Dear Father Christmas, On behalf of England supporters everywhere, here’s our wish-list for the festive season. – Twelve Punter tantrums. – Eleven failing Aussies. – Ten Siddles sledging. – Nine Prior stumpings. – Eight Maidens from Finn. – Seven Swanns at Sydney. – Six drops by Haddin. – Five (Australian) golden ducks. – Four Colly tons. – Three Hussey runs (only). – Two more wins. – And an urn held aloft by Straussy...
Unnecessary sledging is a slippery slope
Much has been made of Jimmy Anderson’s verbal confrontations with the Aussies during the first three tests. Stuart Clark, who I admit is not my favourite person, even suggested that Anderson had become Australia’s ‘twelfth man’; his logic was that Jimmy’s sledging irked the Australians and motivated them to play so well at Perth. Clark was of course talking balderdash – the Aussies were clearly fired up before the series even started – but his sentiments raised an important issue. Does sledging...
It’s about the batting, stupid
Every time England suffer a calamitous batting performance, they respond by dropping a bowler. It’s almost an instinctive reaction, to blame any defeat on the foot soldiers. Perhaps it’s a last vestige of the old ‘upstairs downstairs’ attitude of separating the officer class (the batsmen) from the cannon-fodder (the leather chuckers). Everyone seems to agree that Finn is knackered and must be rested for the MCG. Thanks to everyone who’s contributed to our lively...
Australia’s hopes for a green MCG pitch highlights their frailties
During the early nineties, England’s bowling attack was so innocuous that we could only win on green Headingley wickets. Having seen the likes of Neil Foster, Alan Igglesden and Neil Mallender flayed to all corners of Lords and Edgbaston etc, Ted Dexter would make his annual phone call to Yorkshire to beg the Leeds groundsman to water the pitch, leave plenty of grass on it, and perhaps add some artificial green colouring too – who knows – anything to get into the opposition’s heads. It...
Should England go with Fatty or Finny?
Poor Steve Finn had a bit of a lean spell at the WACA – so much so that Flower and Strauss are weighing up whether to plum for (or should that be ‘plump’ for) Tim Bresnan. It would be tough on Finn, who is the leading wicket taker in the series so far, but there’s no question he’s been leaking runs at an alarming rate.
Flower spoke yesterday about the need for England to build pressure at the MCG, therefore it looks like the rotund Bresnan’s accuracy might have tipped the scales in his favour.
Ten questions for England
1. How psychologically damaging were the Perth batting collapses? It will be a miracle if none of our top six now doubt their ability to perform against Johnson and Harris. Comparisons are being made with the Oval 2009, where we bounced back after the rout at Headingley. But our first innings score in that match was a fairly modest 332 – it was Broad’s devastating bowling spell which actually saved our bacon. Speaking of momentum, it’s interesting that Australia started very...
