Have you heard the one about the Englishman, the Irishman and the Zimbabwean? England’s performance at Sydney – the worse performance of the worst tour of all time – gave Australians a feast of belly laughs. It was a spineless, incompetent, shambles. A joke. Not even the bookmakers could have predicted quite how easy it was for Australia. It was just as bad as England’s recent practice sessions – in which Jonny Bairstow dropped everything that came his way and the players hardly looked...
Anatomy of a failure part 3 – the coaches
Just before I went to bed last night, Ian Bell groped at a ball outside off stuff, got a faint edge and was caught behind. His team were left staring into the abyss at 23-5. Amongst the numerous disasters that have unfolded this tour, the dismissal was innocuous enough. However, for me it was typical, and symptomatic of a broader problem that has cost us the Ashes more than any other single factor. Bell played at the ball with a slightly open face. He’s been doing it all tour. It brought him...
On the eve of destruction
We love a bit of melodrama here at TFT. It’s why I couldn’t resist this headline. Deliberately blowing things out of proportion – as if cricket is the only thing that matters – reminds us that it is, after all, only a game. The emotions we’ve felt over the last few weeks – despair, frustration, anger amongst them – are all understandable, but a little silly. Cricket is our hobby; it’s for fun. Our careers and livelihoods aren’t on the line. Nor will anybody die if / when England lose the Ashes...
Well what did you expect? Day four at the MCG
Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear. Say hi-di-hi to the worst England tour of all time. In 2007 an injury ravaged team, robbed of their inspirational captain and three key bowlers, lost 0-5 to one of the best teams ever to play the game. This time, a seemingly healthy team recently ranked number one in the world – a team with several players averaging nearly fifty with the bat – will lose 0-5 to an Australian team cobbled together four months ago; a team...
Australia finally win something
Australia 298 (49.1 overs). England 249 (48 overs) Well, the bowling figures said it all. Boyd Rankin took 1-26, Chris Jordan 3-53, Stokes 5-61 whilst the others had combined figures of 20 overs 1-150. England had the Aussies on the ropes at 48-3 but then we had to bring on the part-timers – because we failed, for the umpteenth time in a row, to pick a balanced side. Watson and Clarke duly picked them off like prawn tempura at a Thai buffet, and suddenly the Aussies had set close to 300 – a...
