Posts Categorised: Test Cricket

1England and Wales Cricket Board logoAussies Tonked — Now to the Future

Published by & filed under The Ashes, Uncategorised. Last updated .

Firstly an apo­logy for not updat­ing the site much of late – along with the oth­er author for this site I’ve been on a drive through Europe.

We are back now though, so fear not.

So, Eng­land wrapped up the Ashes with a barn­storm­ing per­form­ance on the last day to well and truly send them pack­ing. A lot has been writ­ten already about England’s per­form­ance and, in par­tic­u­lar, Stu­art Broad’s per­form­ance. It was excel­lent, end of.

So I’m going to con­cen­trate on some­thing a little dif­fer­ent, a little off-centre if you will.

When Aus­tralia were at their peak a few years back (seems so long ago now!) the one mis­take they made was not to blood up-and-com­ing young­sters so they had a chance to exper­i­ence the highs and lows of test match crick­et.… Read Full Article

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

Published by & filed under The Ashes. Last updated .

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.

… Read Full Article

0Cricket Australia logoWhere do Australia go from here?

Posted 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

Posted 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

Published by & filed under The Ashes. Last updated .

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

Published by & filed under The Ashes. Last updated .

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

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

Published by & filed under The Ashes. Last updated .

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

Published by & filed under The Ashes. Last updated .

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