0ইংল্যান্ড হেরে ভরবেগ?

সুতরাং, চূড়ান্ত পরীক্ষার দিকে বৃষ্টি ভিজার দিকে যাওয়ার পথে পন্ডিতরা বকবক করার জন্য কিছু সন্ধান করছে। তারা শেষ পর্যন্ত ডিআরএস সিস্টেমে পপ নিতে বিরক্ত হয়ে গেছে বলে মনে হচ্ছে, এবং কোনও দলকে নামিয়ে দেওয়া কিক করা ক্রিকেট নয় (i.e. অস্ট্রেলিয়া) সুতরাং অনিবার্যভাবে মনোযোগ ইংল্যান্ডের দিকে ফিরেছে। দেখে মনে হচ্ছে সিরিজটি ৩-০ ব্যবধানে জিতেছে (নিঃসন্দেহে প্রায় 30 ঘন্টা সময় মধ্যে নিশ্চিত করা হবে) এবং বিজয়ী 3 ashes series on the trot is a sign that Eng­land are “los­ing momentum”. What nonsense.

The primary reas­on for all the neg­at­iv­ity is the pace of England’s scor­ing in the 5^th test — at an “unac­cept­able” 2 per over. Pre­dict­ably the pun­dits haven’t actu­ally said what Eng­land should be doing!  Per­haps we should be aim­ing for 3.5 runs per over and end­ing up all out with time for the Aus­sies to win, although it would seem to me that really would be hand­ing the momentum to Aus­tralia. On the con­trary — Eng­land are doing exactly what many of the pun­dits have been call­ing for them to do for ages — play­ing the pitch, con­di­tions and bowl­ing that is presen­ted to them. When the poor ball came it was dis­patched. What the pun­dits aren’t being hon­est enough to say clearly is that Eng­land are play­ing for a draw. Why would they do that?  ভাল, per­haps because on a slow pitch, with lots of rain fore­cast, and with the oppos­i­tion hav­ing nearly 500 on the board after 2 days, win­ning is van­ish­ingly likely.Could Eng­land have won?Assuming the fore­cast is cor­rect and most of today will be lost to rain, how might Eng­land have won the match?  Let’s very optim­ist­ic­ally assume we could bowl the Aus­trali­ans out in 2 ses­sions. Assum­ing the Aus­sies scored at 3 an over they would be expec­ted to make 180 in those 2 ses­sions. Add that to their first innings of 492 gives a total for Eng­land to get of 672. Nev­er­mind that Eng­land haven’t reached 400 yet in this series — how long would be needed to get 672 at a very gen­er­ous 4 ওভার প্রতি রান?  The answer — 168 overs. So, that would be the 18 দিন থেকে ওভার 2, সব 90 overs yes­ter­day, 30 ওভার আজ (the best we can hope for accord­ing to the weath­er) এবং 30 ওভার tomorrow.So, if you believe the Eng­land could bat over 4 days, for 168 ওভার, এ 4 ওভার প্রতি রান, and then bowl Aus­tralia out for 180 in 60 ওভার, you can con­clude Eng­land had a chance of win­ning. Oth­er­wise (আমার মত) you can con­fid­ently con­clude Eng­land did­n’t have enough time in the match to secure vic­tory and that the most sens­ible thing to do was to pre­vent Aus­tralia tak­ing any­thing away from the series, and to take the oppor­tun­ity for the Eng­land bats­men to try to bat them­selves into some form.
An addi­tion­al bonus for Eng­land is that after 1 decent innings togeth­er Aus­tralia now feel like they have a settled bat­ting line up:  a line up that does­n’t con­vince me at all. Steve Smith isn’t good enough to get into any good test side. Shane Wat­son has once again delivered when it does­n’t mat­ter and con­tin­ues to look very vul­ner­able to এলবিডব্লুর শিকার.  Michael Clarke is still a class bats­man but Eng­land have got his num­ber — he struggles against Stu­art Broad and the short ball in par­tic­u­lar and he has­n’t even had a chance to face Trem­lett who is likely to fea­ture in the return series. Rogers is a decent play­er but I can­’t see him mak­ing many “game chan­ging” scores which leaves the incid­ent prone Warner who is again a decent bats­man but thanks to his style he tends to give chances. Rogers & Warner does­n’t exactly have the same ring as Hay­den & Langer does itWhen all is said and done this Eng­land side have beaten bet­ter Aus­trali­an teams already and have bats­men due back into form. Eng­land are rightly send­ing a mes­sage to Aus­tralia — give us half a chance and we’ll beat you. Play really well and we’re strong enough to hold you off. Go home with noth­ing from this series and look for­ward to see­ing us again in 3 মাস.