Lamb to the slaughter

So, a few hours left before it all begins. I will be galavanting around London to find out where cricket fans are watching the excitement, and will be reporting back for this blog. Before I get some sleep, a reader has sent in this link on today's sketch by Alex, The Daily Telegraph cartoonist.
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Carrying on from today's earlier post, another England stalwart has got on the banter wagon ahead of the Brisbane Test, which starts... today, tonight, tomorrow morning, wherever you're reading this! Ah, you knew that.

Allan Lamb has suggested that with Shane Warne at the helm, Australia would have won last summer's Ashes. Lamby's mindgames continue with the hint that Ricky Ponting's troops are showing pre-match nerves by selecting a big squad for the first Test.

Pre-match - even pre-series nerves - didn't even play a part when Lamby was around. Speaking to David Gower this summer, he told of one way Lamby and himself used to prepare themselves for tough tours: tackling the St Moritz Cresta Run.

"There was a mutual friend who had driven bobsleds as an amateur and wanted us to try it. We thought it would be a test of nerve doing the Cresta run and of course there’s nothing like facing the West Indies and Australia in the mid-80s: good acclimatization and good for things going past the head quickly. It was good fun and we subsequently did it for the next four years: a Cresta run in the morning and a bit of skiing in the afternoon. Because the Cresta is such a sociable club, half the people who turn up in the morning are completely buggered, so it clears the hangover pretty quickly. We copped a bit of stick for doing so-called dangerous sports a week before we were due for a big tour. When you first down you can dig your ties in and slow down. You feel like you’re doing 150mph but you’re not. You are something like nine inches off the ground, leading with your head on the Skeleton, and you are mighty close to the ice. It’s an exhilarating feeling especially if you like a bit of a buzz."