1Aussies Tonked - Manje Phambili

Okokuqala ukuxolisa kokungabuyekezi isayithi sekwephuze kakhulu - kanye nomunye umbhali waleli sayithi bengikade ngihamba nge-Europe.

Singabantu emuva ngaleso sikhathi, ngakho ungesabi.

Ngakho, I-England igoqe u-Ashes ngokusebenza kahle kwengquza ngosuku lokugcina ukuze ithumele futhi izithumele ngempela. Kuningi sekubhaliwe mayelana nokusebenza kweNgilandi kanye, ikakhulukazi, Ukusebenza kukaStuart Broad. Kwakukuhle kakhulu, ekupheleni.

Ngakho-ke ngizogxila kokuthile okuhlukile, a-isikhungo off kancane uma kuthanda.

Lapho i-Australia isencithakalo iminyaka embalwa emuva (kubonakala kudala manje!) 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.

Their side always picked itself and they stuck to an oft-quoted prin­cip­al of not chan­ging a win­ning side (kuyazwakala). But when the golden gen­er­a­tion decided to call it quits the dearth of exper­i­enced tal­ent was imme­di­ately available.

Eng­land now are in a pos­i­tion of strength. Whilst it would be great to beat the Aus­sies 4–0 we have won the Ashes and won them com­fort­ably. There is no argu­ment – we are a far bet­ter team than they are.

Now would be the per­fect time to test a few young­sters in what will still be a com­pet­it­ive game (the Aus­sies still have abanye ukuziqhenya ukudlala) e nesimo akukho-ngokuhlala.

I’m not say­ing we should tear up the team sheet and start again but there’s no harm with test­ing a few lads.

Firstly I think we should look at who is going to be our next spin­ner. Monty Pan­esar has seem­ingly had a melt down and Simon Ker­rigan has leapt above him in the peck­ing order. Graeme Swann has been England’s best spin-bowl­er for years but he isn’t going to be around for ever and can be prone to the odd knock. Ker­rigan should start.

Tim Bresnan odlale kahle kodwa manje abalimele. Woakes and Onions have been called with one of them likely to take his place unless Eng­land break a time-hon­oured pos­i­tion and pick two spin­ners at the Oval. Per­son­ally I’m not that sure about Woakes but if Eng­land see him as the future then let’s see what he’s made of.

One pos­i­tion that is rarely talked about these days is that of wick­et keep­er. That’s a massive vote of con­fid­ence in Matt Pri­or who has made the pos­i­tion his own. Kodwa ubani oza olandelayo? Are Eng­land look­ing to have Jonny Bair­stow as his long-term suc­cessor? Or are they look­ing else­where? Noma kunjalo kungaba umqondo ukuze avivinye bakhethe wesibili enkundleni test-match.

Ngakho lokho izinguquko ezintathu kakade. Now what about the bat­ting line-up? Well, Bell eceleni, phezulu-oda kungaphumelelanga kukhanye, get­ting starts but not con­vert­ing them and not bat­ting in part­ner­ships. Des­pite this the top order, with the pos­sible excep­tion of Bair­stow, will pick itself for the next instal­ment of the Ashes but there’s no harm in see­ing what oth­ers have to offer. Taylor is clearly in the select­ors’ thoughts but two York­shire lads –Gary Bal­lance (who hit a cen­tury for the Eng­land Lions vs the Aus­sies) is there or there­abouts as is fel­low Yorkie, 20 Ngonyaka Alex AbakwaLee ubudala. One of the three should be con­sidered with any of the cur­rent bats­men (Bell and Cook eceleni) hav­ing a rest.

Revolu­tion­ary stuff I know, and we do run the risk of los­ing the last match, but wouldn’t it be even sweeter if we still tonked them with four first-team­ers out.

Njengoba i eceleni kwakho kuyoba siziqhenye zalezi abalobi ababili. When in Venice on our European adven­ture we got into con­ver­sa­tion with two young Aus­trali­an ladies. Des­pite their back­ground we both man­aged to avoid the burn­ing tempta­tion to men­tion the crick­et. Gold inkanyezi kithi!