Well, Justin Langer is going to walk away after Sydney as well, in many ways a less surprising decision than Damien Martyn’s pin-pull after Adelaide. Langer has been hit on the head repeatedly throughout his career: a footballer put through the same ringer would have hobbled out of the game by now, likely with permanently blurred vision to show for his efforts.
McGrath will likely get the sort of special send off at the SCG that Warne got in Melbourne, and Australia will have to adjust to life without two of the world’s greatest bowlers. Stuart Clark has clearly decided to step up to the plate when it comes to fulfilling McGrath’s role – he has bowled better than McGrath throughout this Ashes series. Warne, however, is irreplaceable, and I for one hope that MacGill gets at least a couple of years in the test team. His strike rate is actually better than Warne’s, although he tends to go for more runs. He is a genuine big-turning leggie and has a lot to offer the younger group of spinners who – in my view – are not quite ready for the top level just yet.
And what about England? The Ashes have been wrested from them in the most conclusive way. They best they can do is fight to avoid a 5-0 whitewash, something not effected by an Australian team for 86 years – ‘The Big Ship’ Warwick Armstrong was Australian captain in the 1920-21 Ashes series. The English captain was JWHT Douglas, whose set of initials the Australians were fond of insisting stood for ‘Johnny Won’t Hit Today’. (They had sledging even then). To be fair, Flintoff is nothing if not a fighter, although I think the captaincy is taking its toll. The Poms need to get Vaughan back in harness sooner rather than later.
As is usual, Catallaxians and friends are invited to leave their opinions, speculations and views on this thread throughout the test.
Crossposted at Sidelined, Australia’s leading sporting blog.
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Bring your cricketing speculations up here, folks.
During the fifth test in England in 1921 the Big Ship had a spell in the outfield (which was unusual, given his size). A piece of newspaper blew onto the field nearby, he picked it up and pretended to read it. It was suggested in the local press that this was a disrespectful thing to do, as though the opposition was so weak that he did not need to concentrate on the game. He said in his defence that he was just checking to see who was in the English team. (The point of that comment was that the outclassed Poms used about 20 players in the series).
Unreal! The Big Ship played two seasons of VFL for South Melbourne. What a great trivia quiz question. BTW what club did Keith Miller play with (he represented Victoria in Aussie Rules).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warwick_Armstrong
The cartoon in today’s Daily Telegraph has a cleaner in the England team’s dressing room finding a leaked English new year’s resolution: ‘Try to survive to the fourth day’.
Currently showers in Sydney. Amazing how the drought decides to break during test matches…
Been bucketing down this morning and while it seems to have stopped for the moment, I can’t believe even if it didn’t rain until start time the ground would be dry enough to play on then with little hope of sunshine.
More showers for the next couple of days. Still if they can win it in 4 days total play then they should be able to do it. Bit of a shame if its rained into a draw for the retirees.
Hoggard out for Andersen. The best English pace bowler for the worst one. The Aussie left handers must be breathing a sigh of relief.
Keith Miller played for St Kilda in the VFL. He’d retired, I think, before the 1946/47 cricket season to concentrate on cricket. In those days St Kilda were the easy-beats and had been since the inception of the VFL in 1896. It took until 1966 to register their first (and only) premiership – by one point against Collingwood. This match helped to established Collingwood as the perennial runner-up, even though they were at that stage the most prolific premiership winners.
Flintoff wins the toss – Poms are batting. I’m sorry Hoggard’s not playing. Apart from being a terrific player, he’s also got a great sense of humour.
Even the Warner can have a bad day at the office. He looked very out of sorts today.
Ok – so how quickly today will this all be over? I’m hoping it last at least till 12 so I cna go watch the aussies get the runs over lunch!
I don’t think Engalnd have scored more than about 55 for the last 5 wickets so far this series. The last five wickets have contributed bugger all runs for England all series, so it is difficult to see them taking more than about a 100 run lead. I reckon Australia will be batting at or just after lunch.
Of course this is England, so I wouldn’t be incredibly suprised if they lost the next 5 wickets for 10 runs and it was all over by 12:00pm.
Pietersen out 3rd ball. Well my second estimate may be more on the mark.
Holy crap. 5-0. What an incredible side, and a nice touch with all the kids out on the park at the end of the day.
Another lame capitulation, even by English standards. You can’t actually get beaten any harder than this.
It will be interesting to see what team goes to England in two and a half years time. Gilchrist and Hayden will almost certainly be gone by then as well.
Haddin will be behind the stumps, but I don’t know who’ll be in to partner Jaques by then.