the same Sydney Test against Pakistan, and we still haven't heard the end of it. Mind you, this match might just do what 2005 did for 1981 and bump that one down the list a notch or two.

Only one day in, and the game is already dripping with nostalgia. It all started yesterday afternoon, with the painting on the outfield of the sponsor's logos. Beneath the great big "3" of 3 Mobile, there are the text-speak motifs: "Thx Glenn" at the Paddington End and "Thx Shane" at the Randwick End (though Shane's contribution to the text-message industry surely deserves a commemorative blimp at the very least.)

Oh yeah, and at midwicket beneath the Brewongle Stand there is a hasty late addition: "Thx Justin" reads the lonely and lesser-spotted logo - onto which no fielder dared to stray for the first hour of play, for fear of smudging their trousers with freshly sprayed red paint.

Poor old Langer has been a bit of a spare wheel in this valedictory parade of the Titans - Caesar's chariot has been remoulded as a Robin Reliant to accommodate him. If McGrath's announcement was low-key compared to Warne's, then Langer's was almost subterranean. "Langer retires just in time" was the headline in yesterday's Australian - it was probably no more than a bad pun on his first name, but it could also have been a comment on the need for the organising committees to adjust their send-offs.

Take today's tea in the press box, for instance. There, greeting the hungry hoards of hacks, were two grinning images of Warne and McGrath, as created in icing sugar on the top of a pair of commemorative chocolate cakes. Mike Gatting and Mike Atherton were both in the vicinity, no doubt armed with an extra-sharp cake-knife, but where was Langer's gateau? His announcement had come too late for the caterers, though he did at least have a profiterole mountain in his honour (which bore an uncanny resemblance to a gnome's hat).

And while all that feasting was going on (the frenzy was almost as dramatic as the moment when a single tray of scones, cream and jam was let loose in the Melbourne press box) the next act of the Sydney schmaltz-fest was being played out in the middle of the pitch. Sean Ruane, a man improbably described by Andrew Flintoff as "The Operatic Voice of Sport", set up his microphone in front of the Member's Pavilion, and belted out the Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli hit: "Time to say goodbye".

McGrath, Langer and Warne, who would doubtless have preferred to spend his 20 minutes smoking a fag out the back, stood obediently on the balcony, more or less to attention, drinking in the moment. Incidentally, the lyrics of that song include: "I'll go with you to countries I never saw," which could be a comment on the itineraries of modern-day cricket tours. Not that anyone will have known that, of course. No eye in the house would have been dry enough to read the song-sheet.

	Monty Panesar celebrates victory in the 2006 Beard of the Year awards © Getty Images

Since his eight-wicket heroics at the WACA, Monty Panesar has not enjoyed the best of weeks. He went wicketless in Australia’s first innings at Melbourne, after being denied the forest of close catchers that he’d been afforded in Perth, and he had a stone-dead lbw appeal turned down when Andrew Symonds had made just 52 of his 156 runs. But today, at last, he’s got some news to cheer him up.

He’s just been named the 2006 Beard of the Year by those notable facial-fungus connoisseurs, the Beard Liberation Front. The organisation, dedicated to “the removal of a societal prejudice against the facially folically enhanced or bearded” sprung to prominence in the late 1990s, when its founder, Keith Flett, took exception to the tendency for New Labour politicians to shave off their whiskers to attract more voters.

In that regard, Panesar is clearly a worthy winner. He just missed out on the title of BBC Sports Personality of the Year, but he was still the highest-placed bearded contender in the competition - slotting into third place behind Zara Phillips and Darren Clarke. To judge by the proliferation of false beards in the stands last summer, he has done his utmost to make facial hair trendy again.

“Of course Monty has his beard for rather different reasons than say a footballer or actor with a designer beard,” admitted Flett, “but whatever the reason people have beards, we focus on the magnificence of the hirsuteness.”

Panesar had to earn his title the hard way as well, heading off a strong challenge from one of the most hirsute heroes of the 20th century, Cuba’s ailing leader Fidel Castro, not to mention a late surge from those champions of left-wing beardy-weirdiness, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and the trade union leader Paul Mackney.

Cricket has been well represented in the Beard of the Year awards. Last year’s winner, rather lost beneath the mountain of accolades that came his way, was none other than Andrew Flintoff, whose light-blond fuzz was, in Flett’s opinion, a key reason behind his stunning success. Pakistan’s captain, Inzamam-ul-Haq, was also named in the shortlist, alongside the bearded wonder himself, Bill Frindall.

Strangely, though, there was no mention of the most prominent and successful beard-wearer of them all. Ever since Mohammad Yousuf let his chin revert to the state ordained by nature, he has been on a thrilling run of form that enabled him to break Viv Richards’ 30-year record for most runs in a calendar year - his final tally was 1788 runs from 11 Tests.

1.16pm

“Have you spoken to John Howard, and do you know if he’s retiring,” asks a reporter, as Warne exits stage left to laughter and a round of applause. That’s it. The man has said his piece. At the age of 37, with 699 Test wickets from 143 matches, with the prospect of two more games to come, Shane Warne has announced his retirement from international cricket, Australian domestic cricket and club cricket for his local St Kilda team. He will, however, continue to honour his contract with Hampshire for the next two years. Catch him there while you can, because you’ll not see his like again in a hurry.

1.14pm

“We expect England to come out and play with pride,” says Warne, but he believes the coming weeks will be celebrational rather than emotional.

1.12pm

Warne says he discussed his retirement with, among others, Ian Chappell and his ex-wife, Simone, “who’s been there for the journey.” He wants to be remembered as “an entertainer, who enjoyed himself along the way.”

1.10pm

“Let’s hope they can contain the bushfires for a week, and let the rains to come along next week,” he jokes, when asked about the prospect of a 700th wicket on home turf at the MCG.

1.08pm

“There was a little bit of shock when I told Ricky I was going to retire,” says Warne. “He is a good friend and my captain. It makes me feel good that I’ve had such an impact. Sometimes you don’t realise the impact you have.” He recalls the example of Dan Cullen, who used to chase the team bus to get Warne’s autograph, and is now a team-mate.

1.06pm

The Ball of the Century? “It definitely makes me smile. As I’ve said a thousand times, it was just a fluke. I’m just thankful Gatt missed it.”

1.04pm

“Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara have been the best two batsmen of my era,” he adds. “Lara places the ball unbelievably well, while I admire Sachin for what he has to go through every day. 50 million people wanting you to succeed. One of the hardest things about being a successful player is the weight of expectation. Domestically, Darren Lehmann has been the hardest player I’ve had to bowl to.”

1.02pm

“If England had retained the Ashes in this series, would you have pushed on to 2009?” asks Dean Wilson of the Daily Mirror. “Yup.”

1.00pm

“Richie is the man, he knows everything about everything,” says Warne, when asked about the influences in his career. “I wished I’d played under Ian Chappell,” he adds, before reminiscing about their time living together in Augusta, when they were both covering the US Masters … in Warne’s brief Channel Nine gig as a “roving reporter”. “And I wouldn’t be where I am without Terry Jenner,” he adds.

12.57pm

“I don’t know what Steve Waugh’s on,” he retorts, when asked about Waugh’s opinion that Warne might one day line up as a coach of England.

12.56pm

Any chance of a comeback? "No." Lows? Losing the World Cup final in 1996, and then losing the one-run Test against West Indies in 1992-93, before being hammered by Curtly Ambrose's 7 for 1 at Perth. The only home series defeat of his career. Any regrets about missing out on the captaincy? "I've been very lucky," he says, not quite answering the question.

12.54pm

Warne recalls his haul of 7 for 52 here at Melbourne in 1992-93 against West Indies as the moment he realised he was good enough to belong to the team full-time.

12.52pm

“Do you want your life to be less like a soap opera,” asks Stephen Brenkley of The Independent. “You guys will be the judge of that,” he replies, before adding that he hopes there’s a bit less moralising about his life in future.

12.50pm

“At times I pushed the line, particularly with my appealing, but I think I made cricket more enjoyable,” says Warne, before confirming that he will honour the final two years of his Hampshire contract. “Who knows what the future holds? I want to spend more time with my children, that’s for sure. But my focus is these next two Test matches. I’ll have a few drinks and a few smokes afterwards, and take it from there.”

12.48pm

Warne reiterates that his favourite Test win was the recent victory at Adelaide. Before that, you have to rewind to the tour of Sri Lanka in August 1992, the first occasion on which he won a match for Australia with 3 for 11. Thirteen years between highs. No wonder he’s satisfied with his timing.

12.46pm

“I’ve given as much as I could to cricket. I’ve never walked away when I’m tired or knackered. But the job’s not done yet. We want to win 5-0,” says Warne.

12.44pm

Warne reveals he would have retired after the 2005 Ashes, had Australia managed to retain them. “But this is my time, and getting the Ashes back was my mission, and I couldn’t have worked the script any better. When it’s your time you just know.”

12.42pm

“I sit here today with every single trophy in the Cricket Australia cabinet," says Warne. "I retire a very happy man. My life has been unbelievable. I’m going out on top, and in my terms. It’s a day of celebration."

12.40pm

Warne has announced his retirement from international, domestic and St Kilda cricket. But he hasn't mentioned Hampshire just yet. He still has two years to run on that contract ...

12.38pm

Philip Pope, the Cricket Australia media man, is on the stage, doing a bit of pre-presser "housekeeping". The great man is waiting in the wings.

12.37pm

A flash of cameras and a hush descends, but it's only James Sutherland and the Cricket Australia crew. The tension is killing us.

12.35pm

No official word just yet, but the reminiscing has begun already. This morning, on Australia's Today show, Mark Taylor was asked by a random TV presenter how the Aussies would cope with the loss of one of the game's "great sledgers". "Awww... mate, he's not that good," quipped Taylor. "He tends to just start with a four-letter word and then says a load of nonsense."

12.30pm

Channel Nine has already gone live, apparently, but there's nothing to see just yet, save the back of a lot of gossiping heads. As the clock ticks over to zero-hour ...

12.15pm

Expectant chatter turns to an expectant hush, but then reverts to another expectant chatter. What are the bets on the man being fashionably late?

12.00pm

A monstrous media presence now. At least 14 TV cameras, twice as many photographers, and four times that number of journalists. Most of the photographers are camped at the entrance to the big black curtain, from behind which Warne is expected to sweep in the next half-an-hour. About the only people oblivious to the goings-on are the ground staff out in the middle of the amphitheatre. With five days to go until the Boxing Day Test, however, they'll have arguably the biggest part to play in the whole send-off.

11.15am

Enter through Gate 2 and, as instructed by the media advisory, head straight up the escalator to the Members' Dining Room. No-one else around but a few early-bird cameramen, a handful of Cricket Australia officials in jacket and ties, and the ghosts of several dozens of legends of the game, looming down on the scene from their portraits on the walls. It is here that I catch my first glimpse of the great ground. Even when empty it is an extraordinary arena, with tier upon tier towering up to the skies. There could be no better venue for such a showman as Warne to face his final curtain. If, of course, that is what he intends to do.

11.00am

Arrive at "The G", just as a large bronze statue is being offloaded from a trailer on the concourse. The grand, sweeping action (coupled with rumours I heard while at the WACA) lead me to believe it is Dennis Lillee, although the men ripping the off the bubble-wrap insist that, come the morning, it will look somewhat different. "We're going to saw its head off overnight," jokes one of them, "and stick Shane Warne's on instead."

10.45am

Well, something's definitely happening. As I set off on the hour-and-a-half journey from Mount Martha, on the Mornington Peninsula, to Melbourne, an email arrives from Cricket Australia, confirming that Shane Warne will indeed be present at the MCG "to share his thoughts with the media". Well, that's nice and ambiguous. Something rather dramatic must be afoot after all.

	Brett Lee parties with 'Slim Jim and the Fats' © Andrew Miller

Remember 2005? Remember England's Ashes rampage through every bar in the West End? "Freddied!" read the headlines in the morning papers, as Andrew Flintoff presented the acceptable side of binge-drinking during an all-night bender that finished with that open-top bus parade through Trafalgar Square.

Fifteen months on from that epic day's night, and it was Australia's turn for a bit of post-triumph release. It's fair to say that things were just a little bit more restrained. Perth, I suppose, is a good leveller. No matter how exciting an occasion turns out to be, there's only so much capital any victorious team can make out of the most isolated city on earth.

And so, while England's finest had bundled into the most exclusive nightclubs in existence, Australia chose instead to patronise one of the lowliest backpackers' hang-outs in the entire state. On Mondays, Perth rocks to the beat of the Deen on Aberdeen Street. It's Aus$10 for all that you can drink, and on the night that the Ashes were won and lost, that equates to a lot of beer.

And so, who should rock up? None other than Mr Brett Lee himself, legendary bass guitarist of the Sydney-based popular-beat combo, Six and Out, part-time Australian pace bowler and bone-fide good egg. He arrived in a blaze of head-turning, amid rumours that the rest of his victorious squad were also headed for a night on the tiles, but in the end the Deen's celebrity head-count was a measly two.


Lee and his axe-wielding cricket-loving pace-bowling blond colleague, Alan Mullally, were the only two notables in the venue. But that soon changed once Lee was on the stage and ready for action. Churlishly, as he launched into a fine bass rendition of "Brown-Eyed Girl", Lee was greeted with a chorus of "keep your arm straight when you bowl", but five well chosen syllables soon ensured that the taunts snagged in the tauntees' throats. "Err, 3-0 is it?" he announced

It wasn't quite the show-stopping performance that Flintoff's boys had managed, but it was a fine set nonetheless. As Lee joined the band members of "Slim Jim and the Fats" onstage, he stared with one eye at the neck of his borrowed guitar, determined not to muff a single note in spite of the delicate state of his co-ordination. He achieved his aim too, reeling off four songs and a bass solo before staggering off-stage and back into the melee of well-wishers. The Ashes retained, the gig complete - for Lee, it was all a pretty average day at the office.

	Angus Fraser rolls back the years at the WACA © Getty Images

I walked into a glass partition in the business centre of the team hotel last night. It was actually quite an easy mistake to make. They’d moved the pot-plant and given the window a wipe-down, and with lots of wide open space in front and behind it, it seemed the obvious way out. In fact, when another punter did exactly the same ten minutes later, an amused receptionist made a series of urgent phonecalls and a portable rainforest was delivered forthwith to the foyer.

I was still thinking about this indignity as I made my way down to the WACA last night to watch England’s “Legends” take on their Australian counterparts in a floodlit Twenty20 match. If something as obvious and natural as walking through a door can, in the wrong circumstances, become such an embarrassment, then what about something that for 20 years had been your livelihood? Bowling a cricket ball for instance.

“I was asked to play, but I said ‘No way’,” said Nasser Hussain, one of the wise few who avoided the bear-trap that had been set for him. As the 6.15pm start time approached, Nasser was still lurking in the corner of the business centre, struggling to get his head around his new iPod. “Once you’ve retired, that’s it,” he added between curses at his computer. “Still, I might pop down just to watch Fraser get spanked out of the park.”

Extraordinarily, no fewer than 17,147 good citizens of Perth turned up to do likewise, which just goes to show that slapstick will always endure as an art-form. Under the WACA’s gargantuan floodlights, two teams featuring other indisputable legends as Merv Hughes, Terry Alderman, Phil DeFreitas, Geoff Marsh, Kim Hughes and Devon Malcolm went toe-to-toe, with neither giving an inch, but several giving a yard or two - especially on the occasions they were caught napping or chatting to spectators on the advertising hoardings.

	Rodney Hogg: 4-0-36-0 © Getty Images

It was really rather surreal for the players and spectators alike, as the ghosts of great careers loomed out of their six-way floodlit shadows. Even the clothing had been teleported from another era - a very garish yellow for the Aussies and that puzzling light-blue that England one-day sides used to so favour. It was like watching a Perth Challenge match from 1986-87 on slo-mo widescreen. The characters were squatter and stutterier, but indisputably recognisable all the same.

Fraser’s great surging run and cloud-snagging action was certainly there to see, but it was not half as prominent as his world-weary trudge and shrug, as yet another delivery was belted into the stratosphere by Australia’s recently retired ringer Ryan Campbell, who top-scored with an outrageously brisk 60. It was John Emburey’s teasing off breaks - still effective in his 55th year - that hauled England back into contention with 3 for 20, including a steepling catch for a relieved Mike Gatting on the square-leg boundary. A testing total of 171, and game was very much on.

“Go Old Aussies Go” was the only banner that seemed to have made its way into the ground. An eight-year-old at long-off had made it, and he also managed to collect three autographs - all of them from the publicity hungry syrup salesman, Greg Matthews. Ever the extrovert, Matthews then borrowed the PA’s microphone during the Australian innings to point out bald gits in the crowd who might benefit from a trip to his pet hair-replacement studio.

The atmosphere, which was already humming with good-natured nostalgia, went the same way as one of Fraser’s half-volleys when Dennis Lillee, the WACA’s president and favourite son, entered the attack. At the age of 57, he took the new ball from three paces, with only the barest trace of his majestic coiled-spring action. But what he had lost in pace he had replaced in booming outswing, and Gatting lasted just two deliveries before grazing an edge through to Healy behind the stumps. Lillee saw out the over and retired to the dressing-room, where Ian Botham could be seen grinning maniacally in his unofficial capacity of England team manager and drinks-cabinet emptier. After his mid-week in the Barossa Valley, he too had taken the Hussain route, and opted not to gamble with his dignity.

Despite their set-back, England rallied through that old firm of Robin Smith and Graham Thorpe, who added 119 against the likes of Bruce Reid and Rodney Hogg, and victory was eventually sealed with seven wickets to spare. It was a rare English triumph, and a pleasing distraction from the battle that awaits tomorrow. But the hangovers were still evident the following morning. As a haggard Fraser rubbed his shoulder throughout the captains’ press conferences, Ricky Ponting announced there had been some odd goings-on behind the scenes.

“Dean Jones sent me a text message last night wanting to borrow a bat for the game,“ he said, “and Terry Alderman left a note in Matty Hayden’s shoes, telling him he’d borrowed them.” So long as someone also left a nice scuff-mark right on a length for Steve Harmison, the legends might just have perpetuated the interest in the main event.

	Jacques Rudolph fends off a rare lifter at the less whacky WACA © Getty Images

Forgive me while I make a bid for Private Eye's Pseud's Corner, but as a wannabee writer, I've always been a sucker for a bit of onomatopoeia. You know the construction I’m talking about - a word or phrase that imitates the sound it is representing: "The moan of doves in immemorial elms and the murmurings of innumerable bees,” as Alfred Lord Tennyson might have put it.

But let’s cut the classical crap. We’re in Australia now, and so there’s no need for such highfalutin examples. Especially not when we are talking about the most satisfyingly named sporting venue in the world. I refer, of course, to the WACA ground in Perth.

"The Whacker".

I love it. I mean, could any name be any more perfect? For as long as I can remember, I've carried visions around in my head of Dennis Lillee hurtling in from the sightscreen, whacking the ball into the rock-hard deck, whacking the ball into the side of a batsman's head, or whacking the ball into Rod Marsh's gloves (with the fingers pointing skywards, naturally).

And what about Roy Fredericks, whacking a 71-ball hundred in that astonishing blitzkrieg in 1975-76? Or Mark Waugh, whacking Daniel Vettori onto the roof of the Lillee-Marsh stand. I've been sat up there for the past two days, and believe me, that's quite some hit.

Whack, whack, whack. It's what Perth is all about. Lightning-fast bouncers, daring on-the-up strokeplay, wicketkeepers standing ten yards back from their usual marks. The absurd possibility of giving away six byes. It’s such an evocative venue, there should be English literature text-books written about the place

Unfortunately, they’d be rather out of date by now. The WACA is losing its whack, and cricket is all the poorer for it. Take the home team for example, Western Australia (or the Retravision Warriors, to give them their ghastly pseudonym). They opened this season's campaign with a massive 3 for 608 against Victoria, and today’s tediously high-scoring draw was not exactly a thrill a minute.

The international omens are little better. Last summer's Test was the scene of a remarkable rearguard century from Jacques Rudolph, who was so unruffled by the featherbed conditions that South Africa lost just three wickets on the final day, and held out for an improbable draw.

There are a hundred-and-one reasons why the bite has gone out of the deck. Australia’s decade-long drought is one of the state’s favourite scapegoats, but another reason could lie in the incredibly dilapidated state of the proud old ground. The WACA, sadly, is broke, and the pitch is merely a symptom of wider decay.

It’s not hard to see why. The WACA gets just one meaningful match a year (and it’s not always going to be an Ashes decider either). Down at the other end of town, on the other hand, the shiny great Subiaco Oval hoovers up most of the big gigs in town, from AFL fixtures to British Lions tours to Elton John concerts, and there’s very little left over by way of small change. Perth as a city is in the midst of a massive boom, but the WACA, with its semi-completed stands and air of Old Trafford-esque decrepitude, is very much on the bust.

Even so, it’s a ground that you want to warm to. It still maintains its grassy banks at midwicket, for instance, and having witnessed the soullessness of the newly reconstructed Gabba, it’s rather pleasing to cast your eye over the higgledy-piggledy seating arrangements that Perth has got lined up - a random spike of extra scaffolding here, a towerblock of ill-fitting pews there. Another capacity crowd is anticipated for this Test, and the clamour of 24,000 tightly packed punters will doubtless paper over the stadium’s cracks.

But, if there is any doubt about the status of the WACA, one only needs to turn one’s eyes to the skies, and drink in the sight of its six huge floodlights. They have dominated Perth’s skyline since 1986, and doubtless the ground’s balance sheets too. But they are still evidence that a mighty ambition exists within the walls of an improbably tiny ground.

	The crowd turned on the after-dinner entertainer in a rather unexpected fashion © Andrew Miller

Lilac Hill lies a half-hour’s drive from the centre of Perth, amid the fringes of the region’s wine industry. The ground is nestled on a tree-lined kink of the Swan River, and is the sort of place that evokes images of bucolic tranquillity. For English tourists, however, such appearances are invariably deceptive. In this fixture, there is always trouble in paradise.

“There’s no such thing as a festival game,” said Alec Stewart after England‘s latest mugging of the tour - a seven-wicket thrashing at the hands of a dervish-bladed Luke Ronchi. Stewart, England’s captain and top-scorer for the day, was still fresh as a daisy despite having played virtually no cricket since his retirement three years ago. That was more than could be said for the rest of his bedraggled team, who had various layers of ring-rustiness scoured off them in the course of the match.

To a backdrop of drunken baying hospitality tents, England’s Generation Next suffered varying degrees of discomfort - Chris Read picked up a fifth-ball duck, Jon Lewis vanished for 51 in seven overs, Liam Plunkett left the field with a dislocated finger and Monty Panesar’s bowling figures suffered a wind-assisted demolition at the hands of Ronchi, who rode a tempting cross-breeze to slap six after six after six. Given Steve Harmison’s infamous eight-wide over in this fixture four years ago, these indignities were more or less par for the course.

A crowd of more than 10,000 turned out to enjoy the spectacle, and revelled in the success of their local favourite, Chris Matthews, who - it would not be unfair to suggest - has been tucking into one or two pies since the days he faced England at the WACA in 1986-87. He wobbled to the crease like the Barmy Army in search of the bar, and yet emerged with three well-priced wickets under his sizeable belt - as many as all England’s bowlers picked up between them.

It was a breathless day all round, and not just for the men in the middle. When news filtered out early in the day that Damien Martyn had retired with immediate effect, it triggered the sort of flurry of activity that the pokey little press enclave had not been designed to accommodate. In fact, the area bore more of a resemblance to a cake-stand at a church fete, and so was not ideally designed for such a melee of stressed electronica and dangling cables. “Don’t spill your bloody coffee on my laptop,” fumed one cramped Aussie photographer to the English gentleman of the press sat next to him. “Actually it’s a cup of tea, and I have no intention of doing so,” came the testy retort.

Press conferences galore interrupted the flow of the day, as Ian Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Wayne Clark queued up to reminisce about Martyn’s career, before a wide-eyed Adam Voges was wheeled before the media to explain the bizarre circumstances of his call-up. A PA announcement was the first he knew of the vacancy in the Australian squad, and a tap on the shoulder at deep midwicket was how he learned he was filling it. “I thought I was in trouble,” he said, as Tony Dodemaide led him to the office to receive a phone call from Cricket Australia.

Nothing was quite so unexpected, however, as the goings-on in the corporate hospitality tent at the back of the pavilion. Roughly half the ground had been given over to various sponsors and their thirsty guests, and so at lunch, while the paying punters milled around on the outfield watching Panesar warming up, the rest rolled out to the marquee to fill their troughs. Several thousand boozy guests, armed with bread rolls, then turned on their after-dinner entertainer - a man who was clearly expecting trouble, given that he came dressed in the sort of garb that a baseball umpire might wear.

His crime? He was singing pro-Collingwood songs. Not the cricketer, I hasten to add, but the Aussie Rules Football team, a Melbourne-based team that one spectator informed me “are like Newcastle in England. Everyone hates them.” England’s cricketers were once likened to pie-chuckers by a Western Australian great, Rod Marsh. Western Australia’s cricket fans, it seems, are roll-flingers. And at Lilac Hill, it was the flingers who were the more effective.

	The party's over before anyone was really aware it had begun © Getty Images

Adelaide awoke this morning with a massive hangover. At least, I assume it did, because nothing else could quite explain how quiet the city was on the morning after the night before. The streets seemed empty, aside from a few bewildered Englishmen standing out from the (lack of) crowd in their “Douglas Jardine - Ashes hero” T-shirts, hoping against hope that everything they’d just witnessed had all been a bad dream.

I’d imagined this moment ever since I first starting watching Ashes routs. What would it be like, I wondered, to be Pom Down Under, on the day after England had slumped to one of their most wretched defeats in history? The answer surprised me, because the result had surprised everyone. Australia, it seemed, was too shocked even to gloat.

The headline on The Age summed up the mood perfectly. “How could it be?” they asked, after watching their respected opponents regress by approximately 16 years in an imitation of Graham Gooch’s domino-ralliers of 1990-91. To a connoisseur of English batting disasters, nothing quite topped the events at Melbourne on that trip - until now.

Like all the best collapses, it started with a tremor. A little frisson of excitement, made all the more dangerous by the sense of injustice that had gone into Andrew Strauss’s dismissal. Could it? Would it? Ian Bell, confused into being in a hurry after he and Strauss had swapped ten runs in ten overs, then added to the alarm, and by the time Kevin Pietersen had swept hubristically at his first ball from Shane Warne, the day’s expectations had gone into total meltdown.

Not least the expectations in Adelaide’s Central Business District, the clutch of high-rises that lie beyond the “City” End of the ground. The prospect of a brisk day’s trading on a warm Monday morning went straight out of the 12th-floor window, as the white-collar workers downed spreadsheets and legged it expectantly across the River Torrens.

The official figure for the final day was 20,355, although that was announced at 5pm, just as the gates were thrown open to allow the baying masses free access for the final hour-and-a-half of Australia’s chase. A total figure of 136,761 had watched the match - the most at Adelaide since the 1958-59 series. There’s definitely something sadistic about the Australian psyche. That match was a ten-wicket thrashing that brought the Ashes back with a game to spare.

But sadism on the streets? Not a bit of it.

	Bill Cooper and his meddlesome instrument © Getty Images

I don’t think I can ever have been so pleased to hear the Barmy Army in full cry than I was on that final morning at Brisbane. “E-verywhere we go-oh!” came the chorus, just as Kevin Pietersen, England’s last hope, was dispatched by the fourth ball of the day. “The pe-ople want to know-oh!” they continued, in defiance of all evidence to the contrary. “Whooo we are-ah”, they blundered on, as the teeth of 100 journalists were set indisputably on edge.

They are noisy, nauseating, and unspeakably tuneless, and when you’ve heard that witless chorus once, you’ve heard it 1000 times - usually when you are right on deadline and desperate for some peace and quiet. And yet, for the first (but on today’s evidence, maybe not the only) time in my life, I was delighted to hear them break into song. Never mind the noise pollution, it was a victory for free speech, free spirits and futility - which, like kittens and warm-woollen mittens, are a few of my favourite things.

But if we thought the nonsenses at the Gabba had been forgotten amid the tranquillity of the Adelaide Oval, then today’s press release from Cricket Australia has confirmed once again that, in this country, good humour is an item to be surrendered at all turnstiles. “Cricket Australia clarifies Barmy Army trumpet,” read the improbable headline, followed by 16 (sixteen!) paragraphs of justification for the continued expulsion of the Army’s cause célèbre, Bill Cooper, and his meddlesome brass instrument.

“Cricket Australia and the South Australian Cricket Association today met with Barmy Army representatives to clarify venue entry conditions to Adelaide Oval ahead of the second 3 mobile Ashes Series Test match starting at the ground tomorrow,” began a statement that read more like a clause from the Treaty of Versailles. “The venue conditions, as set by the South Australia Cricket Association, state that trumpets and air-horns are not permitted into the ground.”

It’s all very well to have different rules and regulations enforced at individual grounds - let’s not forget, Lord’s has a list of do’s and don’t’s that is longer than the Laws of the Game - but Adelaide (and Melbourne, which has also joined in the ban) are surely missing a trick on this occasion. All the Fun Police in the world are not going to prevent the Barmy Army from doing what they were unable to do at the Gabba, and congregate en masse on the grassy banks beneath the scoreboard.

And once they have assembled there, they are going to be loud and insufferably noisy for the tranquillity-loving SACA members who have prevented this ban from being overturned. By the end of five days of aural bombardment, they’ll be wishing that Cooper, who learned his art at the Royal Academy of Music and has done stints with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, was on hand to provide even a semblance of musical talent to the occasion.

	Unlike the Gabba, Adelaide is a cricket ground, not a stadium © Andrew Miller

Only now do I feel I've arrived in Australia. Don't get me wrong. I really enjoyed my time in Queensland (even though the cricket was desperate). I had a nice day on the beach to recover from my jetlag, my digs were impeccable throughout, and the native flora and fauna seemed to queue up to pay me a visit. I saw a possum on the verandah and a family of kangaroos in the park. We passed a gumtree plantation on the way from the airport and I got squawked at by a flock of rainbow parakeets as I stepped out of the car. Had I wanted to cuddle a koala, I could have made a quick detour to the Lone Pine Sanctuary, some ten minutes down the road. But that's not really my scene.

But in spite of this sensory bombardment, something had been missing throughout. Something obvious, but utterly overlooked as the chaos of the cricket unfolded. It's only now, as I sit in the press box at the Adelaide Oval, watching the sun setting on the famous old scoreboard, as the earthy red roof of the Sir Edwin Smith stand begins to turn deep pink in the fading light, that I've realised what it is. It's context, stupid!

You see, I have lived and breathed the last four Ashes tours, from Gooch's disaster in 1990-91 through Atherton's disaster in 1994-95 to Hussain's disaster in 2002-03, and in that time, the nuances of each venue have become inscribed on my soul. Melbourne's Great Southern Stand, The Fremantle Doctor, the Ladies Pavilion at Sydney. But up at the Gabba, I was left completely non-plussed. Where was the history, except in rather indifferent snippets on the walls. Where was the old dog track of my mind's eye, except beneath a ton of concrete.

The trouble is, the new 42,000-seater Gabba is not a cricket ground, it is a stadium. It took a familiar and well-oiled member of the Barmy Army to point out that subtle difference to me, when I bumped into him looking as lost as the day he was born, in Brisbane's Pig & Whistle on the night after the Test. "You see, bundu," he began, in his unique mannerism, "there's no point complaining about the atmosphere at this match. You see, this is the only place in the world where you pay your money for a particular seat.

"It'll be different at Adelaide," he added, and how instantly he's been proven to be right. I've been at the ground for roughly eight hours, but already I've been here a lifetime. The seagulls on the peculiarly expansive straight boundaries, the rows and rows of benches in the member's enclosures. The ivy creeping up the walls behind the nets, where spectators can sit with their heads almost reaching into the action. Everything's exactly as it ought to be.

	'There are green open spaces in which to mill around, and no two angles of the ground look the same' © Andrew Miller

Most gloriously of all, there is space to breathe. If you wanted to stretch your legs at the Gabba, you'd have to go for a perambulation around the elevated concourse, which had such a plethora of fast-food outlets, (watered-down) beer taps and similarly claustrophobic spectators, it felt as relaxing as an afternoon at the Trafford Centre. Already it's clear that Adelaide's going to be different. There are green open spaces in which to mill around, and no two angles of the ground look the same. How could they be when you've got St Peter's Cathedral peeping over one corner, and the elegantly incorporated Sir Donald Bradman stand curled around the other?

It is obligatory to wax lyrical about the Adelaide Oval. Architecturally it blends the best features of Lord's and Trent Bridge, the two finest grounds in England, and blesses them with year-round perfect weather. But what's more important is the experience it promises to the spectator. I've grown up with this ground, even though I've never visited before. I know it, and I know the context of the contest it's about to host. In my mind's eye at least, the Ashes are about to begin at a venue that I trust as a guardian of the game's traditions. I wonder if England, as they observe the ground in all its majesty from their hotel windows across the River Torrens, might feel a flicker of the same.

	A rash of Green and Gold at the Gabba © Getty Images

The massive media interest in this series has been a blessing in disguise for any member of the press corps who enjoys a bit of atmosphere while they go about their work. The modern trend in press boxes is for uber-sanitised sardine cans, usually stuffed deep in the bowels of the stand behind the bowler’s arm, where 50 sweaty hacks seem to breathe the same recycled air for five days on end, and hardly a peep from the stands gets through the sound-proofed walls.

But for this Test the pattern is very different. With every man and his dog wanting a share of the Ashes action, the Gabba authorities have had to erect a temporary gantry high in the Vulture Street End. They’ve obliterated 400 precious seats to do so, but the treasurer’s loss is journalism’s gain, as we perch on our precarious-looking scaffolds and peer down on the action below. A full Gabba is a truly impressive sight, with its uniform bullring seating towering over the players in the middle, and it‘s a blessing to be out in the midst of it, sampling the real atmosphere.

We can hear the nicks (not that there have been many of them), feel the sixes being sucked over the rope by a record-breaking 39,315 crowd, and sense the hairs standing on Alastair Cook’s neck as he sweats and circles under (and ultimately drops) a steepler at backward square-leg.. And we can feel the breeze as well, and on another stifling day that’s not to be sniffed at at all.

And yet it’s hard to escape the feeling that we’ve traded one sanitised environment for another. Perhaps I’ve been suckered by the hype surrounding the World’s Most Anticipated Test Match Ever ™, but the atmosphere, dare I say it, has been unexpectedly flat. England’s overall performance hasn’t helped matters, certainly, with Harmison’s infamous curtain-raiser draining the stadium of much of its tension, but there is more than meets the eye about this year’s Gabba experience.

The silence of the Barmy Army is the most remarkable aspect. In the 12 years since they earned their reputation for good humour in adversity on the 1994-95 Ashes, nothing and no-one has been able to silence this mob. Ordinarily, a scoreline of 602 for 6 would bring out the best in their ironic line of humour (or at the very least, the worst in their moronic line of monotonous chanting). But this time their silence has been deafening. Even Elton John has decided to shun the cricket.

Much of their downcast demeanour has to do with the churlish eviction of their trumpeter mascot, undoubtedly the most tuneful man in the Army’s notoriously off-key ranks. He was booted out on the first day despite apparently receiving permission to bring his instrument into the ground, a move that brought an unfortunate response from Paul Burnham, their self-appointed general. He’s threatened to call the tour off if the fun police don’t lighten up, a statement that had one reader commenting: “The Poms have started whinging after just one day of the Test series against the Aussies. Is this some sort of a record, even for them?”

Burnham does, however, have a point. It is not just England’s trumpeters who have been victims of the Gabba‘s absurdly draconian rules. Anyone, for instance, caught instigating a Mexican Wave is also liable to be given the heave-ho. It can be argued that the Australians have made a rod for their own backs with the extremes of their bad behaviour in the past, particularly the racial taunts that were directed at South Africa last year. And yet, when the PA cuts in with regular announcements warning of severe penalties for those who “offend, insult, humiliate, intimidate, threaten, disparage or vilify,” it’s little wonder the ground is so quiet for such long periods. Most of the fans are too busy thumbing through their thesauruses to work out what they are about to be guilty of.

It wouldn’t matter so much if Cricket Australia were consistent in their attitudes. Instead, on the one hand they have sought to silence the England fans by scattering their ticket allocation to all corners of the ground, but on the other they have implored their own supporters to “Go Off in Green and Gold” to demonstrate their allegiance to their team. It’s all pretty cynical. “It’s part of a concerted effort to have Australian crowds rise to the Barmy Army's considerable challenge”, said a CA spokesman in the Courier-Mail.

“We're not going to suddenly become an all-singing, all-dancing, all-colour country overnight,” he added, before disappearing to arrange the ghastly tea-time entertainment that the Gabba has so far been subjected to this week. Thursday’s was bad, but yesterday’s was truly execrable - two songs played exclusively for the benefit of the knot of “Fanatics” at the Stanley Street end, but pumped through the PA system regardless, one of which was a remake of the 1982 hit, “In the Jungle”.

The predictable chorus of “They whinge-away, they whinge-away” was drowned out by the loudest chorus of boos so far on this tour. The Barmy Army may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but at least there was a certain joy and spontaneity about their antics. Even their asinine chanting is preferable to this sort of state-sanctioned hi-jinx. The game is nothing without the fans, no matter what the boards of the world might think.

	Brisbane: hillier than you might think

Brisbane is an unexpectedly hilly place. For a first-time visitor, brought up on endless brochure photos of Australia's vast and barren outback, it can sometimes seem as though the only hummock in the entire land is at Ayres Rock. Here, though, the streets rise and fall like something lifted straight from San Francisco. Minus the trams of course. They were dispensed with in the 1960s, presumably because the demand for public transport was so underwhelming.

It's an incongruous city. Peaceful almost to the point of self-parody, the locals have their tongues wedgely firmly in cheeks (I think!) when they dub the place "Bris Vegas" or "BrisneyLand". Even the Interstate Highways are unknowingly comical with their large-letter signposts on the slip roads. "No Tractors, No Animals, No Pedestrians" they scream on one side. "Wrong Way! Go Back!" bellows the other in unmissable white-on-red characters. I can't imagine the M25 ever has such a problem.

It's a country town made good. The tuft of skyscrapers in the Central Business District is proof that Brisbane has shrugged off its reputation as a backwater, as indeed is the new-look Gabba – although this vast speckle-seated amphitheatre with room for 42,000 punters is so far removed from its roots that it's almost impossible to recall the grassy banks and dog track that once made the ground so unique. Impressive it most certainly is, and a fitting venue for Thursday's showdown of a lifetime. But the redevelopment is not to everyone's taste.

What remains on the outside of the ground is perhaps as revealing as what lurks within. Take the wonderfully monickered Vulture Street for instance, one of the most evocative names in the game. This is a road that turned out to be exactly as I imagined it. A little bit dingy, a little bit ugly, but strangely majestic nonetheless. Okay, so there weren't any big hook-beaked birds circling over the carcasses of road-killed ‘roos (to give my mind's eye its full and warped licence), but there was a wonderfully grotty 7-Eleven shopping centre, situated just a stone's throw from the main entrance to the ground.

Just imagine it. The best part of half the stadium's capacity may have cause to stop by in the coming week, and what will they be able to buy? There's not a souvenir shirt in sight. Instead, it's a choice of sweets and snacks; a Domino's Pizza; a change of clothes at the handily-situated Laundromat, and err ... a selection of porn and sex toys from the Gabba's very-own Adultworld. Brilliant. Either it's everything an Australian sports fan could possibly need, in a quick and convenient one-stop shop, or it's a sign that the Gabba has outgrown its surroundings in record time. Maybe it's both ...

Just up the road there is a no-less puzzling sight. The Brisbane German Club or "Deutscher Turn Verein", a white colonial town-hall of a building that provides its members with a bar, plus all the folk dancing, card games, skittles and mixed choirs an ex-pat could possibly need. An intriguing sign on the door says that "bone fide" visitors are welcome, which presumably must include those renowned Germanophiles, the Barmy Army. After a 10,000-mile trip, you could hardly refuse them a quick game of kegeln, could you?

Talking of the Barmy Army, their sightings have so far been limited, although the bars in Queen's Street, the city's central shopping spot, have already prostrated themselves to the invaders. St George's Crosses flutter from every table beneath banners proclaiming "We Are England ... The Mighty Mighty England", in tribute to that dreadful dirge of a signature tune. Once again, there's no denying it. Everyone loves England's cricket fans. Even, it seems, the Germans.

Aside from the verbal sparring, the build-up to Brisbane has been pretty low-key so far, and the news that Australia's favourite son, the Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe, has dramatically announced his retirement will ensure an unexpected downturn in cricket's column inches tomorrow. ("Thorpe quits on eve of Ashes" - where have we heard that before?)

The host broadcasters, however, are clearly bracing themselves for an upturn in excitement. For a good 20 minutes during Australia's afternoon practice session, the Channel 9 soundchecker could be heard booming out from down the corridor: "1 ... 2 ... Yeaaaahh!", a mantra that could have become laptop-flingingly irritating if it hadn't been so essential. After all, when you've got Bill and Tony in the hot-seat for the first morning of the Ashes, it's prudent to have your decibel levels finely tuned.

	Groupies? What groupies? Michael Clarke just gets on with his game © Getty Images

Queensland amply lives up to its billing as the Sunshine State. This is a land where summer lasts for six months, spring and autumn compete for four, and winter is a moveable feast that seems to have been abolished since the turn of the Millennium. Aside from the odd insubstantial cloudburst, there has not been a significant downpour in these parts since 2001, and in that time, the wicket at the Gabba has stepped out from the crowd and been officially anointed as the fastest strip in the land.

The sun tends to rise at 4.30am up here (a habit that plays havoc with those suffering from jet-lag) and hangs high in the sky for hours on end, beating down mercilessly on anyone who ventures out in the midday heat – people such as the knot of journalists who rocked up to the Brisbane Grammar School ground in Northgate today, to watch Australia's latest training session.

If the battle of Waterloo really was won on the playing fields of Eton, then England might as well surrender forthwith in their battle for the Ashes. The Grammar School grounds, situated just off the motorway and a stone's throw from the airport, consist of a vast expanse of yellowing spongy grass, sculpted into three immaculate ovals and overseen by a grandstand pavilion that wouldn't look out of place at The Rose Bowl.

With its hills and mounds and general undulations, this is a venue that feels more like a links golf course, especially on a day when Australia's stars were as spread out as Tiger Woods and his colleagues on the final round of an Open. On the main ground, ringed off by a white picket fence, was Brett Lee – working himself into a furious sweat in the company of a cast of grammar schoolboy fielders. Somewhere in the middle distance was Shane Warne, going through his fielding drills with John Buchanan, while Ricky Ponting was in the nets, finding his timing against the Queensland Under-17s.

Not everyone was having an easy time against the kids though. On a particularly juicy end strip, Justin Langer was flinching and cursing as the ball zipped regularly off the seam, while Adam Gilchrist – taking his licks with greater equanimity than his team-mate – found the bullish left-arm line of a young Ian Austin lookalike very tricky to cope with. He nearly chopped a lifter onto his off stump before being rapped on the pad just outside the line, while the bowler, a 16-year-old named Michael, later claimed a caught-behind against his hero as well. Not a bad way to make an impression.

It was a brutally hot day, and clearly not the sort to encourage hard labour. Shane Watson was reduced to running in off three paces as he tested his damaged hamstring, while the taxi driver who brought one of the English journalists to the ground decided that pickings were so slim he might as well hang around and indulge in some autograph hunting. Mike Hussey – Mr Cricket himself – was particularly busy in that regard, as he prepared for his return to the ground where he made his Test debut. Incredibly, that was only this time last year.

By the end of the session the full entourage of English press corps had arrived, freshly jetted up from Adelaide. They had gathered for one purpose only, the traditional pre-series media bunfight, where all of a team's players are paraded in front of the microphones to talk at length in whatever direction an interviewer so wishes. So Michael Clarke was asked his opinion of groupies ("say what?"), while Warne declared he had "had enough of talking to you guys and answering the same questions", before going right ahead and answering them all anyway.

Thankfully the talking is soon to stop, which will relieve players and media alike. But there was one hot topic that remained on all the journos' lips – the need to book Brisbane's best restaurants well in advance, to guard against the voracious influx of 10,000 English fans. To survey the city after dark, however, was to scoff at such a notion. Admittedly it was a Monday night, but rarely can there have been a quieter conurbation this side of Windhoek. Things are about to get rather exciting in the sleepy old town.