Posts Tagged: Australia

0The Ashes urnAm I in an alternate universe?

Can I just double check with our read­ers — Eng­land did win the Ashes 3–0 at home this sum­mer did­n’t they?  I’m not stuck in an altern­ate uni­verse where Eng­land were thrashed?  I’ll con­tin­ue on the assump­tion that I am in fact in the same uni­verse as every­one else, and that Eng­land did indeed win, in which case I have to assume that a large sec­tion of the media, includ­ing the BBC are the ones in an altern­ate uni­verse.… Read Full Article

3The Ashes urnAshes 2013: Team of the series

One of the things that sur­prised me dur­ing the series was how the pun­dits com­pared the respect­ive wick­et keep­ers — with Brad Had­din get­ting a pretty good press, whilst Matt Pri­or got a slightly neg­at­ive over­all rat­ing.  From what I saw I did­n’t think there was much to pick between them, so I thought I’d see how the num­bers stack up.  I figured I might as well do the same for the rest of the sides and see if a team of the series emerges that reflects how well indi­vidu­als have played.

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0The Ashes urnEngland losing momentum?

So, as the final test heads towards a rain soaked draw the pun­dits are search­ing for some­thing to chat­ter about.  They finally seem to have got bored of tak­ing pops at the DRS sys­tem, and it isn’t crick­et to kick a team whilst they’re down (i.e. Aus­tralia) so inev­it­ably the atten­tion has turned to Eng­land.  It seems that win­ning the series 3–0 (as will doubt­less be con­firmed in around 30 hours time) and win­ning 3 ashes series on the trot is a sign that Eng­land are “los­ing momentum”.  What nonsense.

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1The Ashes urnAustralia hold the upper hand — in a dead rubber match

Two days in and Aus­tralia cer­tainly have the upper hand. But so what. The Ashes are won and won pretty con­vin­cingly at that. This is a dead-rub­ber match and is very remin­is­cent of Ashes series of old when Eng­land used to sud­denly pull a decent per­form­ance out of the hat when the urn was in the pos­ses­sion of the Aus­sies. Play­ers who time and time again let the team down would sud­denly grab a five-for or score a cen­tury and their series aver­age to the his­tor­ic observ­er would look half-decent.… Read Full Article

0The Ashes urn3–0 to England… what have we learned?

I’ve been away on hol­i­day for the past 2½ weeks and haven’t had chance to write about the crick­et.  Dur­ing that time there have been 2 more Ashes test matches and Eng­land have exten­ded their lead to 3–0.  Hav­ing been away from all the talk­ing heads I haven’t heard what they have to say, so here are some of my own thoughts, unin­flu­enced by the pundits.

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0Cricket Australia logoWhere do Australia go from here?

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

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

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

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