I think I speak for everyone in Australia when I say that we knew Nathan Hauritz would star in the Ashes.  Why do you think we have been hiding him away in Sydney club cricket? We didn’t want you guys to work him out.

At an early age Nathan was picked as the chosen one.  He was a combination of schoolboy moxy, old world fingers, and a seductive charm that could lull any batsman into an early departure.

Knowing that we had this baby-faced assassin, we did everything we could to keep him away from your prying eyes. You will notice that he didn’t play in Australia’s last series against South Africa, but he did play in the series no one watched against New Zealand.

He is now the leading wicket taker in the Ashes.  Consider yourself lulled.

The media have been involved; you can’t pull this sort of slight of hand without their help. But the real heroes are the PR flunkies. They have been on this for months. Encouraging people in bars to talk about how rubbish he is, running viral campaigns with his previous spells in them, telling newspapers to ignore him, and making sure that the press had someone to talk up.

Mitchell Johnson.

He was talked up as the great white hope. A left-armed assassin who bowled faster than you could see, hit further than you could walk, and won the Ashes before even turned up.

In truth Mitchell is a paid actor. A tongue-pierced young Sydney thespian that was offered the world stage to perform on, and thought it would be cooler than hanging around Bondi.

While all the English plans were for Mitchell, Nathan just slipped in the side door and took the wickets.

It was a masterstroke by the Australians, and one that required a massive amount of bureaucratic hard labour and “outside the square” thinking.

It was worth it though. Nathan Hauritz is spinning Australia to victory, just like we always planned.

We always knew you could do it, Nathan.

Jrod is an Australian blogger, and now author. His book The Year Of The Balls 2008: A Disrespective is available now