h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If Ramprakash is the answer then why not bring Gough back too?

Oh, hang on. It's not ballroom dancing we're playing, is it?

Flintoffs in for Harmison by all reports and Trott for Bopara looks likely.
I don't see Hauritz getting a game in London as I think they'll run on with an unchanged line up and barring injury why wouldn't they.

Flintoffs going to add a good dollop of steel to your line up and that talismanic shimmer as well. It's going to be a good match isn't it, you guys with everything to play for and us as well, what more could you want in a game?
I think we're not as good as our papers make out and your not as bad as your papers make out (Bell aside that is).

Bit of topic drift here.

I'm not that demonstrative in my chest thumping for my national team but I am passionate about Cricket and I follow my team in a patriotic sense.
I just flicked through the news headlines and down here at the moment they are ruled by an air tragedy in Papua New Guinea which has killed 9 Australians, but there is little mention of the other 4 people who have died.
It's a bit like a ferry sinking in Bangladesh or an earthquake in Qum where the former has deaths amounting to 375 and they include one Frenchwoman and one Englishman. The latter includes a tour party of 5 visiting members of the Scottish Parliament and fails to mention the 23 odd thousand locals killed or injured.

I don't agree with that and in death all are equal.
Just because we can put a name to a face and a tale to that face doesn't mean they are any better than the Bangladeshi villager and her brood of infants and toddlers who drowned or their clones in Qum.

I dislike this cheapening of human suffering that most people accept as the norm in news situations and rabid chest thumping equates to the same thing. I'd prefer to see a sub editor's heading along these lines: 13 dead in PNG crash, 9 Australians amongst the dead. Rather than: 9 Australians dead in air crash as they travel to WW2 pilgrimage...no mention of any one else suffering or dying.

Talk of "I hate the bastards" in reference to sporting contests and all the other triumphalism that abounds in popular culture just does me cold.

I'm quite happy to be cast as "genial" and I'm really,really glad that we don't have the "self-effacing heart-felt patriotism that the UK media sells.", it's a brand of thought that used to be quite at odds with us but now unfortunately under the growth of armchair Tory-ism under our previous government and an abandonment by the same of egalitarian principles diametrically at odds with English Class systems and the like (that I was brought up on) it has got a toe hold in the popular conscious.
Witness the hagiography of Gallipoli and the other rampantly popular pilgrimage to Kokoda. Both things that were once acknowledged and accepted for what they were and nothing more or less...but now it's termed 'un-Australian' to question this latent patriotism and the flag draped youth of the working class and rural areas fuel the growth of the industry.

All this new found jingoism is on show in the Cricket arena. You'd get jeered and laughed at a few decades ago if you turned up at the SCG or MCG and sat down and waved a flag about but nows it's de-rigour to do so. A pox on them and all the fourth estate who pump prime this kind of tardy display of faux patriotism.

Back to the cricket: I see Flintoffs in and the talk is of bowling him till he drops and utilising the 'Fred factor' to the max' and why not if you've got someone like him who inspires your team and followers.
The rest of the speculation about replacement batsmen remains just that but over here in Oz land our fervent and unsmiling solicitor who heads up our selection panel is quite belligerent almost in his efforts to let it be known that Clark is not really there and Lee may well be...the man's an embarrassment and would do well to leave the notice on his shingle that he is: Bob Simpson's son-in-law and a Solicitor at law in Adelaide Chambers and omit any mention that he was once Chairman (not person) of Selectors for the ACB.

Hurry up ...The Oval

Should really have replied to the comment about Hauritz in post #42. Any team that goes into a test at the Oval without a spinner deserves what it gets. Australia presumably thought they could just win the Ashes by batting for ever. What a hapless divot Ponting is.

It's the second evening, and I feel justified but not remotely happy. These tourists are truly rubbish. We should have won this series by two clear tests at least. Instead, we might still manage to lose it, and we've in any event contrived to make a faded, jaded opposition look like formidable opposition.

I hope we can just put the Kangaroo out of its misery now, and not have the poor, decrepit little b*st*rd attempt to struggle to its feet once more. It's not sport this time, somehow.

The first day's play (8 for 307?) was third on ABC Radio's sports coverage, after the AFL and NRL previews. No-one at work mentioned the result of the fourth test until a week later when there was some banter about Arsenal's 6-1 drubbing of Everton, and someone Australian said "You lot were a bit quiet last week weren't you?"

Like I said, they're not really interested in away series.

Clarke and Katich have both got six-fers at test level, plus they've got North. Combined with the fact that England's tail is exposed when Cook comes out to bat, why bother with the luxury of a specialist spinner? If Ponting should do things differently it would surely be to make more use of Clarke and Katich, instead of using North exclusively.

Trout: You inhabit a different world to me (and if your in Bris or QLD then that's actually true) as everyone I spoke to or interacted with on Friday was banging on about us losing the Ashes and it's a shame that that's going to happen.

I'm watching the Bledisloe Cup at the moment and then I'll click back to SBS to be bored to death by Sky's commentary team and I'll get texts all through the night about the resulting carnage or no.

Click on SMH and check out their top ten stories...they're all Ashes related and have been whenever the Ashes Tests have started. Don't mistake lack of comment for lack of interest.

They ribbed you about Arsenal 6-1? Really?

Mate soccer gets short shrift where I work and interact and to have someone come up and mention a Pommy soccer match would just lead to suggestions of a wind up. It doesn't happen in my workplace but obviously it does in yours.
Of more casual interest was the Bombers downing the Saints than some result in Premier L.

A guy said "We'll all be rooned " and he was paraphrasing the famous Hanrahan quote. Quintessentially old Australian and I looked twice at the young bloke who said it at smoko. Turned out his dad was remembering what his dad used to say when Australia was losing in the cricket to the Poms.

Yeah we're probably "rooned" and we'll just have to wait till 2011/12 to get it back again if things go the way they seem.

Galling is a word that will mount a little lexicographical come back in the near future methinks if this is the case.

End of Day 3. Hmmm.

Not sure why we batted on so long. It's not good manners to play with your food.

The end of a less than satisfying series.

So Ponting can't understand why Australia lost with 8 centuries to 2, 6 forty-plus averages to 2, and 3 bowlers who took more wickets than any of England's? If it's really necessary to spell it out, it's because Australia had the worst captain in living memory.

All Australia offered this series was zombie batting, grinding out runs at the wrong times, dragging along without guile or charm. And their bowling was truly rubbish. Overseeing it all, Ponting was clueless. He didn't even bat responsibly when it mattered, and he was a churlish opponent from start to finish.

Unlike 2005, where nearly every Englishman played out of their skins and had to, there were very few unmitigated successes this time round. Strauss is a lynch-pin right now, though his captaincy lacks the killer edge that would have settled all this some time ago. Prior finally looks a clear choice at the wicket. Anderson, Broad and Swann were all unplayable at times but completely ineffectual at others. Bopara and Collingwood (the latter after the Swansea rearguard) were shadows of previous form and Trott appeared too late to judge. The talismans, Pietersen and Flintoff were substantially unavailable and when present their injuries hampered their performance. Trott arrived too late to judge. Cook had a poor series and not for the first time Bell looked out of his depth. Panesar's radar is broken. The biggest improvement on past performances, even, was a two-edged one; the tenacity of the tail.

England will need to be a lot better than this to beat almost anyone else. As for Australia, the only places they could conceivably win on tour are places they'd refuse to visit. It's pretty clear now why they cut so much slack to that idiot Symonds.

I don't think we'll see many of these Australians in 2012, and I'll be amazed if Ponting ever again captains the side after the tour ends. If I were an Australian selector, I'd dump him now and let Clarke have a go. He couldn't do worse, and is a rarity among his peers as a player with more to come.

Trout: tell your mates they've had it. The presumption of being the world's best is a joke now. Australia is going down like a brick, and that's not gloating. It should be a pleasure, the Ashes, but it wasn't this time because the opposition offered, and their captain in particular, slid glistening and stinking out of a dog's bottom.

Oh, come on, Pin.

You can't possibly compare this series to 2005. You aren't going to get a titanic battle between two mediocre teams; back then, we were 1 and 23 in the world, now (I think) 4 and 5. Look at both line-ups from back then; most players from both teams would have walked into a World XI. Both teams here were transitional.

I'd agree with most of your assessments of England's players, apart from that of Trott's. How many times have we seen England batsmen come in and look totally shaken up by nerves, or unable to take the step up? Who was the last batsman to come in and look completely at home at Test level; cool, calm, comfortable and century making? Maybe Pietersen. Maybe we should have an academy in South Africa.

Ahem.

'we were 1 and 23 in the world'

'we were 1 and *2* in the world'

Oh, all right.
Somebody'd put me in a bad mood, that's all.
I've redirected my irrational hatred to Robert Peston.
That OK?

"most players from both teams would have walked into a World XI."

I think that rather over-eggs England's 2005 Pudding.

Here is England's line-up for the 1st Ashes Test at Lord's compared with the World XI and Australian line-ups for the one-off test at the SCG later on the same year.

Trescothick Smith Langer
Strauss Sehwag Hayden
Vaughan Dravid Ponting
Bell Lara Clarke
Pietersen Kallis Katich
Flintoff Inzamam Gilchrist
G. Jones Flintoff Watson
Giles Boucher Warne
Hoggard Vettori Lee
Harmison Harmison McGrath
S. Jones Muralee MacGill

Only two English in the World XI, and I can't see many of the others having ever knocked at the door.

Putting aside the political influence that goes into an ICC World XI, exactly how many players would the Aussies have contributed to that side?

Gilchrist for Boucher - yep. Warne for Vettori - yep. I guess then you could put McGrath in for Inzy, because the World XI there looks rather unbalanced with just two seamers. And if we're being that anal about it, you'll leave out Kallis or Warne for Tendulkar anyway.

How about this for a combined Aussie/England side to take on that World XI?

Trescothick
Vaughan
Ponting
Pietersen
Clarke
Gilchrist
Flintoff
Warne
Harmison
Jones
McGrath

I rest my case.

Let there be no doubt that Gilchrist, McGrath and Warne would have been shoe-ins to any combined Ashes 05 side.

I'd also stick with Langer and Hayden to open. Your openers are patently the progney of one-eyed selection (there might yet be a job for you with the ACB in fact if you can pretend to be a New South Welshman).

Ponting, Pietersen, Flintoff ... yes, which leaves three.

At no. 4, I'd have gone Damien Martyn (Punter 3, KP 5, Flintoff 6, Gilly 7). No room for the experience of Vaughan, sorry, or the potential of Michael Clarke, just the grit of Martyn.

I'd go Lee at 8. He was I think at the best of his pace and a fine bat to boot.

Warne 9.

Harmison at 10, nice balanced attack ... imagine Lee Harmison Flintoff ...

... McGrath 11.

Aha. The putrid piscid is having memory problems again.

I guess you're picking this team on 2005 form?
In which case Martyn was a year too late.
The Most Fallen Cricketer in World History finished that Ashes series with a batting average below McGrath's.
If Martyn is, so must be his peer in performance, Bell. The blue-eyed runt was the only top-half batsman on either side to deliver comparable porcelain-smearing statistics.
The main difference betwen the two, of course, is that Bell can be relied on to struggle feebly and merely look crestfallen every time he's proved to be out of his depth.
Martyn instead was a petulant toys-out-of-cot arse-wipe who couldn't deal with the 2005 revelation of his inadequacy.

Go on, Trout. If you reckon Martyn performed in 2005, I bet you can persuade us that Johnson had a great series this time. Or that Symonds would have made all the difference through his example of dignified sporting dedication.

More interesting than any of this sh*t, surely, is to compare the teams 2005-9. For England, the clearest improvement for me is Prior on Geraint Jones. Strauss was good twice. Pietersen, Flintoff and Harmison this time were shadows of 2005. Tresco v Cook and Vaughan v Bopara are, shall we say, non-contests. The bowlers don't map so easily but Giles/Hoggard/Jones kept it tighter than Swann/Anderson/Broad. And then there's good old Bell, heading in the right direction since he was absolutely cr*p in 2005 and merely totally inadequate in 2009. At the present rate of improvement he'll be a key member of the side well before the 22nd Century.

So what about Australia then and now?

Are you taking the p**s, Trout? Martyn above Vaughan? Come on, now. Time to take those blinkers off. I didn't even think he'd played in 2005, so forgettable were his performances. At least try to be objective, eh?

'I'd go Lee at 8. He was I think at the best of his pace and a fine bat to boot.'

His bowling average was 40-something, right? And didn't Warne bat at 8 rather than Lee? I have huge respect for Lee, but in 05 - wow, another one past the nose. Any wickets? No. So what did he do? Should we put him in the side for being on the receiving end of Freddie's sportsmanship? I don't recall him playing a major part in anything else.

I don't see how McGrath could have been a 'shoo-in' for an Ashes 05 side when he missed half of it. He's in my XI on his reputation and early performances, but in terms of overall effect on the series perhaps Jonesey's influence was more profound.

As for yer openers - I've watched Langer and Tresco together at Taunton on many occasions, and brilliant as Justin is, he just isn't in the same class. Hayden deserves more respect than he generally gets, but at the expense of Vaughan? Imagine the perfect cover drive and you're imagining Vaughan in 2005. Come on, now.

Then as now, you were beaten by a better team. Ponting was astonished that Australia had lost because they had more centuries, more wickets, blah blah blah. Australia failed to rise to the occasion, had dreadful leadership and selection and looked to individuals to carry them through; England's mediocre side were able to carry the fight due to uncharacteristic moments of genius and occasional balls-to-the-wall scrapping. Any Aussie side since Mark Taylor's days would have absolutely nailed us. This time, there was absolutely nobody to fear.

What's the point of this "my insignificant opinion is bigger than yours" you guys? The point is, the statement "most players from both teams would have walked into a World XI" is false and remains so. They didn't.


***

"Any wickets? No."

What does that mean? In fact Brett Lee took 49 wickets in 2005, 20 of them in the Ashes series.

[To this day I remain cross with him though because he didn't send back to me a signed Weetbix card despite the fact I sent him an s.a.e.]

Damien Martyn had a spartan/unlucky Ashes series in 2005, but was in a whirlwind of form outside of that. Go on, stretch yourselves and take a look what Martyn did against Sri Lanka, India, New Zealand and Pakistan in the 18 months prior before you judge a man for one dud series.

And I agree Rich, Warne 8, Lee 9. Good point.

Whirlwind form outside that? B*ll*cks.
Before that, maybe, but 2005 in England finished him.
He came back, sort of, in time to be just as cr*p in Australia 2006/7 too, and then retired in a huff.
He did a bit in England 2001, OK, but I saw him bat at Headingley and it's Ponting I remember. Then Butcher eclipsed them both.
So Australia has a long and dubious history of leaving out good players for large chunks of their potential careers. Like I care. End of.

'Insignificant opinion'? How dare you. I'll have you know that Jonathan Agnew follows me on Twitter and one of the TMS team once replied to one of my comments there, so I'm very much part of the inner rectum of English cricket.

Perhaps you'd like to lighten the mood by adding some suggestions for our pub team at http://cavendishcavaliers.com/news/?p=163 ?