Day two at Perth

Stumps: Australia 119-3 and 268. England 187.

I hate to say ‘I told you so’, but…

It was obviously all too good to last. And impossible that England would go through an entire series in Australia without a day like this. The big question is – how many more will there be?

As now seems obvious, we became a little too over-excited after Adelaide. That result was rather an exaggeration: we are neither quite so good, nor Australia quite so bad. Remember, they bested us for the first three days at Brisbane. It was inevitable that at some point the pendulum must swing back towards the Baggy Greens. An Anakin Skywalker figure would emerge to bring balance to the force. What we didn’t predict was the sheer savagery that would involve

Last night, many of us retired to bed fearful of what news of our batting – on such a crucial day – the morning would bring. When your correspondent awoke, just before 5am, I was at first genuinely too scared to look at the score. Then I reasoned to myself – don’t be ridiculous: we are bossing this series and even if Australia prise a couple out early, all the top order are in nick. Stop being so paranoid. And then I looked at the score. 98-5.

Overall, we’ve had the rub of the green in this series – until today, when the momentum was so much with Australia that everything conspired against us. Have a look at Prior’s dismissal – he didn’t play the ball particularly well, but the triple-ricochet onto his stumps was desperately unlucky, especially as Siddle was otherwise bowling very poorly at the time. It’s funny how those accidents always happen at 145-5, and never 550-4. Bell was superb, but for the second time this series perished purely because he was batting with the tail.

There was vindication for the argument that we should never have allowed Australia to reach 268. They added 129 for their last four wickets, and 67 for the last two; we collapsed from 181-6 to 187 all out.

Australia did bowl well, and better than we did in the final session. It was obviously a memorable day for Mitchell Johnson, and from an England supporter’s perspective – who could wish it on a more likeable cricketer? Ahem. Johnson annoys because he’s crap most of the time, but devastating occasionally, so we feel defrauded. At least with McGrath and Warne you knew where you stood.

Johnson is a curious individual. Dishevelled and rangy – a bit like Jason Gillespie, but without the glamour. He was also at the heart of the sledging which has become a prominent feature of this test match. The Full Toss has a very clear policy on sledging. We say – it depends.  It’s absolutely fine for England do to it, but terrible when Australia do.

That said, it was quite heartening to see the Aussies have a moan – and thereby reveal their nerves and low self-esteem. Ponting is a champion player, and a man of genuine cricketing virtue – but when he begins carping and moaning, you see a different side to him: an arrogant three year old who thinks it’s unfair he’s only won 47 test matches as captain.

Moving on to the England bowling, Tremlett again looked the real deal – but Finn is becoming a big problem for Strauss. The Middlesex man has conceded 134 runs from 24 overs so far in this match and looked way out of his depth. We might miss Broad more than we realised – the tail looks a lot weaker with Tremlett at nine.

More generally – and despite the horrors of today – isn’t it so more entertaining to watch a fast-moving, low scoring match – like this one – than a dreary run-fest? This is a perfect wicket for test cricket. Is anyone from the ICC watching?

Thoughts?

Maxie Allen

5 comments

  • Finn is a strange beast, an over or two of dross in the afternoon session followed by several good overs without being too threatening but picked up 2 wickets. He looks like someone who’s still learning and his accuracy will be how it gets his wickets.

    We stil look a strike bowler short – you think we will be pushed to playing Monty in Melbourne and Sydney – SCG surely, Melbourne?

  • Interesting one – Monty and the SCG. I’m going to risk the following prediction – Aus to win here, draw at MCG, and then we win the series at SCG – which historically is by far our most successful ground in Australia.

  • Sydney? You could well be right, but we’ve got to win the toss to let Swann get his opportunity in the 4th innings. I’m devastated after yesterday’s play because I really wanted us to retain the Ashes while Australia were down. My big fear for months has been that the toss at Sydney could decide the series (a bit like it did at the Oval to be fair). It’s one of the problems with cricket, and would be a wholly unsatisfactory ending – especially if we lose this time!

  • What a change of momentum in a day. Yesterday, there was a real chance England could have won back the ashes by Christmas. Now, they will do well to go into tomorrow hanging on.

  • It’s a depressingly old story – England’s lack of killer instinct. All they needed to do was get a decent first innings and the Aussies would have been under enormous pressure and folded. As it was we have let them back in to the series! Having said that I still think England are good enough to retain the Ashes.

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

copywriter copywriting