West Ham may be going down but life has a way of balancing things up! The Aussies now have to win two from three to stop us retaining the Ashes, and they don't have a bowler worthy of the name! Katich out for the series, the Aussie press closing in on Ponting and his savaged brigands like a murder of crows, and the cupboard absolutely bare when it comes to replacement players.
The wheel of fortune has turned with a vengeance! Can I hear a fat lady singing? "Ashes to Ashes, funk to funky, we know Tuffers is a junkie!"
12 comments:
If you think that it is any comfort to me (and probably many non-English West Ham supporters) that England may win the Ashes for West Ham going down you are more out of this world than I first thought. What is cricket anyway? I quote George Miles in his book "How to be an alien": "The Europeans think life is a game, the English think cricket is a game"!
Who cares about bloody cricket. its the worst game ever created. in other words its shite.
Great start to the day waking up to that news. I was worried that the weather might intervene but we got there before the storm.
I have already warned the missus that I am heading over there with the Barmy Army in four years time.
Sav, anybody who thinks cricket is "a game" has no understanding of the greatest sport ever devised by man. Football is "a game", cricket is a wonderful fusion of sport, bullying, tactics, mental strain and lateral thinking. It is the only sport in the world that pitches a team of two against a team of 11 at any single moment of the contest and where one on one duels are conducted through-out within the context of a team game.
I don't care whether you like it or not, I love it. And the article expressed MY feelings. I was so down on Sunday but at 1.05 a.m last night, I was in seventh heaven!
You went to bed Rev? How could you sleep with England on the brink? I've been up to the early hours every day of the series so far!
Enjoy it HF. Whatever makes you happy! It means nothing to me and sadly it remains so after your lucid explanation of what it is and why it is so great. I just don't get it. Fully dressed people standing in the sun, throwing a small hard ball at a guy who waves a piece of wood at it. The crowd is so far away, I doubt they can even see the ball clearly. And this thing goes on for days! No wonder, some people only get to wake up if they actually get hit the ball.
Another great English invention that never took off. In America, they had to change the rules in order to make it interesting. They call it baseball. I still find the American much improved version of cricket boring! But I respect you are different and you are entitle to like it. Just please, do not put it in the same sentence as football and as a cure for West Ham possibly going down.
I have generally got up early rather than staying up late. I had in the 1st test been getting a bit of stick for being a Jonah!
I got up in England's innings to suddenly see them go from a decent position to be all out in no time including the hat trick. Next day got up to see that a few Aussie wickets had fallen then never saw another one in all the time I watched. With the prediction of bad weather I thought it was best that I retired early for the night and it worked!
What do you make of all these Shane Warne comeback stories? No chance for me especially as he has just flown into London.
LOL mate. I've been going to bed late and getting up early. I got downstairs, turned on the internet stream and, straight up, the eighth wicket went down in the first test. The air was blue! I had said to myself 290-5 would be ok as I staggered downstairs, eyelids glued shut!
Warne making a comeback? I reckon they should go the whole Hogg (pun intended) and bring back McGrath, Warne, Lillie and Thompson! Let's face it, even on zimmer frames, they would be better than the pie throwers they've played in the first two tests!
It's brilliant. I remember us turning to David Steele, Colin Cowdrey when he was 98 and Brian Close but at least they were batsmen!
Mind you, best not get too cocky, too early. This is the England cricket team!
HF, anybody who claims to know anything about cricket, and test match cricket in particular, can see that the Australian test bowling attack has been in 'decline' for some considerable time. I'd even stick my neck out and say it's a reflection of world cricket in general! (you've only got to look at the West Indies!)
Your 'pie-throwers' comment hits the nail on the head!....
The current crop of flan-fingers ...Ben Hilfenhaus, Doug Bollinger, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Johnson, Xavier Doherty, Ryan Harris, Nathan Hauritz, Peter George etc etc haven't really stepped up to the crease and filled the bowling boots of their illustrious predecessors have they?!
Legends Lillee and Thommo aside, I don't think England's current rounders team would be making such hay against the likes of Warne, McGrath, Lee, Gillespie, McDermott and Hughes. There'd still be lots of the sound of leather on wood, but it would be the cartwheeling off or middle stump making that noise rather than the middle of KP's bat!
Indeed, Cricket Australia have toyed with NINE different spinners since the retirement of Warne, without a fraction of the success he brought. The fact is, the game will NEVER see the likes of Warne again, and Michael Beer and Steve Smith certainly won't be changing that fact in Perth!!.... (TBC)
(Cont'.)....
The 'nasty-fasties' are gone, but I'd still loved to have seen Pietersen apologising to a hissing, swearing McDermott for hitting him off the bloody square, never mind over the ropes...as crackers Craig simultaneously questioned his parentage and hairdresser whilst showering him with saliva from inside KP's own crash-lid! For all his whittering and Twittering, KP ain't all that...why, just ask Jason Gallian!
Which brings me nicely to a more serious footnote in line with ummm, 'parentage'....
36.37% of the 'England' team that beat Australia in the 2nd Test are in fact South African! FOUR players out of the 11! Even the head coach is South African!
Therefore, 53.71% (333) of 'England's' 1st innings total of 620 for 5 declared were accumulated by South Africans! By the same token, of the 20 Australian wickets to fall, a South African was either directly or indirectly responsible EIGHT times, with 5 catches, 2 run-outs and a wicket from KP's rather curious 'off-spin'! Interesting stats don't you think??
Maybe the ECB should consider redesigning the emblem each player sports with such pride on his left breast...would a springbok between only TWO lions be more accurate?!
Yes the South African connection is a bit galling Shaun, but it isn't just true of the England cricket team is it? The Dutch and French national football teams have been more than happy to field African born players who come from their old Empires. 50% of the England tennis playing nation was Canadian for a while. Lennox Lewis was a dodgy British World Champion. Nasser Hussein wasn't born in England, and nor was Colin Cowdrey for that matter! D'Olivera, of course, was famously a South African. The Irish FA are happy to mop up any Englishmen who once nibbled upon a blighted potato. Hargreaves is more Canadian and German than he is English. The Aussies had Kepler Wessels during the Packer era. Chris Lewis was born in the West Indies for sure, and a few other players not good enough for the Windies threw in their lot with England. Tony Grieg captained England long before Strauss and KP. Alan Lamb was another, of course, and kept his place for years despite only averaging in the mid thirties. And of course flat track bully Hick. Then there's Zola Budd and so it goes on.
Strauss to me is fine, he was educated over here wasn't he, and has one British parent. Trott and KP are dodgy with a capital D. They are straight forward mercenaries in my book. Not sure about Prior.
One thing I will say, however, is that it is refreshing to have foreigners in the team who can play a bit!
I think you are also downplaying our achievements a bit mate. This is a very good Englland team. Anderson and Swann are very impressive bowlers, Finn has huge potential and Broad coulld yet become a genuine all rounder. The batting unit is mighty impressive. KP is much better than you suggest. He batted effectively against Warne and McGrath and that marks him out as tasty. His attitude stinks but he has enormous natural ability and, as poor as the bowling was, his innings last test was superb.
I'm loving it anyway. As with West Ham, I have suffered so much pain down the years following the England cricket team. Winning the Ashes six years back was the best sporting moment of my life, better even than our FA Cup wins, and winning a series in Australia would be fantastic. It just shows how the wheel turns in sport doesn't it? For years we heard about this amazing talent pool in Australia, their fantastic coaching and the virtues of playing less cricker than we do in England. Well, they have just called up a spinner with only 15 first class career wickets to his name! Beer? Sounds more like shandy to me!
In an ideal world it would be great to have 11 English born players in our team but all this South African B team is nonsense. Don’t get me wrong you have to be careful that it doesn’t get out of hand but if someone wants to commit to England and ideally have some English roots then so be it. Strauss may have been born in South Africa but he is as good as English and I’m sure he has English parents. KP actually has an English mother an English wife and kids and is totally committed to our cause and we should all be thankful that he chose to play for us. Terry Butcher wasn’t born in England but is anyone going to tell him that he is not English?
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