Nine months ago, a proud cricketing nation was in turmoil. Dressing room dissent was ubiquitous and their highly regarded captain under fire. Senior players were disillusioned with the management structure and key members of the squad even refused to do their homework (the horror!). This is the team that recently won the Ashes 5-0. It didn’t take much to sort things out, did it. They drew a line under their disagreements – like good men do – and united in a common cause. The Aussies...
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...
Bressie back in the swing
After a week of tedious debate about sledging (and the potential merits of punching George Bailey in the face) we can finally concentrate on the actual cricket again. Phew! Thanks heavens we can all move on. Anyone would’ve though that sledging is a new phenomenon. Let’s just say that Warner crossed a line when he called Trott ‘weak’ during his press conference, and Mitchell Johnson made us laugh when he claimed his sledging rattled England. Mitch, we don’t want to be too harsh, but if...
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...
Intimidated? I don’t think so
Part of my Christmas ritual (and probably yours too) is staying up to watch the first session of the Boxing Day test from the MCG. It used to be a dispiriting experience fifteen years ago. A succession of worthy challengers (some of which contained great bowlers like Ambrose, Walsh and Waqar Younis) would turn up with high hopes, but concede four hundred runs in a day and lose by an innings. How on earth was England’s attack (which at this point was led by Alan Mullally) going to take a single...
So we finally lost. Excuse me if I don’t slit my wrists
Eng 294 (50 overs). Shane Watson 297 (49.1 overs) A couple of days ago we asked if the ODIs mattered. After our loss to the Aussies on Sunday I think we can safely say ‘of course not, it’s just a bit of hit and giggle’. Had we won, however, we might have given you a different answer – but we won’t tell our antipodean friends that, will we. Seriously though, we shouldn’t be too disappointed with the result. We were missing our two best seam bowlers (Anderson and Broad), both of whom will...
