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Bored of winning?
By Rich Abbott 1 month ago, 2 Comments »
Did anyone start getting bored when England strung a few wins together at the Champions Trophy last year? No, me neither. Spare a thought then for the poor Australians, who seem to be currently suffering that fate due to an altogether more impressive run of results produced by their own ODI side of late.
It’s 145 days since England and Australia contested the last match of the Ashes-summer ODI series – the one now consigned to the ‘Voldemort Drawer’ containing such never-to-be-mentioned events as the ‘forgotten’ Ashes of ‘06-‘07. Since then, over the course of one tournament and two and a half series (18 ODIs in all), Australia have propelled their followers into a winning-induced state of boredom. Only twice in that time have they thrown defeat into the mix – and that in a series in India which they won 4-2.
Sir Pelham Warner once remarked that “all Australians are natural cricketers – I could pick a good eleven on Bondi Beach”, and maybe that’s what the selectors have done in picking 21 players over the course of those 18 matches. The results remained constant even if the faces didn’t.
Indeed, Australia haven’t lost a match all summer, though they did at least encounter something approaching competition in three of their six Test matches. Yes, there was life in those series’ against the West Indies and Pakistan – more so than the 2-0 and 3-0 scorelines suggest. However, in the ODIs, a win record of 7-0 tells the full story. As Daniel Brigham says, the team’s aura has shifted from the baggy green to the green-all-over.
Inevitably, the 50-over format is once again being hauled before a jury. Only 8,378 turned out four days ago to see the West Indies at the Adelaide Oval, but as with September’s one-sided series in England, it’s the players - or at least one set of them -who are letting the format down. Irrespective of format, close matches thrill everyone, while easy wins satisfy few other than the winning side – and over here, even they’re getting restless.
If these series were ‘live’ as they entered the latter stages, so too would the stands be. Yes, even in Australia, a buzz in the crowd requires some sort of buzz on the pitch, or else the locals start invading it and attacking the participants.
How to save these lost souls craving some excitement with their wins? Maybe they could rest Ricky Ponting and appoint someone who’s shown startlingly few signs of becoming his successor. That’s how England are approaching their otherwise uninspiring tour of Bangladesh. In handing Alastair Cook the captaincy, England have managed to prize flagging interest levels above zero and add an element of intrigue to a series which should be as one-sided as the one Australia are currently dominating. In theory.
So, whilst I don’t think I’d hear any complaints about a similar scenario occurring this time next year, it seems that there is something that Australians prize as highly as winning: a contest. Combine the two, and they’re laughing. As I write, with Australia 159-5, it looks like we might just see that for the first time in ODIs this summer.
2 Comments »Australia win another World Cup
By Rich Abbott 2 months ago, No Comments; be the first!
Australia have won the Under-19 World Cup. Of course they have. In doing so, they unearthed a host of promising performers – including the new Glenn McGrath – and demonstrated an eerily familiar ability to peak when it matters. Not bad for a team coached by an ex-member of Westlife. So, we can pin green and gold to the senior trophy for 2015 and 2019 (providing it still exists), right?
Well, yes, probably. However, a similar move after England’s Under-19 triumph in 1998 would not have proved wise. Here’s the team that defeated New Zealand in the final of that tournament:
SD Peters
RWT Key
PJ Franks
OA Shah
GP Swann (whatever happened to him?)
CP Schofield
GR Haywood
GR Napier
JC Powell
NJ Wilton
RJ Logan
Only three of that victorious mob could be said to have gone on to enjoy senior international careers of note, and both Key and Shah will feel they only offered glimpses of their best. By my reckoning, four of those players are no longer playing county cricket. Paul Franks is, but, as Andy Bull noted a few months back, his is arguably the most unfulfilled talent on the list.
Colt success does not always translate to the pinnacle of the game, and few things are guaranteed in cricket. However, young Mitchell Marsh and his team can console themselves with the fact that Australian dominance usually is.
No Comments »My cricket memory of 2009
By Jonathan Calder last year, at the end of December, 5 Comments »
It was the afternoon of Friday 21 August and I was on holiday in King’s Lynn. Having seen the sights, I went for a cup of tea at the Green Quay – a cafe and exhibition centre beside the Great Ouse in the centre of the town.
It was also the second day of the final Ashes test. England had been 307-8 overnight and were all out for 332. The last time I had looked at the score on my phone, the Australian openers were making an untroubled start.
When my tea came I checked the score again and almost choked on my Earl Grey. Australia were 117-7.
We were going to win the Ashes!
I was so overcome that I overcame my natural English reserve and looked for someone to share the moment with. There was an elderly couple at the next table. “Do you like cricket?” I asked. They did, so I told them the score.
With the rise of information technology – and the disappearance of live coverage from terrestrial television – that is pretty much my experience of test cricket these days. Twenty minutes of watching in a pub. An hour of Test Match Special on Saturday morning. Checking the score on my phone.
I can recall watching only two lengthy periods of watching the Ashes on television last summer. I saw the last hour of the very first day in Cardiff, when England let a promising position slip, in a Leicester hotel on the way home from work. And I saw the last hour of the series, as England wrapped up the series, in a bar in a strange Lincolnshire village called Sutton Bridge.
But it is that moment in the Green Quay that I shall remember from the summer of 2009.
Jonathan Calder blogs at Liberal England
5 Comments »Spare a thought for Stuart Clark
By Rich Abbott last year, at the start of December, 2 Comments »
The England team is currently littered with stories of comeback triumph and instant success. Andrew Strauss saved his Test career at the last possible moment, then went on to lift the Ashes as captain. Graeme Swann is still less than a year old as a Test cricketer, and has enjoyed the most remarkable 2009, and Jonathan Trott has experienced the sort of immediate success that eludes many a career. But what of the flipside? What happens when a reversal in fortune collides with a short time frame?
Just ask the world’s sixth best bowler. On the 9th August earlier this year, things couldn’t get much better for Stuart Clark. He was on the verge of the second Ashes triumph of his career, having contributed three wickets from his ten overs during England’s dismal first innings 102 at Headingley.
Two weeks later and he was facing a long flight home to contemplate both series defeat and the reality of his name being the answer to a question that will inevitably be drunkenly asked in Aussie bars for years to come: “who did they bloody pick instead of Hauritz then?”
And now it seems that Clark might never wear the baggy green again, following the call-up of Clint McKay - a man eight years his junior – to the Australia squad for the second Test against the West Indies.
Admittedly, he”ll fight for his place, and it’s hard to feel too sorry for a man who, as it stands, would finish his Test career with an average of 23.86, and who is, after all, Australian. But is it just me, or would it not seem quite right if he never broke the 100 wickets in Test cricket mark?
2 Comments »Probably the best backup in the world…
By Rich Abbott last year, mid-November, 1 Comment »
Australia’s victorious ODI series against India ended in washout yesterday, but you have to admire their post-Ashes salvage job. In the space of a few months they’ve proved they have both the best one-day side in the world, and – crucially in today’s game – an unmatchable squad strength.
Their results in 19 post-Ashes ODIs have been impressive enough – 15 wins, 3 losses – but more so when you consider they’ve used 22 players, including 17 in September’s 6-1 demolition of England alone.
A stream of players, such as the could-only-be-Aussie Clint McKay, have been thrust into the international limelight in India, and carried on exactly where they left off in State cricket. Do England have a similar strength stream?
They’ll need one. International cricket’s packed calendar is starting to stretch squads more and more. Injury to key players is less a valid excuse for failure, more a common occurrence.
Typical Australia. Just when my days of envying them seem to be on the wane - with England finally cobbling together a first team of comparable quality – Ponting and co unveil a cast of backups capable of resurrecting my green tinge.
1 Comment »Fixtures in 2010: Australia and Pakistan in England
By Will last year, at the end of August, 9 Comments »
So the ECB have dumped the Friends Provident Trophy, England’s 50-over domestic competition, from next season onwards. There will still be a 40-over thrash, mainly played on Sundays, along with tweaks to the Twenty20 Cup. More here.
More excitingly, England will host Pakistan and Australia next summer. Before that, there will be two Tests and three ODIs against Bangladesh, then five ODIs against Australia. Pakistan then take on Australia for two Twenty20s and two Tests before England have four Tests, five ODIs and two Twenty20s against Pakistan!
Obscene amount of cricket. But incredibly exciting, I think, for England to be the neutral host of Tests matched between two exciting teams, especially given how much support Pakistan will have in Britain.
What are your thoughts? Will you pay to watch Australia and Pakistan in England?
9 Comments »Ashes win just the start for the new England
By Will last year, at the end of August, 5 Comments »
England win the Ashes. No one even ponders an open-top bus tour. No medals are hung around players’ necks and, with due respect to MPs Brown and Cameron – and the Queen – very little fanfair has been afforded this England team.
And thank god for that. England’s win was unforgettable, in a tense, thrilling, pendulum-swinging series which might have lacked the greats of the game that we had in 2005, but for entertainment it was very much on a par.
Did the better team win? Just about. Man for man, the two sides are very close indeed, but England beat Australia on home advantage and a clearer idea of where they’re heading. Before the series, I thought England would win 2-1 owing to having an in-form spinner who can bat, and having a more balanced attack; the fact Hauritz wasn’t picked at The Oval by Australia was a remarkable decision. Surely, surely, they must have been made aware the pitch was a bunsen. It wouldn’t have taken much to realise that on first glance 24 hours before.
I almost felt deflated by the win. 25 days of ball-by-ball commentary can do that to you. But having had time to reflect, only now do I feel really excited; pleased that England won, even though it feels like a heist, because this is just the beginning. In 2005, the regaining of the Ashes was the culmination of Nasser Hussain, Duncan Fletcher and Michael Vaughan’s extensive planning. The 2009 win has come sooner than even Andy Flower would’ve hoped, and is just the beginning.
And one other thought, which I’ll write about when I can be bothered: Matt Prior, you played a blinder. What a turnaround in his career it’s been.
Oh, and by the way – just 457 days until the next series in Australia.
5 Comments »Broad’s spell
By Will last year, at the end of August, 7 Comments »
Before this Test, many (me included) weren’t sure Stuart Broad would even play at The Oval. After yesterday’s play, he’s suddenly an Ashes hero and, according to one commentator, has produced one of the finest spells of fast bowling in the history of cricket.
That is overplaying it by an embarrassing margin, of course,but he did nevertheless bowl beautifully – and how amazing it is that one spell, one set of 47 deliveries, can alter not just a Test match but an entire series.
England are by no means home and dry yet, but Australia have it all to do. As one big England allrounder departs, another, much younger, takes over the batten.
I remain completely perplexed that England are in this position when it’s Australia who have made seven hundreds to England’s one or two. Doesn’t make any sense at all.
More thoughts after the Test…way too busy until then.
7 Comments »Justin Langer’s leaked dossier on England
By Will last year, mid-August, 13 Comments »
James Anderson’s a pussy. Andrew Strauss is a solid bloke. Matt Prior has an ego. Ravi Bopara’s a strutter. I dunno what all the fuss is about. Justin, tell us something we don’t know. Interesting, and a little sad really, that it was leaked to the press.
One-all with one to play
By Will last year, mid-August, 4 Comments »
“How’s the cricket, mate?” chirped my Australian neighbour, poking his head over the fence as I slumped on the sofa to digest today’s massacre. A five-day trashing worthy of memory for all Australian cricket fans, so remorseless was it. “You thought you had us, didn’t you? Thought you had us.” I must remember to keep the back door shut.
His gloating didn’t irk or hurt, though, because this has been a thrilling series. If not on quite the same level of euphoria as 2005, when strutting legends were humanised and humbled – and, indeed, created – and if not whipping the country into a frenzy, then it has certainly been one for the purists. The draw at Cardiff; England’s thrilling win at Lord’s, with Flintoff bruising Australia single-handedly; Mitchell Johnson’s horrid nadirs and then, suddenly, a renaissance. The disgusting and tiring booing of Ponting. Ponting’s 78. Ponting as a leader, an increasingly humble one at that, a good face for a young Australia.
Whatever happens, this has been a wonderful series between two closely matched teams. The Ashes remains the pinnacle for English and Australian fans, and although England have a hell of a lot to do if they’re to even challenge their opponents at The Oval, there’s time yet for them to regroup. It’s not over yet. Do we have one more twist in the grapple for that pathetically tiny little urn?
4 Comments »Hussey’s poem (please read this)
By Will last year, mid-July, 3 Comments »
More brilliance from Tyers, who might write some more here if I can find some money to lure him. Hot tip, readers: donate money, and I’ll give it to him! No seriously…
3 Comments »Right then you blokes. Seeing as the poem I wrote and performed before the Cardiff Test went down so well, Ricky has asked me to once again lead the group in our pre-match ‘Aw Look, What Does The Baggy Green Mean To You, Mate?’ discussion. I’ve done another poetry that I’d like to share with you and it’s about the magnificent bird of my home state.
No, Sidds, I’m not talking about that Melissa George bird that was on Home And Away. I’m talking about The Black Swan, the emblem of Western Australia.
Katich, the house lights. if you please.
Look. Look. A magnificent black swan, floating magnificently.
But underneath the water
They do not see
The incredible commitment and awesome
England v Australia, 2nd Test, Lord’s, 1st day
By Will last year, mid-July, 5 Comments »
This is just too exciting for words, really, isn’t it? Bring this monster on. I’ll be on commentary for the duration, so join us over there and, in the meantime, if you have any thoughts, you know what to do. It’s nil-all, the forecast is good for Thursday, horrendous for Friday but better for the weekend.
5 Comments »England v Australia, 1st Test, 5th day
By Will last year, mid-July, 22 Comments »
Can England survive three sessions on a wearing pitch? Can they balls.
Previously
Day four. It all went horrifically wrong for England.
Previously…
Day three. Ponting and Katich are well-set. It’s looking horrible for England…
Previously…
Day two is upon us. England are in a healthy position but still need 400. Can Stuart Broad heave them over the line?
Previously…
At last. The greatest series of them all is upon us, and once again we can waste several weeks of pontification, argument and deliberation while watching it. Well, you lot can, I’ll be working, but still – this is what every English and Australian fan lives for. And quite a few who don’t even support those two countries. Bring this beast on.
Follow me on Cricinfo’s commentary throughout the series, and there’ll be a post here each day of the series for you to chat if you’re so inclined.
22 Comments »Australia: flat, unconvincing, undecided
By Will last year, at the end of June, 3 Comments »
Four days against Sussex hasn’t helped Ricky Ponting decide on his lineup for the first Test. Have a read of my colleague’s bulletin, the whirlwind and unstoppable force that is Alex Brown:
These are worrying times for the Australians. A flat final day performance on a flat Hove pitch has given Ricky Ponting few signposts as to the composition of his best bowling attack 11 days out from the first Test in Cardiff. Only seven Sussex wickets fell on Saturday – a concerning development for a team containing five specialist bowlers – as Carl Hopkinson, making his maiden first-team appearance this season, raised a stirring century that ensured a draw, and almost forced a famous victory.
The only comforting thought for Ponting ahead of the practice match against Ian Bell’s England Lions on Wednesday is the availability of Mitchell Johnson, the ace in Australia’s pack. Peter Siddle will almost certainly partner him in Cardiff – Tim Nielsen, the Australian coach, described him as a “lock” selection on Saturday – but the make-up of the attack thereafter remains unclear and, in the absence of strong performances in Worcester, could be determined by conditions on the day.
The lack of a frontline spinner has upset their balance something horrible. Intriguing, wonderful, fascinating week coming up.
3 Comments »Symonds dropped for booze; career over?
By Will last year, at the start of June, 5 Comments »
Cricinfo broke this an hour ago. He’s reportedly going to give his side of the story after he arrives back in Australia (hopefully not after draining the duty free). It’s all rather sad now. Hugely gifted player and his career’s come to a drunken full stop.
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