We had our first Ashes dream

Not our first Ashes dream ever. Are you mental? No. The first for this series (which doesn't start for months yet).

It was quite a good one, fulfilling many of the Ashes dream criteria, but it did end on a bit of a cliffhanger and there was a degree of frustration involved.

It was the first Test, as it always is in Ashes dreams and it was being played in Jamaica, which is just about never the case in Ashes dreams. Australia batted first and hit 500. This is a surprisingly common theme in Ashes dreams. Sometimes the Aussies are crushed from the outset, but more frequently they maintain their world-beating aura until the final act.

On this occasion England started their fightback in the first innings. Michael Vaughan (yes, Michael Vaughan) declares with England on 780 and Andy Flintoff unbeaten on 177. We're not too sure why Michael didn't let Flintoff get his double hundred. It was only the end of the second day because England had scored so phenomenally quickly.

At this point we go off to the pub, but unfortunately we can't find the bar. Then Afridi (who is our cat) starts squeaking and jumping on our feet and we wake up. We don't know why he squeaks. We're going to train him to shout 'Howzat' instead, although that might be even more annoying at 5am.

Do cricket fans dream of fat cricketers?

You may not believe this, but it's equally possible that you will: We genuinely dream about overweight cricketers. Last night it was Darren Lehmann's turn. We'd like to dream about women or something, but for some reason, we don't get a say in it, even though it's our brain that's responsible.

Darren Lehmann From Dreams doesn't like being touched on his right shoulder. He'd just finished compiling a typically classy hundred for Victoria (does he play for Victoria at the moment?) and his batting partner put his arm around him to congratulate him. "Don't touch me there," said Darren Lehmann From Dreams.

We've always thought that, like most Australians, Darren Lehmann would be an easy-going sort of bloke. Darren Lehmann From Dreams seemed kind of grumpy. We spoke to him after his innings, which was compiled entirely during twilight for some reason. We thought we'd try and lighten the mood by cracking a joke about certain county teams trying to pick up extra bowling points by playing on sub-standard pitches. Darren Lehmann From Dreams didn't crack a smile. We can't say we blame him. He said that he didn't think anyone was doing that.

Urgently needed: Matthew Hayden quotes that make him sound like a bastard

We're still easing ourself back into the King Cricket hot seat. What better way than to find a quote by Matthew Hayden, take it out of context and make him sound either stupid, arrogant, stupid, very stupid or stupid?

Unfortunately, the best we can find is him describing Andrew Flintoff as "a bloody remarkable character". That's no good.

This follows on from a dream we had the night before last. In it we were having a few beers at a barbecue with a number of Australia's retired or soon-to-be-retired.

Damien Martyn was a little bit aloof and creeped us out with those eyes of his, so we spent most of our time with Hayden, which was a bit awkward, because he knew all of the mean things we'd said about him.

We persuaded him that those particular updates could have been about anyone and that really he was no more than a pantomime villain. He accepted our feeble excuse like the gullible no-mark he is. Then he told us lots of truly fascinating things about his experiences facing the finest bowlers in the world - really detailed stuff. We hung on his ever word.

We awoke feeling very conflicted. Please send irritating quotes so that we can settle back down to hating him without question.

Rob Key 98 not out

The Rob Key gloom has lifted. We’re very happy. We could be happier – we could be two runs happier – but this is still pretty darn good.

It’s more like relief. The happiness you feel when a bad thing has gone away and can be banished to memory. In this case it’s Rob Key’s run of low scores. It reminds us of waking up after a dream about dead birds pouring through the windows to discover that it was just that – a dream. Actually, there was a lingering discomfort after that dream that’s never quite faded. Never underestimate our fear of dead birds. It’s the beaks. We’re shivering now after describing them and we didn’t even go into any detail. We just used the word ‘beaks’ which is hardly a graphic description.

We literally can’t write any more because we’re so unsettled now.

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We Still Don't Play For England

Last night we thought that we were bowling at hypocritical God-squadder Matthew Hayden in the Ashes.

We had a decent shout for LBW against him, although it was probably drifting down leg-side. When we turned round to appeal, we realised that the umpire was Spider-man.

Spider-man is not one of the ICC’s select band of Test umpires, so we knew that we were dreaming and weren’t really an international cricketer.

We were sad for a bit, but then we remembered that Matthew Hayden had been scoring heaps of runs and therefore England had an easy wicket come the next Ashes. Now we’re happy again.