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 given us decades of abuse. And we’ve had to endure sarcastic headlines like ‘can anyone in England play cricket’. At this moment of impending triumph, I’d like to advocate...
Day three at Sydney
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 lunch. Cook batted beautifully – this was perhaps his best innings of the lot. Or at least I think it was. Judging by the way he played for the...
Is Captain Sensible any better than Captain Cranky?
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 they picked the right XI – maybe they would have won by more had they selected their new hero, Usman Khawaja, instead of the nervy Steve Smith? Unfortunately, the...
Day two at Sydney
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, 2-2 would be a travesty. But this match is now on a knife-edge. All the talk will concern how on earth we allowed Johnson and Hilfenhaus to add 91 runs for the last...
Pup still in the dog house
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. Clarke even had the world’s most glamorous (or drop dead goregous) cricket WAG: the model Lara Bingle – pictured above. We apologise to our female readers for publishing such a...
Day one at Sydney
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 good session, and threaten to dominate, only for the Aussies to put us back in our place. Isn’t the change refreshing? Long way to go yet, of course...
