One of the lowlights of the pre-Ashes media banter is the kicking our lads usually get in the Australian press. I would write ‘gutter press’, but that goes without saying – there is no highbrow press down under. Unfortunately for the critics however, England have started the tour pretty well. We beat Western Australia in fine style, and we’re well poised in the second warm-up match against the Red Backs in Adelaide. The Aussie hacks therefore haven’t found a lot to snipe about yet...
PCB turns its back on Zulqarnain
When has logic ever come into Pakistan cricket? The PCB today announced that Zulqarnain Haider, the wicket keeper who defied the match fixers and fled for his life, has had his central contract terminated. They didn’t even wait until they’d spoken to Haider, who presumably might have expected the support of his employers after such a harrowing experience. What do the PCB think they are doing? They claim they’re determined to root out corruption from their national game, yet they penalise...
Haider-Way: Pakistan keeper does a runner
The news broke yesterday that Pakistan’s wicket keeper Zulqarnain Haider, the man whose name we’d pay good money to hear Bill Lawry pronounce, had suddenly quit Pakistan’s matches in Dubai and fled to England. He is currently claiming asylum. Haider recently hit the winning runs in the fourth ODI against South Africa. However, he claimed he received a threatening text message beforehand demanding he throw the match. He therefore decided to do a runner sharpish – and who can blame him.
The Perfect Start
It was never in doubt (ahem). England were always going to reverse their patchy form over the first two days and beat Western Australia convincingly. How could we have thought otherwise? Just because we batted like pelicans (or should that be flamin’ Galahs?) in the first innings, didn’t mean we were going to continue the English tradition of fluffing our lines in Ashes tour matches. So shame on you if you loaded teletext with trepidation on Sunday morning – did you forget that winning the...
The XXXX-up Factor
Things aren’t going well for the Aussies. Seven defeats in a row now, silly mistakes in the field, reported disharmony in the dressing room – it’s music to any England fan’s ears. And then there’s the captaincy controversy. We all know about Ponting’s weaknesses as a skipper, but now certain players are allegedly unhappy with Michael Clarke – whose aspirations to become Australia’s next great field general seem destined to end in general disarray. He certainly didn’t impress anyone with...
Mystic Glenn stirs the pot
One of the more recent Ashes traditions is Glenn McGrath’s biannual prediction of a five-nil whitewash. True to form, Pigeon has once again dusted off his crystal ball, studied his tea leaves, and forecast another Aussie clean sweep. “I couldn’t have more faith in the boys”, he said yesterday. “I think we’ll bounce back and win all the Tests. They’ll be close, but I’m tipping a 5-0 whitewash.” We’ve been here before, and the obvious...
