Time to get serious

So everyone now moves to Cardiff and it’s goodbye to the delightful Worcester experience. The small town, small time warm-ups are over for Australia and on Wednesday everything becomes brutally serious.

The shift means no more wandering along the Severn River looking at swans or the Cathedral; no more strolls through the city centre admiring the Tudor houses from the 1500s in Friar Street, or looking at the public clocks that all show different times.

Before leaving the New Road ground one day I saw David Leatherdale, the county’s former batting allrounder, walking through the stands and was reminded of one of Steve Waugh’s sledges. While outlining the weakness of county cricket in his 1997 tour diary, Waugh wrote that someone with the skills of Leatherdale couldn’t get a bowl in a Chinese restaurant, even though he had taken 5 for 10 in a one-dayer against the tourists.

Five years later and Waugh, playing for Kent, runs into Leatherdale and is bowled for 3. The Australians aren’t talking so tough on this tour and for a good reason. Unlike Waugh and his men, this group isn’t sure how good it is.