I had the job of explaining to Julius (now aged seven) that Australia had lost the rain-damaged second one-day cricket final against England, and hence the series. As someone whose cricketing consciousness has developed at a time when, the 2005 Ashes debacle aside, Australia has been on top of the world, he was understandably disappointed and, in the tradition of Australian values and the notion of the "fair go", tried to find someone to blame. (He eventually settled on "the god of weather".)
Mr Duckworth and Mr Lewis (or is it Mr Duckworth-Lewis?) have devised a system which, though it seems able to deal with every possible eventuality, is inexplicable to seven-year-olds, and hence breaks one of my own ground rules: if you can't explain/justify something to your own children, then you probably shouldn't be doing it. (Okay, nobody mention d*wnl**ding music from the Int*rn*t.)
He insisted that the result was Not Fair, and I must admit I found it difficult to wholeheartedly disabuse him of that notion. (Although I did point out that finding themselves at 4/40 was not the fault of anyone but Australia's upper order.) It does seem, on the face of it, a bit skew-whiff [now there's a word you don't see enough of] when, after one rain interruption, the number of overs to be bowled is reduced by eight and the victory target is reduced by a mere 13 runs.
Nevertheless, as an aspiring young cricketer, the experience will do Jules some good. Hopefully it will also help the Australians, as they ramp up their preparations for the World Cup, the (as I pointed out to him) only one-day series that really means anything at all.
The final word is Jules's: "But we still have the Ashes, don't we?"
