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Mike Gatting used to be King of England in the sixteenth century
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1. The margin of victory Everyone expected a tight, closely fought series. Some pundits thought we might just be able to nick it – with a bit of help from the weather. No one, not even the ultra cheerleaders such as Sir Ian Botham, forecast an England win of such crushing magnitude. 3-1 – and…
1. Strauss’s LBW that wasn’t The England skipper took guard for the first ball of our second innings at Brisbane, trailing Australia by 221 runs. First ball, he padded up to a straight one, which, to the naked eye, appeared to be crashing into middle stump. Somehow, he was reprieved by Aleem Dar – and…
England (644) beat Australia (280 & 281) by an innings and 83 runs. This is what it’s all been for. The months of hope and expectation, tinged with anxiety; the seven long weeks of frayed nerves and sleep deprivation. It’s been worth it. Because, finally, we can stop worrying and simply enjoy the moment. We…
When a team has won an ‘amazing’ (©Kevin Pietersen) victory against their greatest rivals, the vanquished usually try to make themselves feel better by accusing the victors of arrogance and/or over exuberance. I propose we don’t even give the Aussies that. Let’s be as magnanimous as possible. Sure we’ll dance around like we’ve won…
Top bloke Paul Collingwood. A team man to the last. When it came to saving test matches, Colly was the immovable object. But with the Ashes in the bag, and a crop of young batsmen lining up to take his place, Paul Collingwood instinctively knew when to stand aside. Colly’s decision to retire from test…
Stumps: Australia 213-7 and 280. England 644. Three wickets. Smith, Siddle, Hilfenhaus, and Beer. Just three of those separate us from the fulfilment of our dreams. Ridiculously, I still harbour a bizarre nightmare in which Smith and Siddle put on 200 for the eighth wicket. They’ve already added 42. But we’re almost there, and God-willing,…
In the immortal words of Lou Reed, ‘you’re going to reap what you sow’. England’s batsmen deserve all the success (and luck!) they had yesterday. And what about the Australians – do they deserve to have their noses rubbed in it? As an Englishman, I’d say unreservedly yes. They’ve chopped and changed their team. They’ve…
Stumps: England 488-7. Australia 280. Memo to England’s batsmen: very, very well done. The mark of a champion team is their depth of resolve with the bat. Today, our batsmen approached their task with total authority, and transformed a slightly perilous position into a virtually impregnable one. In the past, we would have collapsed by…
Just because a plan has been successful doesn’t mean that another strategy wouldn’t have worked even better. The foot and mouth outbreak a few years ago was eventually contained, but Tony Blair often had his foot in his mouth during the crisis. Similarly, Australia won the third test at Perth, but that doesn’t necessarily mean…
Stumps: England 167-3. Australia 280. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. And here’s a very unpleasant notion to savour: Mitchell Johnson’s runs may have squared the series for Australia. In terms of the way Australia have bowled for most of our innings, and the way we bowled (and they batted) for most of theirs,…
Yesterday was another bad day in what has been a horrible year for Michael Clarke. Not long ago, ‘Pup’ was the golden boy of Australian cricket. As Ricky Ponting’s form declined, Clarke was not only captain elect of the world’s number one test team, he was probably the Aussies’ best batsman too. Life was good.…
Stumps: Australia 134-4. Here’s what was gratifying about today’s play: it was somehow inevitable that, by the close, we’d be in control of the game. Australia began promisingly, and then submitted once again to the authority of our cricket. For so many years this would happen the other way around: we might have one…
We’d like to hear your thoughts today about the significance – or otherwise – of winning the final test at the SCG. But before we get on to that, a quick word on Ricky Ponting, whose broken finger has now ruled him out of the match. In his absence, Michael “what ever happened to my…
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