A Conversation for Talking Point: The World of Sport

Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 21

Skankyrich [?]

Well, I got Watson right. Didn't see Hughes getting the chop, though - that was a surprising decision. Johnson looks more the part now, but how undercooked do you have to be to only start firing in the Third Test?

Interesting couple of hours ahead now. Flintoff and Broad have got England back into a great position when it looked like Australia might get on top. Australia will surely look to be aggressive and aim for parity by the end of the day; England will desperately want the wickets of Ponting and Katich, because the rest look vulnerable.


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 22

Pinniped


And they got them.
I'd say that the entire Australian team, without exception, looks vulnerable.
Ponting is a shadow of his former self, and diminishing daily. Katich never has been in the league of past greats.
It will hinge on the first hour tomorrow, pretty obviously, but I'll be massively disappointed now if we don't win the series by two clear Tests at least. These tourists are by a long distance the weakest I've seen in thirty years. With the advantage of home pitches and support, we need to absolutely stuff them if English Test cricket is going anywhere soon.

I thought Johnson's attempts at staring down the tail were pretty amusing. He managed to raise his bowling performance to merely ineffectual today, a massive improvement on previous form. I bet it's not just Ponting who's on his last visit though.


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 23

sprout

Can't watch any cricket any more, sadly, but have been enjoying the radio coverage. It's been a nicely balanced series, and while I agree that this is not a strong Oz team, they were good enough to beat SA at their place recently...

sprout


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 24

Keith Miller yes that Keith Miller

Well vulnerable or not they have still comfortably held out the English and some good batting performances in there too.
Weakest side to arrive on English shores in a long time is still good enough to have gone close to an absolute spanking of the home side in the first test and but for the English curse (your weather) so it would of been.
It was interesting to watch Bell be plumb in front on 2 possibly 3 occasions and that the inept Koetzon signalled no he wasn't.

England's failure to take the necessary wickets on the final day would of caused them some concern and all of the positives lay with Australia on that final day.

Didn't Anderson field well, he had a blinder of a match and he was a pleasure to watch in good swinging conditions. I thought his control was excellent, full marks to him.
So too Clarke, his was a gritty steeled performance, tempered with the requisite amount of luck that most need in desperate situations.
The pedestrian North compiled yet another big score and his stat's for just 5 Tests are rather impressive, much as many would wish for Hodge to be in his position.
Flintoff bashed a lovely cavalier 70 odd which also stopped the Australians from sniffing a possible foot in the door of victory, well done to him too, his bowling though was rather ordinary.

Well it's on to the next round now and going by Pin's post it's almost a done deal this series, we'll have to wait and see though how these rather weak and ineffectual Antipodeans respond to the challenge of the English Test colossus and the usual denigration by the English supporters and press.
It's all part of the game.
smiley - winkeye


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 25

Pinniped


Fair do's, KM. That last post would have looked better if Oz had tail-upped. Didn't happen, never was going to.
We really should be stuffing you though. Adequate batting, except for a couple of disaster-sessions, but your bowling you have to admit has been unmitigated rubbish.

Anyhow, what kind of Australian are you? The only Aussies I've ever met who I couldn't wind up are the laconic ones.
You, sir, are not laconic.
I bet you're from somewhere posh like Melbourne (come to think of it, wasn't the original KM?)


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 26

Keith Miller yes that Keith Miller

"Melbourne posh"smiley - laugh Tell a Sydneysider that: No I'm in the rural countryside where I might add that the majority of our cricketers now come from.
An interesting item on the news a few days ago was pointing out this statistic; that in the last twenty years only a few Test players from NSW have been from Sydney the rest have all been country boys.

Yes your right I don't do wind-ups or get wound up (all very timepiece isn't it?) and I've never met an Englishman who could do it (yet) and your right the original KM was a Melbourne lad which is possibly where he picked up his caddish ways that so appealed to the cricketing public at large and quite a few members of the English aristocracy (the female sidesmiley - blush).

What's tail-upped then,I've never heard the expression?

As for the bowling; well Johnson has been doing a good impression of Harmison at times and has not adapted well to English conditions and Siddle is ill disciplined , Hilfenhaus has been commendable and Hauritz to his credit has not been the disaster that most thought he would be.
You seem to use strong definite descriptors like "unmitigated disaster" and "weakest side you've seen" and a few others and that's where we differ I think as I'm not quite that opinionated in my descriptions, though plenty of other Aussies are and were there more here then I think you'd see a bit more rising to the bait so to speak.

I also realise that for a long time you could not describe an Australian side thus so but in this rebuilding phase you can: It's all very eighties from my perspective and to be truthful I'm really enjoying it as a lot of the current Test positions are not cemented in and for the foreseeable future there will be rotations going on and I get a chance to see a lot of different new young players.

This will of course also turn about our selection policy which has been timid in the extreme of late and hopefully a couple of selectors will fall on their swords too which would be a good thing.
The rub of the green has been heavily in favour of you English but if that starts to change then you might get a surprise from this weakest side you've seen.
smiley - winkeye


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 27

Pinniped


Tail-upped? Well I could have said nose-dived, only that's a view from the top of the world so I gave it a nether-regions perspective.

'Unmitigated disaster' was overstating it for wind-up purposes, but you're surely not going to disagree that Australia's major problem is toothless bowling. Australia are the better batting side but the lowest score a relatively brittle England has made first up is 376, and even that was when chasing a lead.

You're right, Hilfenhaus has bowled well and Hauritz too sometimes, and they would be good foils to someone who isn't Johnson at the other end. I just don't see how you will bowl us out cheaply enough to win unless we lose our nerve. That's always a risk at 1-0 though. The big frustration of the English cricket supporter is the eternal hesisation when in a strong position.

In spite of a poor last day, I won't buy that Australia were in a strong position at Edgbaston at any stage after the first ball on the second morning. Clarke and North played well, but the lead wouldn't have conceded unless England were trying to buy a wicket.

If you mean Cardiff by 'rub of the green', then I'm sorry mate but that was self-inflicted. The one piece of genuine bad luck you've had once the series started was losing Haddin. That balances up Pietersen, I'd say, though it's useful to have a spare English South African in our friend Rudy. Bell you have to put up with. He was put on this earth to frustrate both sides.

'Weakest side I've seen' isn't wind-up, it's fact. Trouble is, it's not far off fact of England too.

I probably won't crow again till Headingley's a done-deal. It's going to be a bit of a lottery played on a sudden dungheap, and I reckon that's your last chance. The Oval will be it's usually true self, and your lot couldn't bowl a team of schoolgirls out there in a week.


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 28

Keith Miller yes that Keith Miller

Well we'll see then how things unfold with talk now of a possible return by Lee into the pie chuckers ranks.
As for crowing why wait till London? By the sounds of things it's a fait accompli and all that needs doing is the saying of last rights.
Hopefully the accursed weather will hold back for five days but from what I've seen of reports that's a bit fanciful.


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 29

Pinniped


Bl**dy stupid game.
I never did understand what anybody sees in it.


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 30

Keith Miller yes that Keith Miller

Funny game indeed.
What a wonderful, wonderful little innings from Ponting, it was an absolute pleasure to watch, far better than his 150 I thought. He's class and he showed someof it in that innings, long may he bat.smiley - cheers
We're not out of the woods yet by a long shot but it's a start.

A few quick wickets tonight and England are in but I'd also add that Clark is doing what Clark does best: Line and length, line and length and 17 balls before a run was scored off him and then 3 balls on he nabs his first big wicket.
One can only wonder at the folly of the selectors in leaving him out for so long.

On to day two.


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 31

Pinniped


OK, so I asked for this nightmare.

In the face of the most gutless, execrable capitulation ever, do we get hordes of Aussies treading it in? No, we get one amiable, decent colonial trying to persuade us politely that Ponting is a decent bloke and a wonderful bat.

I want to scream.

Look, FM - if idiots bowl that short on this pitch, you don't actually have to be wonderful to hit them.
Likewise if you bowl halfway properly, batsmen as hapless as England's current 3/4/5 are cannon fodder.

This Australian bowling attack is rubbish by the standards of its forebears, and England are still somehow contriving to make them look good.

Please, please, do the decent thing and tread it in, KM. If your lot insist on acting all nice and confirm our deep-set suspicions that your nation's metaphorical d*ck dropped off around the Millennium, and yet an emasculated travesty of Australia's former sporting prowess is STILL capable of beating us hollow...well, that's too much to bear.

Special mention merited for Bopara. To be exceptionally pathetic amid this particular team performance is quiet an achievement, but the aforementioned has achieved it. I don't think I've ever seen an invertebrate cricketer before. I think we owe it to his shamed family to lynch him, render his carcass down and convert it to glue, in the hope of showing those unfortunate relatives that there's at least some tiny part of Bopara's corporeal substance that's capable of sticking.


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 32

Skankyrich [?]

They'll keep Bopara for the next Test and he'll score a century smiley - nahnah

Let me ask you two questions about England's selection:

1. What is Steve Harmison's natural length? (No, not his width)

2. What is Ian Bell's biggest weakness?

Harmison is at his best on bouncy pitches where he can bang it in short. Last week, we were told there was little bounce in the Headingley pitch, and it's a ground that favours pitch-it-up swing. So why even call up Harmison? Where was Sidebottom? Or even Hoggard?

Bell has shown time and again that he can't play the inswinger. How many times have you seen him out lbw to the ball that got him out yesterday? So on a pitch where the ball is going to be full and swinging...

Hindsight is easy, of course, but I was really hoping the selectors knew what they were doing when they called those two up. They didn't. And Ravi is just not experienced enough to bat at three. In time he could be the best batsman of his generation, but he isn't going to score runs against top teams first wicket down.

The question is, where do England go with their middle order? Fat Bob is past his best. Shah isn't trusted (my favourite batsman, incidentally, but he can't judge a single to save his life). Hildreth looks to have the talent, but I suspect he'd be found out at the top level. But they need fresh blood in there - Colly has looked like he's on borrowed time for the last couple of years, and he has no natural successor if Ravi is already at three.

And what the hell was with the length? Australia showed how to bowl on that track, and Johnson - as I predicted - is warming to the conditions with each innings. England bowled far too short, then went in for tea and were presumably told to bowl fuller. They came back out and bowled the same length and got hammered. Then they got up this morning and still bowled it short. Where have the wickets come, all game? Full-length bowling. Atrocious.

England may have made it easy for them, but even you have to admit the Aussies bowled well, Pin. Stick to the plan and get the reward. This was always likely to be a low-scoring game, but the Aussies kept it tight while we fed them.

All of a sudden, England are in chaos. Do they stick to the plan for the series and keep faith in the same side, or do they make some pretty serious changes? Either way could end in disater, but neither could be worse than losing a Test in two days and a session.


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 33

Skankyrich [?]

'No, we get one amiable, decent colonial trying to persuade us politely that Ponting is a decent bloke and a wonderful bat.'

Yeah, fair play to KM. Should I email Trout?


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 34

Pinniped


OhMyGod, just when things couldn't get any worse, the Amiable Colonial is joined by the Windy Landlord.

>>Even you have to admit the Aussies bowled well, Pin<<
No I don't. I don't have to admit anything, owing to the fact that I'm entitled by birthright to hate the b*st*rds. I am on this one occasion prepared to say that they bowled adequately. Not well, just adequately, and that for the first time in the series.

The reason I'm so disappointed is not because I thought we had a good team, because I didn't, and not because I thought the selectors have the wit to put the bext XI on the field, because I don't. I'm disappointed because I thought that a workaday bowling attack and an obdurate and stodgy batting line-up would at least give their best and grind away and not give up. Instead they've capitulated. That's just a shameful, gutless, unforgiveable performance, and every one of them should be dropped and paid zilch.

Remember how they honoured the last home Ashes squad? How about a repeat. Let's honour all of this lot with Zimbabwean citizenship.

I'm being serious when I say this. I reckon I've played myself alongside at least half-dozen club cricketers who'd have made a better showing in this match against that opposition than an equivalent number of the England team. And I'd have backed myself to do better than Bopara.


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 35

Skankyrich [?]

smiley - rofl

Fella, life would be very dull without you around.


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 36

Keith Miller yes that Keith Miller

Just woke up after an entertaining nights cricket where Australia did what it had been threatening to do on paper all summer long.
England's bowling wasn't good and they never put enough pressure on our batsmen who statistically were the better batsmen and so it has proved.

Your two best are your openers and if I was cruel like some commentators then once one of the openers is gone then your into the English tail.
I'm not very good at"treading it in" I'm afraid but surely your selectors knew what we'd think if we saw that Bell was being reinstated?
It would of given the side a collective lift and the recall of Harmison hardly less. Is there something wrong with Sidebottom that he wasn't in the selectors field of thought?

Well I'm glad we're in a position to square the series and to have got this far with a mixed side of experience players and the new chums. Ponting's prints are all over this side and he likes continuity and he's pushed the selectors to keep faith and keep change to a minimum, with Hughes being the one casualty.

I find it hard to believe the Watson is a bona fide opener and to have scored 3 fifties on the trot says more about your bowling than about his batting
KP would of made a huge difference of course and one can only wonder what he might of done but for injury.

Bopara needs to go and be replaced by...who is next in line for first drop then? I don't know much about Trott, is he a number three?

One other question is: Is The Oval as flat a track as has been stated or can results be had there?


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 37

Skankyrich [?]

You're quite right about Sidebottom. He's done nothing wrong, and yet is sidelined. If you wanted to play five bowlers on a swinging pitch, you'd pick the left-hander who plays at home on that pitch every time, wouldn't you? I don't understand why Sidey has been sidelined.

The truth with Bell is that there isn't anyone else, other than those I mentioned above. The tabloids will say the current crop are a disgrace, but who else is there?

It's interesting that you see continuity of selection as a strength, whereas I see it as England's greatest weakness. We stuck with Bell, Collingwood, Harmison, Panesar and even Strauss through lean periods when they should have been dropped. What happens when they fail? They are kept in the side: we have invested in them, they have talent, we want consistency in selection, team morale, that sort of thing.

So you can fail fairly regularly, but if your face fits, you keep your place. If you're a guy like Shah or Tremlett, the best you can hope for is an emergency call-up.

England now have to accept that they've stuck with failures for too long. Who can come in for Colly, Bell, and Pin's favourite? You'd have dropped all three at various times; but England's desire for 'consistency in selection' has left us without anyone at all in the middle order. We need to blood people more frequently. Why is being dropped considered to be so soul-destroying in cricket anyway?

England now need to win at the Oval. I would bring in Shah for Bopara at 3, and Sidebottom for Harmy; you've then got Anderson, Broad, Onions and Sidebottom as the seamers with Swann to spin it, and that's a much more balanced attack. And I'd also bring in Trott - they must know more about him than me, right? - for Collingwood.

Pin's right, Keith. You're far too reasonable about all this. When you say:

'I find it hard to believe the Watson is a bona fide opener and to have scored 3 fifties on the trot says more about your bowling than about his batting'

I:
'I find it hard to believe you're a bona fide Australian and to have made three non-offensive postings says more about your barbecue skills than your one-upmanship over the colonial masters....' smiley - winkeye

Fair play. Or should that be 'dinkum'?


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 38

Trout Montague

"An interesting item on the news a few days ago was pointing out this statistic; that in the last twenty years only a few Test players from NSW have been from Sydney the rest have all been country boys."

Likewise, Old Spice was listening to (the unfortunately named) Richard Fidler talk to Triple-J's Steve Cannane, who's just written a book, "Great Australian Cricketers and the Backyards That Made Them":

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/stories/2009/2643812.htm

As I understand, there's a school of thought that the rise of the McMansion (and simultaneous demise of the quarter acre suburban block) has contributed to a decline in suburban cricket hereabouts. Maybe. And almost to a man, the kids in my oldest's U-11 team are from rural-residential (3000 sq.m and up) blocks of land.

Anyway, my experience of the UK is thin, but the UK, I fancy,
(a) readily accepts that NOT doing sport (or some other activity) is acceptable (whereas the Australia I know emphatically doesn't),
(b) does not market cricket at all to children as something to be involved with from an early age. Cricket in the UK is (to my recall) for the well-to-do stripey-tie brigade: you only play if you get picked for your secondary school team if you showed some promise during rounders (goodness knows how much talent goes untapped). Australia sees it differently and pushes junior cricket (e.g., http://cricket.com.au/default.aspx?s=in2cricket) as vigorously at is does competing its "codes", e.g., Little Athletics, AusKick, Soccer, NRL.

With regard to Keith Miller's understated assessment of the Ashes to date, I live and work among the gum-chewers and regularly sense little interest when Ponting and his men go overseas. You'd hardly know they went to South Africa in January. A home series on the other hand holds the nation rapt. But when they play away, who cares? Maybe this is exacerbated because they are (until the last two days) losing the Ashes ("cricket, what cricket?"). But you'd hardly know that Ponting just passed Alan Borders' run-scoring record. Now, I'm only thankful that the Brisbane Ekka holiday means that I won't have to go back to work until Thursday. But I'm half confident that the ribbing I get will be brief, if anyone remembers to at all.

Perhaps it's the intensity of English sporting support (Barmy Army, Fat Les, Baddiel and Skinner, The Sun) that whips up the Old Dart to such emotional fervour that we (English) expect that sort of overblown payback when our teams fail. As an Englishman abroad, I miss the self-effacing heart-felt patriotism that the UK media sells. And as a plastic Australian, I envy it. I sense, so do they.


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 39

Keith Miller yes that Keith Miller

So your up near Brisbane, Trout? Your not that far from me then (Byron Bay area, Far North Coast). Steve Cannane it was I heard on AM with Fran Kelly.
I dunno about this series not being on the radar, if you check the SMH or AGE or even The Australian for that matter then you'll see that Ashes stories make up the the top 3 or 4 stories each day. I'm heading over there now to check out Roebuck's take on it for instance.
I'm working with about 5 or six blokes today on a footpath construction job, I'll do a straw poll and find out who's watching the Test series or keeping abreast of it. I agree with you about the SA series though, but to my mind it has a bit to do with the fact that there was no Free To Air broadcast of the series.

Shame we couldn't get Broad and Swanne out cheaply as it would of amounted to Englands worst ever defeat or somesuch. Still which ever way you look at it it was a thrashing and a nice way to come back into the series. That's my gloat done thensmiley - smiley

Clark had the shine knocked off his first innings performance but theres no denying Johnson has recovered part of his mojo (he's still spraying them a bit though). Wonder if they'll take Hauritz to the Oval.


Why is nobody discussing the Ashes?

Post 40

Trout Montague

It didn't take long for Ramprakash to get wheeled into the spotlight. Robert Key's name's in the frame too.

Hang about, I wonder what Chris Tavare's doing next week?

Or Chris Tarrant.


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