The local paper shrieks 'Death of Glory to Freddie'

Dec 16 2006 By Nicholas Craig, The Journal

The weather forecast for the next few days reads sunny, pleasantly warm, rising to sunny, extremely hot on Monday. I'm in Perth - or Cricket City Perth as it's currently styled - which is marketing itself hard to make the most of its share of the biggest Test Series in the game's history.

We arrived on Tuesday in the "sunniest state capital" miles from most places - 2,750 miles from Sydney. For a cricket fanatic like myself, Perth is paradise.

A Festival of Cricket has been stoking up the enthusiasm of locals and the army of ever-optimistic Brits with matches by the dozen and events like a Lords' Taverners Breakfast and Legends' Dinner. The local paper shrieks `Death or glory for Freddie'. Cricket has taken over completely.

What strikes me is how easy it is to get to business in Perth. The city centre has lots of motorised trams and courtesy buses that make commuting enjoyable and effective.

While we continue to agonise about congestion charging and fume in traffic jams, Perth offers incentives to give up the car in the city that appear to work well. The business and tourist districts are neatly linked by bus and tram, and the air is clean - a huge contrast to Beijing's car-infested, perennially polluted atmosphere.

Perth is now looking more towards its Asian neighbours for business than other areas of Australia. It's perched at the edge of the Indian Ocean, and it takes less time to travel to another continent than it does to journey across a country with a two-hour time difference between east and west.

Perth's shipbuilding, aluminium and mining industries remind me of 20th century Newcastle.

There are even more skyscrapers than I remember, and tourism is doing extremely well, as our arrival here underlines. It's a sports-focused city with constant invitations to take part in watersports that I'm managing to resist with ease.

The third Test began on Wednesday. We have to win at Perth. Our bowlers must take at least 20 wickets and produce a big batting score. It's a lot to ask and sadly Perth's WACA pitch has not been kind to England in the past. We've won only once in 10 Tests.

By next Tuesday we will know the fate of the third Test, and I'll be on my way to Melbourne for the fourth. Slightly tanned fingers crossed.