0Cricket Australia logoWhere do Australia go from here?

Published by & filed under The Ashes.

So, the second Test is over, and Eng­land have won com­pre­hens­ively, and with it, almost cer­tainly retained the Ashes.  A lot of dis­cus­sion is already focussed on what Aus­tralia can do to get some pride back in this series, and how they can rebuild for the return series this winter in Aus­tralia.  The focus is on Aus­trali­a’s bat­ting line up, so let’s look at some num­bers from the last 2 tests… Read Full Article

1The Ashes urnJob Done — England Take a 2–0 Lead

Published by & filed under The Ashes. Last updated .

Job done. Aus­tralia thrashed.

They didn’t really have the answer to the com­bined hero­ics of Root (massive cen­tury and a couple of handy wick­ets), Bell (a very import­ant first innings ton with a decent half cen­tury in the second (although he should have been out, caught, on 20-odd) and Swann (9 wick­ets). It has to be wor­ry­ing for the vis­it­ors when their second best play­er, Wat­son, is hav­ing his tech­nique exposed by the Eng­land attack in a big way – he was yet again a LBW vic­tim today.… Read Full Article

0The Ashes urnSecond Ashes Test — Walking in a Yorkshire Wonderland

Published by & filed under The Ashes.

There’s not much to say on the last couple of days – basic­ally Eng­land have ground Aus­tralia into dust. That’s my sum­mary. Eng­land lead by 566 runs with wick­ets and time in hand. Pretty comfortable.…

Instead I’m going to con­cen­trate on today’s hero, Joe Root.

“I were chuffed to bits”…so said Joe when asked to reflect on his stu­pendously good ‘mega ton’ he scored today. I was rather happy too.… Read Full Article

0The Ashes urnThe Ashes: Second Test — Day 1

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So, anoth­er day of excep­tion­ally enter­tain­ing Test crick­et is over, and the second test match is well and truly under way.   Pleas­ingly today has­n’t been marred by any poor decisions (by umpires or play­ers), but I was dis­gus­ted by the mis­taken boo­ing of Jimmy Ander­son.  I’ll talk a little more about that later, but first some pre­dic­tions (admit­tedly a day late)… Read Full Article

0The Ashes urnHeart attack beckons after nervewracking finale

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WOW!!  What a match. Gran­ted the shock­ing umpir­ing decisions (when you include 3rd umpires) per­haps made it a little closer than it should have been (although both sides suffered) but what a fant­ast­ic advert YET AGAIN for test match cricket.

Going into this series it looked like it was going to be hard going for Aus­tralia. On paper only three play­ers, at best, would make it into the Eng­land start­ing XI from the Aus­trali­an squad – Clarke, Wat­son and Siddle. Few people gave them a chance.  But through some hero­ic dis­plays they proved that, when it comes to the Ashes at least, as a team they are great­er than the sum of their indi­vidu­al parts.… Read Full Article

0Hotspot Snickometer Hawkeye DRSA growing number of bad DRS decisions…

Published by & filed under Uncategorised. Last updated .

So, the intriguing 1st Ashes Test at Trent Bridge con­tin­ues to be excit­ing with no clear win­ner emer­ging as yet.  How­ever I want to look back to a poten­tially key moment of the game — the “not out” decision giv­en to Aus­trali­a’s Agar.  Let me be clear — no fault can be laid on any of the play­ers or on-field umpires — only on the DRS sys­tem and the umpire man­aging it.  There have been sev­er­al wrong decisions in this Test match and in the recent cham­pi­ons trophy, lets look at each of them in turn.… Read Full Article

0The Ashes urnDays Two and Three — A Right Old See Saw

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I was so incensed last night at England’s abil­ity to snatch defeat from the jaws of vic­tory by fail­ing to bowl a debut 19 year old num­ber 11 rab­bit out (helped by an appalling umpir­ing decision) and then their per­fect fol­low­ing of the script by los­ing two crick­et wick­ets in reply (note again – appalling decision) that I was unable to put key­board to laptop.

It looked that today might a have been a second day of radio silence but Eng­land man­aged to dig deep and loc­ate some so far as of yet reserves of guts and bottle (Ander­son aside). Well played to Cook and to KP for some decent con­tri­bu­tions but espe­cially to Ian Bell. I’ve been one of his harshest crit­ics of late – but only because he hasn’t been weigh­ing in with decent scores when they mat­ter. But today it was time to step up to the plate and he did so, ably assisted by Broad at the oth­er end.… Read Full Article

0The Ashes urnDay One of the Big Battle. Disappointment

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All I can say after the first day of this summer’s Ashes is that I’m hugely dis­ap­poin­ted. Intriguing test match crick­et at its best yes, but a strong mark­er put down by a dom­in­ant Eng­land against an aver­age test team, no.

Aged 33 I am used to Eng­land fold­ing against far super­i­or Aus­sie teams but this time round it was meant to be different.

On paper Eng­land should wal­lop this lot. The bowl­ers are far super­i­or and the bats­men for the most part bet­ter than theirs.… Read Full Article

0The Ashes urnIt’s time… Ashes predictions

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So, the biggest sport­ing event of 2013 is finally upon us, which means it’s time for me to stick my neck out and pre­dict a res­ult. I’ll start by con­fid­ently pre­dict­ing an Eng­land vic­tory. I’m not so con­fid­ent of the mar­gin of vic­tory but I think it will be at least 2, but as I don’t think Eng­land will ever have a bet­ter chance I’m going to really risk the “com­ment­at­ors curse” and sug­gest Eng­land could man­age a 5 0 whitewash.

I’m not con­vinced that Aus­tralia have an exper­i­enced enough bowl­ing attack to exploit the Eng­land weak­nesses. I am sure the Aus­trali­an bat­ting line up is going to be giv­en a rough time by the Eng­land seam­ers and the 6 left handers are going to struggle on dry wick­ets against Graeme Swan.  Unless weath­er or injur­ies inter­vene I don’t see how the Aus­sies can outscore Eng­land consistently.

If Eng­land can make 350+ in the first innings (hav­ing won the toss) I expect them to win the first test.  I’ll guess the scores will be about 400, 350, 300, 200 which will give Eng­land a 150 run vic­tory around lunch on day 5. Let’s find out how silly I look by Sunday afternoon…

0Blofeld & BaxterBlofeld & Baxter — Memories Of Test Match Special

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A couple of nights back I went to Shef­field City Hall with a few of the fam­ily to see Henry Blofeld and Peter Bax­ter doing what they do best — telling stor­ies and reveal­ing some of what goes on in the TMS box.  Unlike many “per­formers” they star­ted on time at 7:30 and car­ried on (with a short inter­val) until past 10pm.  If they’re com­ing to a place near you and you have a free even­ing I really recom­mend get­ting a tick­et and going down — it was one of the best even­ings of enter­tain­ment a crick­et fan could ask for… Read Full Article