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the-ashes
Harmison: I want to play the Ashes again
By Will 1 month ago, 2 Comments »
OK. So, you remember the 2006-07 Ashes, right? England held the Ashes and were trooping down under to slay the Aussies. Or something like that. Steve Harmison was back. Here’s what Rob Key said just before the circus began:
“I think the best thing Steve has got going for him is they go to Brisbane for the first Test and that could be the quickest pitch in the Ashes,” said Key. “You saw this summer whenever he gets on a pitch with a bit of life on it there is not a batsman in the world who would want to face Steve Harmison.
“If he goes to Brisbane and sees what it is like, as opposed to the sub-continent or here in England sometimes, I think he will be licking his lips and be desperate to go on. He loves bowling on wickets where you can get bounce and hopefully that will kick-start him into the series.”
The idiots among us, me included, sensed this could be his moment: a pacey Brisbane surface, the brand new ball in his hands. And then he wanged down that wide, like a gold-medalist wally. Here it is, in case you’ve forgotten:
The rest of his career has been quite tortuous viewing. Last July, he inferred he’d retire after the Ashes. Then, about October time, he said he wasn’t quite ready to put on his moccasins. Now, though, he’s produced a gob-smacker: he wants to play in the Ashes later this year. YOU WHAT?
On ya, Stevey! Please, if there is a cricket-selecting god out there, make this happen. Cricket needs another Brisbane moment, and only big Stevey H – the H bomb, if you will – can come close to replicating it. Let this charade of a career continue for one more Ashes, and let us continue to mock one of English cricket’s most naturally attributed fast bowlers in a generation for a few more months.
PS: possible reason for his sudden desire to tour Australia? He’s just had a vasectomy. I’m not saying all cricketers are, well…you know. Could be why. I mean, he’s not the best tourist, is he? Anyway. You know what I mean.
2 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 »Ashes series on free-to-air?
By Will last year, mid-October, 3 Comments »
3 Comments »There is no suggestion that series outside of the Ashes could be promoted back to the A-list of events. Currently, England’s home Tests are on the B-list which means that only highlights must be available on terrestrial TV and are currently shown by Five.
England’s 2009 celebrations in full
By Will last year, at the end of August, 2 Comments »
From the always-witty Alany Tyers:
2 Comments »Those Ashes Celebrations In Full
ANDREW STRAUSS: Busy night for the young dad skipper: doing up shoelaces, wiping noses, checking everyone had been for a wee. Surely it’s now time that other batsmen took some responsibility with their preparations for a night out?
STUART BROAD: Showed terrific temperament and all-round composure in dealing with hard-to-eat meal of crab followed by spaghetti and ordering difficult-to-pronounce wine from snitty waiter. Blotted copybook slightly by showing dissent when bill arrived.
JONATHAN TROTT: Found in street belting out national anthem (and mouthing words uncertainly during those tricky Zulu and Xhosa bits).
ALASTAIR COOK: Keeps making same basic errors at every night out: turning up in trainers when everyone knew it was ‘smart but casual’ and ensuring the group can’t get in anywhere; having to phone girlfriend every half an hour to reassure her he isn’t up to no good; being very boring when talking to a group of attractive women so they all leave…
PAUL COLLINGWOOD: Workmanlike fancy dress outfit (Your Basic Comedy Mexican) could not disguise modest overall contribution to night out.
MONTY PANESAR: Invited along for karaoke skills but “didn’t get a lot of assistance from the microphone”. Surprisingly effective on quiz machine; keeping team in it against the odds on quickfire round of Deal Or No Deal.
GRAHAM ONIONS: Absent; Steve Harmison nicked his ticket.
JIMMY ANDERSON: Started evening strongly but slumped incoherent in corner by closing time.
RAVI BOPARA: Cockiness ensured considerable female interest in nightclub and used pick-up lines successfully on some rather homely girls; panicked and spilt drink down himself when attractive ones turned up.
IAN BELL: Looked great, but struggled to really dominate the conversation and was reduced to going “Ha ha ha… yeah” and repeating what other people had just said.
MATT PRIOR: Stunned team-mates and punters alike by carrying tray of drinks back from bar without dropping and turning out to actually be a good bloke to have around.
GRAEME SWANN: Cheeky chappie, great all-round effort: booked stripper, provided comedy moustaches, got his round in, chatted up a hen-do. Suspicion that he might fall just short of being top-class entertainment manager.
KEVIN PIETERSEN: Absent; at home watching Police Academy VI on ITV4, eating oven chips. Texted to say he was having brilliant time in Bungalow 8 with Lamps, Jude Law and Clive Rice.
ANDREW FLINTOFF: Quiet meal with nearest and dearest (i.e. took Steve Harmison to Pizza Hut).
STEVE HARMISON: Became distressed by proliferation of “fancy foreign food” in Pizza Hut; got cab back up to Ashington.
The 2009 Ashes DVD: The Official Story
By Will last year, at the end of August, 1 Comment »
The Ashes 2009: The Official Story. I imagine this’ll be fairly popular in Britain. Currently £17.98 but will drop in price on or soon after the launch date of October 5. Buy it!
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 »Hot to Trott
By Will last year, mid-August, 9 Comments »
I can’t help feeling this is a poor, muddled decision by the selectors to call up Jonathan Trott. It’s exceptionally unfair on him to expect a serious score, on debut, in the biggest England match for four years. The blame, of course, should be laid squarely at England’s faltering and feeble middle-order, whose failures have prompted such drastic change. But there’s almost a sense of covering their arses; “he’s a debutant, so if he fails, don’t blame us”. Flower must understand Ravi Bopara better than anyone, though, and realised he’s a lost cause for the time being.
Only seen him play once or twice, but by all accounts he’s a very, very passionate South African-turned-Englishman. Like Pietersen. And others. And our future wicketkeeper, Kieswetter. Er, and Strauss. And some others.
9 Comments »
The Ramprakash selection
By Will last year, mid-August, 7 Comments »
The last person who would want to see the name Ramprakash in next week’s side for the fifth Test is, probably, Mark Ramprakash himself. It has #fail written all over it, and it’s hardly fair on him either. But the hilarious situation was best summed up by a Cricinfo reader who left the following golden comment:
To keen and able sledgers such as the Aussies, Ramprakash will be manna from heaven. His age. His test record. His dancing. And in the 2nd innings, his 1st inning score.
Spot on, sir.
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 »Flintoff unlikely to play at Headingley
By Will last year, at the start of August, 1 Comment »
Not looking good. Straight shoot-out between Sidebottom and Harmison – my money’s on the former. Meanwhile – will Stuart Clark and Brett Lee come back? Lee’s impressed in the nets; will he be thrown into the deep?
1 Comment »Ponting and Murdoch
By Will last year, at the start of August, 4 Comments »
Not Rupert. Or James. But Billy Murdoch. He was the last Australia captain to lose an Ashes series twice in England, and Ricky Ponting is fast closing in on that dubious record. That much we know. But we (well, I, certainly) are less knowledgeable about Murdoch himself, so do have a read of his obituary – if only for the wonderfully antiquated language.
And here’s the Wisden Almanack report of the Australians’ ill-fated 1890 tour. “From whatever point of view it is looked at,” the report says, “the seventh tour of Australian cricketers in England can only be regarded as a failure.”
There is poetry in the similarities between the pair. Now that Ponting has overtaken Allan Border as Australia’s leading run-scorer, he can comfortably be described as one of their greatest-ever batsmen. And in 1890, so was Murdoch.
4 Comments »Naturally a good deal of the interest of the trip centred in the doings of W.L. Murdoch, who had returned to the game after an absence of about five years, and, as in 1880, 1882, and 1884, was captain of the side. It was rather a risky experiment for the greatest of all Australian batsmen to come back to first-class cricket after such a long interval, but the result proved that he had not misjudged his powers. It would be an exaggeration to say that he added anything to the laurels he had gained during his previous trips in England, but inasmuch as he scored the largest aggregate of runs and came out with the best average, it would be equally wrong to say that he failed. His style was as perfect as ever, and when the wickets were good he gave many a display of batting that was worthy of his best days.
Cycling from Lord’s to The Gabba
By Will last year, at the start of August, 1 Comment »
Cricket does something odd to people. The Ashes does something even odder. I don’t know what it is, but it seems to inspire crazy, unlikely ideas to spring out of nowhere; cricket acts as a platform on which the maddest of plans are hatched, and most of them come off. The latest comes from Oli Broom who writes in with the cheery news that he’s going to cycle, on his own, from Lord’s to The Gabba in Brisbane and he hopes to raise £4 for every kilometer. His legs will have taken him 25,000km.
There’ll be a fuller piece on this at Cricinfo in the next day or two but, in the meantime, here’s what Oli is planning:
In October this year I am starting a 25,000 km solo cycling expedition from Lord’s to The Gabba in time to take my seat for the first Ashes test in Brisbane (the Ashes tour itinerary hasn’t been set but the first test is likely to be around 25th November 2010).
In short, the expedition has 3 aims:
1. To cycle from Lord’s to The Gabba in time to see England play Australia in the first Ashes Test Match of the 2010/11 series. I’m hoping to have friends / colleagues join me for certain legs of the journey – quite a few have expressed an interest.
2. To raise £10 for every kilometre that I cycle (so about £250,000). Funds raised are to be divided between two charities – The Lord’s Taverners, whose mission sits very well next to the aims of the expedition – and the British Neurological Research Trust at UCL (a close friend I used to play cricket with broke his neck and is now paralysed and needs 24 hour care – the BNRT undertake ground breaking research into such injuries).
3. To play cricket in as many countries as I can on my way across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, the Sub-Continent, South-East Asia and Australia. These games wont all be scheduled matches, although I’m hoping to get a few proper ones through contacts at the ICC, MCC and Lords Taverners.
Click here to download the PDF with all his aims and ambitions and media contacts.
1 Comment »Edgbaston washout
By Will last year, at the end of July, 3 Comments »
The Ashes may be thundering into the public consciousness at the moment, but when the players take the field tomorrow, they’ll need their wellies. In fact, the word on the Brummy street is that they won’t even get that far. The outfield is like a bog, it’s been raining almost constantly all day, and the groundsmen haven’t even begun to look at the sheets covering the pitch. It’s looking downright miserable, and there’s even some concern over whether there will be any play on Friday.
Steve Rouse and co. are working through the night, in between more heavy showers, but it’s going to be an uphill battle against the great British summer. Flapping hell. Keep your eyes peeled on the radar and, in the meantime, have a listen to Rouse’s cracking interview with us on the Switch Hit cricket show which we did yesterday.
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