Ashes Buzz
Raking over these Ashes
Tim de Lisle looks at the best and worst moments of the 2006-07 Ashes series
Tim de Lisle
25-Feb-2013
BEST PLAYER
Ricky Ponting. The world’s best batsman and a much improved captain.
BEST NON-PLAYER
Troy Cooley. The only man to finish on the winning side in both the last two Ashes series. Australia's seamers did this time what England's did last time, working as a team and offering no respite, even with the old ball.
Full postEngland's troubles turn to farce
History repeats itself, Marx said – the first time as tragedy, the second as farce
Tim de Lisle
25-Feb-2013
History repeats itself, Marx said – the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. And he was amply borne out this morning, as the lower half of England’s batting did their best to re-stage the nightmare they suffered in the first innings. The bigger picture was just as bad. The series began with England's bowlers conjuring up the first hour from hell, and here they were plumbing similar depths with the bat.
First the last batsman standing, Kevin Pietersen, lunged forward without thinking and nicked a ball from Glenn McGrath that was passing harmlessly outside his off stump. Pietersen is a huge talent, but he has shrunk before our eyes in the past couple of weeks. He has been able to stick around but his strike rate, usually so high, has plummeted. It’s almost as if two months in Australia have turned him into a fair-dinkum Englishman.
Full postWhere is Australia's fortress?
At the start of this series, there was much talk about Brisbane being Australia's fortress
Tim de Lisle
25-Feb-2013
At the start of this series, there was much talk about Brisbane being Australia’s fortress. In mid-series, something similar was said about Perth. Both were right, but they didn’t tell the whole story. Australia’s fortress is … Australia.
Since the turn of the millennium, Australia’s record in home Tests looks like this: won 34, lost 2, drawn 7. So the 5-0 whitewash that only a miracle can now avert is merely a little better than par for the course. The only reason they haven’t done it more often is that most visiting teams play three Tests. Pakistan have lost their last six Tests in Australia; West Indies have lost their last eight. Only India and England have won one.
Full postThx Fred
The pattern of a long series is seldom uniform – men who make double hundreds at the start often find ducks waiting for them at the end
Tim de Lisle
25-Feb-2013
The pattern of a long series is seldom uniform – men who make double hundreds at the start often find ducks waiting for them at the end. But long series are not as long as they used to be, so fragments of pattern are apt to survive. England’s openers stuttered yet again; they may be just too alike. Yet another Aussie retired. Hunter S Thomspon may have got it wrong: when the going gets soft, the tough get going.
Ian Bell compiled another of his fighting fifties, rather than one of the hundreds he reels off when he is in his rightful place at number six. Kevin Pietersen again mixed genius with rushes of blood. England made another baffling selection, opting to field all three of their seaming liabilities (Harmison, Anderson, Mahmood) rather than a second spinner (Dalrymple) who might have provided the missing cement at number seven. For the second Test running, they missed Jon Lewis, who could have been their best bowler on the Melbourne Christmas pudding, and the most natural understudy for Matthew Hoggard here.
They had as good a day as their long-singing fans could have asked for, yet they stand only a couple of nicks away from another insipid total. The difference is likely to depend, as so much has in this series, on Andrew Flintoff. “New year, new you,” the newspapers are all saying, but Flintoff prospered by finding his old self today, for the first time in nine months.
Full postSome New Year resolutions
Got your New Year resolutions sorted
Tim de Lisle
25-Feb-2013
Got your New Year resolutions sorted? Me too (must spend less time blogging). But I wonder if the players have… Here are some friendly suggestions.
AUSTRALIA
Must remember to give opponents a chance. Declining to bring any bowlers out of retirement should do the trick.
Full postWere England spineless?
There's an adjective we'll be seeing a lot of in the next day or two: spineless
Tim de Lisle
25-Feb-2013
There’s an adjective we’ll be seeing a lot of in the next day or two: spineless. It’s the one the media traditionally bring out for England collapses. But is it justified?
Yes and no. The word has two distinct senses, and the one that strikes us first is synonymous with gutless. Were England lacking courage today as they slumped towards 4-0? I don’t think so. The batsmen weren’t backing away to square leg, or trying to get out. Most of them got stuck in: five of the top seven faced 30 balls or more, just as all of the top six had in the first innings. Most of their opponents didn’t do that.
To be a Test cricketer for any country takes courage: not many of us would fancy facing 90mph bouncers. It also takes commitment. You have to put in years of practice, and do more hanging around than in any line of work outside film-making and war. So accusations of spinelessness, like accusations of racism, should be made very sparingly. Most of these England players have shown grit at other times – the Ashes 2005, Mumbai 2006, Old Trafford 2006. Lily-livered they are not.
Full postNot the same old story
There’s a headline on the BBC site today saying “Same old story”
Tim de Lisle
25-Feb-2013
There’s a headline on the BBC site today saying “Same old story”. It’s true that England are once again in a losing position, two sessions after being in a promising one. But as soon as you look at how it happened, there’s nothing same old about it. The way the game turned was new: a different and rather unlikely story.
Twelve wickets fell yesterday, followed by another three this morning. And it could easily have been more: Australia dropped a few catches, probably because of the vile weather, and England had those excellent lbw shouts against Matthew Hayden which Rudi Koertzen, perhaps subliminally influenced by the huge crowd, couldn’t quite bring himself to give. So in the first four sessions, the bowlers created at least 20 chances, and the two teams together scraped 270 for 15. Since then, it has been 261 for two.
Full postGoodbye Mr Clinical
You wait ages for a bogeyman’s retirement, then two come along at once
Tim de Lisle
25-Feb-2013
You wait ages for a bogeyman’s retirement, then two come along at once. Glenn McGrath is to join Shane Warne in bowing out after these next two Tests. The most prolific fast bowler of all will walk off arm in arm with the most prolific spinner. McGrath may even find that one of his whitewash predictions has finally come true. That would be a hell of a last hurrah, or as he presumably has it, hurrath.
The limelight at the MCG and the SCG will be unprecedentedly bright, turned up by the sentimentality we sports fans are prone to. Sharing it will suit McGrath more than Warne. Warne is a showman, a conjuror and an innovator, whereas McGrath is none of these. He is more of a surgeon - except that surgeons are supposed to make you better.
Full postTiming, Shane
We were expecting two retirements today, and we got them – but only one was expected
Tim de Lisle
25-Feb-2013
We were expecting two retirements today, and we got them – but only one was expected. The role earmarked for Glenn McGrath was taken by Steve Harmison, retiring from one-day internationals. More of that in a moment. The big story, even though it was widely leaked, is still the retirement from Tests of Shane Warne.
For cricket, it means the end of one of the very greatest careers. Warne has been not just the most prolific bowler of all, but the foremost entertainer of the modern age. He took the neglected, marginal, difficult art of leg-spin, placed it centre stage, and made it look easy. His prodigious spin was just one of several facets of his game that have been phenomenal: his control, his stamina, his sense of drama, his bowling intelligence. He has made the game more interesting.
You could argue forever about whether he is the greatest bowler of all. He may not even be the greatest of his era – you can make a case for Murali, if you take the view, as most umpires and players do, that his action is legitimate. You can make a case for McGrath, who, unlike Warne, was able to maintain his best form wherever he went, including India.
Of the bowlers I’ve seen from further back, Malcolm Marshall was probably just ahead of all the current crop in his sensational ability to combine menace with guile, and Imran Khan was a complete cricketer, a great fast bowler who was also a fine batsman and captain. But Warne has definitely, in my book, been the greatest of all Ashes bowlers. Like Ian Botham, he is a personality player who felt personally about the romance and history of the Ashes. And thus became a major part of that history.
Full postThe cry goes up again: pick Monty!
Tomorrow England announce a squad for the one-day series
Tim de Lisle
25-Feb-2013
Tomorrow England announce a squad for the one-day series. Monty Panesar is widely expected not to be in it. He hasn’t played a one-day international yet, and he would be a bit of a gamble as he has played hardly any one-day cricket for his county. But the same was true of Simon Jones when he became a first-choice one-day player for England in 2005. And Monty, like Jones, is something special.
He is a wicket-taker, and an inspiration. Matthew Hoggard, writing in today’s Times, says England need more of Monty’s attitude. A contributor to this blog, Ian, has described Monty as a talisman, which is spot-on. He has some of same the qualities – spark, enthusiasm, appetite and enjoyment – that Andrew Flintoff has, when not carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Full postMost Read
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