We’ve all got mates who dislike cricket (or don’t understand it). I happened to be with one yesterday evening when the fifth test finally got interesting. At one point, I think I was converting him. “This is pretty tense” he said, “I can see why this Pietersen bloke gets so much attention”. And then, just at the point when he’d moved from a slouched position to the very edge of his seat, Aleem Dar called for his light-meter. The rest, you can probably guess. “This is exactly why I hate cricket”...
The Ashes are ours. But we hardly set the world on fire.
Well, we did it. Or to be more accurate, the rain did it. Despite losing three quick wickets in the only short passage of play possible, we got an ill deserved draw and retained the Ashes. Hallelujah. The problem is, it all feels a bit empty. Nobody wanted it to materialise this way. Call me daft as a brush, but I didn’t want it to rain today. I wanted us to bat out the day with no alarms, just to demonstrate our blatant superiority: to show the Aussies that days 1-4 were an aberration, and...
Is this Adelaide 2006? Day two at Old Trafford
Australia 527-7 dec. England 52-2 Do you remember that all-important third test seven years ago? We were 0-2 down in the series. Freddie won a crucial toss on a good pitch; England batted brilliantly (with the much maligned Paul Collingwood scoring a double ton) and we declared with the score on 551 late on the second day. At stumps we had dismissed Justin Langer cheaply, and our bowlers were all over the Aussies like chicken pox. The next morning we reduced them to 60 odd for 3. All the...
Sheer brilliance overshadowed utter incompetence – day one at Old Trafford
Ok. I’m going to take a deep breath before writing this. First of all, lets deal with the pitch … It’s flat, and it got flatter as the first day progressed. Bumble, the one member of the Sky team with local knowledge, doesn’t think it will break up as the game progresses. Let’s hope he’s right. In theory, it won’t be easy for either team to take 20 wickets on this. When it does occasionally offer a bit of seam movement, it’s so extravagant (and seemingly random) that it misses the bat by a...
The Big Bluff? Third Test Preview
Andy Flower is no longer Andy Flower. He’s Agent Flower; working on Her Majesty’s very secretive service. Ever since the Lord’s test finished, England have been playing mind-games with the Aussies. What will the Old Trafford pitch be like? Will it be as dry as Richie Benaud’s favourite muscadet? Will England play two spinners? As a result, Michael Clarke’s canary yellows seem to be desperate to play two spinners themselves – even though we keep hearing that their strength is fast bowling. How...
Foregone conclusion? I don’t think so – day four at Trent Bridge
Andrew Strauss has been a great addition to the Sky commentary team. But like many of us he made one bad error of judgement at the start of day four: he said England already had enough runs when the lead went past 250. Wrong! We really could’ve done with another one hundred runs in the end. As it happened, we got another sixty. Game on. After Watson and Rogers’ excellent start, it looked almost inevitable that Australia would chase the necessary 311 for victory. Then we took a couple of wickets...
