This is make or break for the Poms, Andrew Symonds is getting a run, and if Australia wins here, we regain the Ashes.
I’m actually pleased Symonds is playing, and I hope he does well. He’s an inspiration to many people from ‘different’ backgrounds in Queensland, and although he’s West Indian by extraction, growing up in Townsville and environs (as he did) has never been particular fun if you’re black.
Apparently, too, the WACA is changing - lower and slower than the fast bowlers’ paradise of yore. Frankly, I hope this is an aberration, and that Australian cricket pitches regain their character quick smart. Brisbane and Perth were always quick; Adelaide was a road, Sydney would turn and Melbourne would play lower over time. Now it seems - Brisbane apart - they’re all turning into roads, which breaks bowlers’ hearts and makes the game lopsided. Seldom does a road produce an incredible or inspiring result - the Australian team’s antics in Adelaide gives you an idea of just how rare it is.
Without further ado, I’ll declare this thread open, and hope that someone’s up early enough in the morning to comment on the England team (which hasn’t been finalized as yet).
Crossposted at Sidelined, Australia’s leading sporting blog.
63 Comments
.50cal, the Ashes thread has arrived!
Q. Why do women love English cricketers?
A. Because they can stay on top for 4 days and still come last.
That’s a goodie, David. Mind you, that 2nd Test result had to turn up some humour…
The English have always treated cricket as a character-building exercise. And they know there’s nothing like losing to build character. That’s why they’ve refined it to a fine art.
Australian test teams throughout the ages have always taken advantage of this (cads that we undoubtedly are!) We love winning and they love losing. We’re the perfect couple.
The only time they’ve not performed in this role was in the bodyline tour of the early thirties. Jardine (with Larwood’s help) won and the English never forgave either of them. Larwood had to migrate to Sydney where he found his true home. I don’t recall what happened to Jardine, but I don’t think he ever amounted to much in the old dart.
He didn’t have to amount to much, he was a silver spooner and never did much work, although he served as an officer in WWII.
He died from lung cancer in 1958 aged 57.
BTW I’ll be at the WACA tomorrow. Haven’t decided on a costume yet.
Is old Tony Lock available for selection? He ended up in WA.
Wear something distinctive, Yobbo, and tell us what it is beforehand so we can look out for you. And daily reports on this thread would be nice, too!
What about a big sign “I am Yobbo” or maybe just “Yobbo”. You have to watch the screen and hold it up when you are on camera.
You could have “Hello Mum” or “Hey Helen” on the other side.
I’m not sure about Symonds. He’s never impressed with bat or ball at test level. Although as he’s shown in one dayers and other forms he is potentially brilliant.
Australia wins the toss and bats. Monty playing for the Poms.
Bodyline was a joke.
England has one fsat bowler, one fast medium who didn’t bowl it and two omre medium fast bowlers and we whinged about it.
It ended when England faced three FAST bowlers using it at Lords and no batsman could cope.
The West Indies of the eighties were much more fearsome with four fast bowlers.
interestingly when bradman told a Journo of woodfull’s remarks to Plum Warner but let Fingleton take the heat for it few players ever forgave him.
I don’t usually need a vindication to know I was right all along, but Monty has 1 for 1 from his first 3 overs.
Aussies looking shaky. Punter out cheaply, Hussey stodging it up with 4 runs off 44 balls.
Cripes!
“Bodyline was a joke.”
I’d really like to see your sense of humour tested with a modern-day Larwood, Homer.
Courage sure is a lot easier in an armchair with a few VBs down.
The English selectors (probably primarily fletcher) must be feeling like right idiots after picking Giles in the first two tests and would now be wondering what could have been.
Boy howdy. I still maintain I knew I was right all along, but this is some vindication. 5 for ninetysomething with hardly any turn, nice one Monty!
How good is Stuart Clarke looking though?
I think the real difference is Harmison firing. Monty has bowled well….and i am not depricating him or his efforts. Has Panesar played in Adelaide in tandem with Giles It might have made a difference but without Harmison firing England drift. The ball Panesar got his first wicket with was a classic.
I only got to see the England innings… the ball that got Bell was unplayable.
Warne dropping Collingwood was unforgiveable he was obviously day dreaming about the next over.
SL thank you for setting up the new post.
whyisitso, MY main point was the poms had only one fast bowler on that tour whereas the West Indies had four.
Agree with Harmy. He looked like taking wickets all the time and how good was the caught and bowled.
Monty was fantastic to see. Isn’t it great to see a man enjoying playing the game.
IF the poms bat well they will win.
I reckon Gilly could have got it, and I was always taught that if the WK can get it, they should. He moved, then stopped - just enough to break Warne’s concentration.
Anyway yeah, Harmison was really good. 1 extra in 19 overs is quite the improvement.
The trick is, can the Poms bat AND bowl well. Like, in the same match?
Clark bowled very well he had Collingwood playing and missing. Warne dropped a sitter at first slip off Collingwood. it was as good a ball as Lee got Bell with and I could have taken the catch.
It’s not like Warne to drop sitters like that, so you can bet he’ll be trying to make up for it. Stuart Clark is a bloody good bowler - a McGrath clone who - pretty soon - is going to be as good as that which spawned him…
FDB is somewhat correct.
Those type of catches either the WK or the slipper goes and Warney was probably texting at the time.
He came on to bowl next over perhaps he was thinking of that.
I’m Collingwood is still there. What a champion for all those people who make do with the limited talent they have
I think Clarke has the potential to be an even better McGrath than McGrath. Not that we need one, but to be sending down pinpoint leg-cutters like he was, 2 overs into a spell, beating the edge 4 times in an over… really good to see.
Of course, I’d prefer it if he was still a youngster.
in your dreams FDB. How many tests has he played. He hasn’t even gone through a bad bit of form yet
Remember McGrath is now approaching 37.
Imagine him backing up Lillee and Thomson
That would be a dream team bowling attack. Lack of a really reliable 2nd-string was all that kept us behind the Windies in the late 70s/early 80s I think.
Anyway, let’s not play Superman versus He-man. Clarke is great. Hasn’t played many tests, but the fact that he hasn’t lost form strikes me as a good thing. Sure, responding to failure is important, but not so great as not failing!
the point is every player is tested out when they go into a bad patch.Mc Grath has been, Warne was Clark is at the start and will probably only play test cricket for a few more years.
Actually he bowled both leg cutters and outswingers in Perth. the Channel 9 team do not know the difference.
One jags off the pitch and the other is a gentle curve.
Yeah, it was the cutters that caught my eye though. At least for me, they require finer control over the seam angle, and need a while to get right.
I find the inability of the commentary team to distiguish between cutting the ball, seaming the ball and swinging the ball particularly annoy.
Confusing swing with the other two is the worst of course as its movement in the air, but they are also often unable to distiguish between bowling to hit the seam and get some (essentially random) sideways movement and imparting spin to get regular cut out or in at the batsmen.
as everyone should know you have to bowl INTO the fremantle doctor to bowl outswingers.
Steve why do ex-test players not know the difference.
To anyone who doesn’t know it takes large fingers and more skill to bowl a legcutter whereas anyone with a half-decent action can bowl a outswinger.
In places such as sydney or brisbane you can swing the ball all day.
Possibly because for the most part they are batsmen, and care more about direction than how its acheived?
Not enough fast-bowler commentators. You wouldn’t get Michael Holding stuffing up distinctions like this.
which reminds of Brian Johnston’s classic comment that the bowler’s holding the batsman’s Willey.
Brian and Aggers. You couldn’t beat that.
6/122 at lunch. Everytime you think England is going to get on top Australia gets it over them.
Ah, the tried and tested strategy. Bottle them up with a withering pace attack, then throw ‘em some pies. Nice one, Al Jolson!
appeal against Strauss was just cheating.
No sound, no deviation.
This Australian side stinks when it comes to the spirit of cricket
I did not see the appeal. Did the nine mob use the “hot spot”?
Well I spent the day travelling to Sydney (the joys of living in regional Qld) and then working until pretty late. Daylight saving and late hours have frigged with my bodyclock (hence me sitting here blogging about cricket at bloody 5am), but so far, so good on the cricket front.
Good to see that you arrived safely.
What you working on skeptic?
Cheating is a bit harsh Homer. After all, there WAS a noise, and enough of a noise for Rudi to actually give it out (which isn’t saying much since Rudi is a terrible umpire).
Obviously he didn’t hit it with the benefit of a replay, but you don’t see the entire cordon go up like that and the umpire giving it out unless there’s a noise.
I’d like to see stats for how many Koertzen/Dar umpired tests end in a draw. I count 5 blatantly incorrect decisions going in favour of the bowling side in this test already (out of 21 wickets).
Match report, yobbo? And is it true security finally let the trumpeter in? If so that reflects well on you sandgropers.
Well I thought Gilchrist may have been past it, but I’ll withdraw that thought. That was truly amazing
I was in the WACA today, but with 36 degrees some time around 3:30 pm my body told me it was enough, so I failed to see the most dramatic part of it.
Saw cricket live first time ever.
England have ability, they have a fighting spirit and they are not scared……what the hell is going wrong?
Australia clearly want it more and clearly the Australian team has a ruthless determination. Are they missing Michael Vaughan? It strikes me that the England team lacks penetrating bowling attack…enesar gets 8 out of 15 wickets it has to tell the England management something.
Damn right the Poms are missing Michael Vaughan.
Vaughan was the first England captain in twenty years to realise that there is no such thing as a defensive field placing against Australia. Flintoff threw the Adelaide test away when he went “defensive” in Australia’s first innings (never mind that “hour and a half” garbage).
Australian fielding teams keep up the pressure. For this reason the Flintoff-Pietersen partnership will not survive till drinks in the second session, and the other four wickets will fall by day’s end. England can’t win, won’t win.
it is bowlers that win matches.
Only hoggard has bowled well. Both Harmy and Freddy have been below form and it looks no-one has bothered to help Mahmoud who looks the goods.
Monty is special and was only picked for this test and by the way a specialist keeper is essential if you have a decent keeper.
The Australian team are a bunch of cheating prats with Warns being the worst of a bad bunch.
The umpires need to crackdown on this lot.
As a coach of young boys it is dreadful for the game. We now have sledging in U/11s.
Thanks Cricket Australia,Thanks Ricky Ponting thanks Channel 9 for a complete lack of any responsibility.
It’s fielding that wins matches.
Fielding cuts opponent’s runs and takes wickets. The overwhelming majority of cricket matches will see more wickets taken by more than one member of the fielding team acting in concert (catches, runouts) than by the bowler acting alone (bowled, c&b, lbw).
Harmison was not Test standard before 2005. The drugs that rocketed him to the heights of competence in that series have worn off.
It’s bowling that gets the write-ups in the media.
no it is the batting and fielding only complements the bowling.
Harmy was england’s fourth best bowler in 2005
I think the Vaughan factor is pretty huge, along with no Simon Jones, who turned out to be a much cleverer bowler than expected. He was also very well-skippered by Vaughan.
Strauss showed he was both a good skipper and his batting was not affected by being Captain.
Jones could reverse swing both ways as could he with a new ball. He actually took more wickets with ordinary swing than with reverse swing.
You need to bowl quickly to reverse swing well which is why I have no idea they didn’t have Mahmoud with the bowling coach. He is quick and can swing the ball.
Anderson is only medium.
You cannot remember Hoggard reverse swinging too much can you?
Ashes regained in three tests…..
I had hoped for an exciting series which was close …looks like we will have to settle for a blood bath.
What chance are Australia of a 5-nill result? I suspect Australia will not fall into its usual ‘dead rubber’ malaise
Now would be a good time to blood some new players - Jaques, Tait, Johnson, Haddin etc. We need to build the next Ashes winning team. Looks like Watson is out for the whole series.
Blooding new players would be a very good idea, but the established players have spent the last 18 months as “the team that lost the ashes”…they deserve the opportunity to atone and get some pride etc back. I suspect that involves giving England an almighty thumping.
Warnie and Pidge to retire? Is this a cynical ploy to keep the crowds up in a dead series? Would people come to a dead rubber if they thought it was their last chance to see Warne and McGrath bowl? Perhaps it is too cynical to contemplate.
No they are getting old.
Have you seen oohay trying to bend down to field a ball?
Warney’s body is telling him he just can’t bowl those long spells of yesteryear
Pidge is suffering, there’s no doubt about it. I agree with you about Warne, he is not coping with long spells. However, the average age of the players is concerning.
I would expect Langer and Hayden to retire pretty soon as well. Then Gilchrist. Going to be quite a turn over.
those three all know they cannot cope with pace bowling when the ball swings so I would expect them to retire over the next 12 months.
History tells us that Australian cricket will suffer
It’ll suffer, true, but there are still some bloody good players around. I’m really looking forward to seeking more of Jaques, Haddin and MacGill.
MacGill isn’t likely to be around much longer either he’s only a year and a bit younger than Warne. Although I think he’ll be keen to have a run in tests if they let him for a couple of years.
‘Dutchie’ Holland first got picked at 38. The only way to get MacGill out of that test team after Warnie goes would be to shoot the bugger.
Magilla is THE only quality spinner we have at present however he will not have a McGrath at the other end.
Anyone who thinks Clark is in the same class is taking drugs.
Very soon we will have both an inexperience batting lineup and bowling lineup.
Think about a bowling lineup of Lee, Clark, Tait/Johnson and McGill with Symonds does not exactly strike fear into the hearts of batsman.
Like Steve said, we’ll come back to the pack a bit, but that’s still a pretty good attack.
On another issue, though, bowling attacks all over the world are a bit ordinary - it seems every decent side in test cricket has only really got one very good bowler. Australia has done well because we have two good bowlers and a good support act.
And no, I don’t think Clark is the new McGrath, but he’s a bloody good bowler, and he’s no doubt been picking the great man’s brains aplenty.
Don’t forget he has come on after the new ball bowlers mostly and batsman try to take more chances with him.
As Batsman do this less so he will come back to the field.