0অ্যাশেজ ভস্মাধারইংল্যান্ডে প্রথম ঘা

সুতরাং অ্যাশেজ এতদূর কোন মহান চমকের দিয়ে আবার চলছে। অস্ট্রেলিয়া টসে জয়ী হয়ে ব্যাটিং, ইংল্যান্ড বল বাইরে এসে একটি খুব গড় খুঁজছেন অস্ট্রেলিয়ান ব্যাটিং লাইন আপ জন্য জীবন কঠিন প্রণীত। দিনের মানুষ ছাড়া সন্দেহ স্টুয়ার্ট ব্রড ছিল, who should have now silenced all but the most loud-mouthed of his crit­ics.Aus­tralia closed on 273–8, a score unlikely to put much “score­board pres­sure” on Eng­land, and show­ing that they’ve not improved their bat­ting since the recent series that Eng­land won 3–0. All the talk before the series has been by Aus­trali­ans about how they were going to scare Eng­land and tar­get Broad. As an Eng­land sup­port­er it is nice to see a for­eign press doing what our own tabloids so often do — goad­ing the oppos­i­tion into a high­er per­form­ance. Broad respon­ded just as our oppon­ents do when the Brit­ish press tar­gets the oppos­i­tion — he demol­ished the Aus­trali­an bats­men, tak­ing 5 for 65. If the boo­ing has a sim­il­ar impact on his bat­ting we can prob­ably con­clude the series now.

As good as Eng­land were, Aus­tralia con­tin­ue to dis­ap­point. Their best bats­man, and cap­tain, still has­n’t learned how to deal with the short ball, a fail­ure which will cost him dear in this series if he isn’t quick to address it. Warner got him­self in and then out by play­ing like a 1‑day bats­man. Wat­son added to the mount­ing evid­ence that he’s a flat-track bully by get­ting him­self in, and then out for a poor 22. Smith con­trib­uted 31, not unreas­on­able for a dis­tinctly aver­age play­er but not a score that will turn many games. Bailey is new to the side and has­n’t yet shown he can offer much, but against an older ball on a bats­man’s wick­et he should have made the most of his oppor­tun­ity. Only Brad Had­din and Mitchell John­son offered much pro­longed res­ist­ance with the bat. Had­din is a qual­ity play­er — if Aus­tralia are to win a test, ঘাঁটান সিরিজ, it will undoubtedly require a sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion from him. John­son is handy with the bat but is unlikely to make many half-cen­tur­ies in the series.

If Eng­land bat like they did the last time they vis­ited Aus­tralia they have every chance of win­ning by an innings, and win­ning the series com­fort­ably. If they bat like they did in the recent home Ashes series it will be anoth­er fairly close series with Eng­land likely to edge it over­all. Here’s to wak­ing up tomor­row to hear that Eng­land are 250 for 0.

Leave a Reply