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February 19, 2008
Posted on 02/19/2008 in Ashes
Having helped England's women side retain the Ashes, Kolkata-born Isa Guha speaks to the Telegraph's Amit Roy about her Indian connection.
Asked whether Isa was English or Bengali, her father Barun thought for a moment before replying: “She is 75 per cent English, 25 per cent Bengali. She cannot speak Bengali but she understands Bengali. She loves to come to Calcutta, and meet all her relations. May be the next trip will be at Christmas.”
July 21, 2007
Posted on 07/21/2007 in Ashes
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Shane Warne and Ricky Ponting have a bad day in the field during the 2005 Ashes
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| In a freewheeling interview with Brian Viner of The Independent, Justin Langer talks about his love for the game's history, life after retirement, what England could do to regain the Ashes, and also has time to talk about Ricky Ponting's oratory skills.
Speaking of lessons, what can England learn from Australia, not as winners but as losers? Can the 2006-07 Ashes series generate English renewal as the 2005 series did for Australia? "Mate, it depends how badly it hurt. I remember 12 September 2005, very clearly, sitting up there on the balcony at The Oval, next to Haydos [Mathew Hayden], Gilly [Adam Gilchrist], McGrath, and Punter [Ricky Ponting], watching those streamers everywhere, and Vaughan jumping around with champagne. That's when a little piece of kindling was lit.
"We got on the plane and that's when we started talking: where we went wrong, how we could do better, how we could get our disciplines back. There's a book by Scott Peck called The Road Less Travelled. During Steve Waugh's tenure that was our theme: do things a little bit different, things other teams wouldn't do. In 2005 we lost sight of that a little bit.
April 7, 2007
Posted on 04/07/2007 in Ashes
It’s good to see the Aussies aren’t engaging in any kind of schadenfreude where Gary Pratt - destined to be known as the man who ran out Ricky Ponting - is concerned. The Australian has traced his career path post-Ashes 2005 and found him released by Durham and now playing lower league football. But cricket remains his true love and he has been given a contract with the minor county Cumbria.
For Pratt’s part, it’s good to see that he’s not bitter about being released by Durham, blaming a lack of opportunities on the captain Mike Hussey who is, of course, Australian.
Make your own mind up.
February 15, 2007
Posted on 02/15/2007 in Ashes
Ted Corbett lets rip in Sportstar. Click here to read the tour diary.
I hear a claim that the old cry about "whinging Poms" — who are supposedly always complaining about some slight, mishap or wrong — no longer comes readily to Australian lips. Perhaps the Aussies are now the bigger whingers. They spent most of this warm summer telling us that they want to see more fight from the England side but when the Poms not only put up a fight but win a match there is a complaint that Aussie fans did not pay $50 a ticket to see their side lose, particularly when their favourite player Brett Lee is left out of the team. Now that is whinging; and in my opinion no-one whinges better than a defeated Australian.
February 7, 2007
Posted on 02/07/2007 in Ashes
"The England cricket team," writes Simon Barnes in The Times, "are in the position of a person who charges back into a burning house to rescue the baby and comes out with the cat."
It’s a nice cat, and you are fond of it, but it’s not exactly what you went in for. Still, there’s not much you can do except stroke it.
All the same, in the aftermath of their momentous two wins in a row in the CB Series - not to mention the England rugby team's victory over Scotland - the question has to be asked: "Is England suddenly a nation of winners again?"
February 6, 2007
Posted on 02/06/2007 in Ashes
In a interview Ponting admitted that he could not understand why England selected Geraint Jones and Ashley Giles ahead of Chris Read and Monty Panesar for the first Test in Brisbane. Click here to read Angus Fraser's piece in the Independent.
"Harmison's first ball said a bit about how nervous he and England were," said Ponting. "The first ball of the first Test and the last day of the second Test were pretty significant. They were unbelievably good moments for the Australian team. They were the defining moments of the whole series. When a big moment came along, it was the Australian team that stood up.
January 29, 2007
Posted on 01/29/2007 in Ashes
Simon Barnes identifies a familiar pattern as the pressure mounts on Duncan Fletcher. Writing in The Times, Barnes notes how, as in politics, even the most successful coaches are doomed to ultimate failure.
Less than 18 months ago, Fletcher could do no wrong. He was a national hero, the man who masterminded England’s Ashes-winning summer against Australia. Perhaps he should have gone then — stepped off the open-top bus and handed in the dinner-pail. But a coach almost never goes at the right time
Posted on 01/29/2007 in Ashes
Writing in The Guardian, David Hopps points the finger at the joyless hangers-oners in a "bloated" England squad, in particular the security personnel who, he believes, are cramping the style of the younger, more impressionable players - in particular those like Liam Plunkett, on the fringe of the team.
The talk is of a bloated and cowed group who have toured joylessly. Nothing illustrates England's suspicious and insular approach more than the four security guards employed by the England and Wales Cricket Board to protect the players on their travels around Australia. It is a disproportionate measure which suppresses England's players mentally as much as it seeks to protect them physically, proof only of English cricket's pompous self-regard
January 15, 2007
Posted on 01/15/2007 in Ashes
With Warney retiring, the Australian public are in need of a new super-hero. But wait... who's this, swooping out of the sky in a peculiarly effeminate red, white and blue costume? Step forward Captain Australia, aka Brendan Lichtendonk, a 25-year-old car salesman from Launceston in his spare time, who has hit out at what he calls the "fun police"- the Australian authorities who are stopping fans from doing mexican waves in grounds this summer:
I always look at it as being in Australia's biggest loungeroom. If you don't want to be hassled with a bit of noise and a few weird characters, and the chance of having a little bit of beer spilt over you, then watch the game at home in front of your own TV in your own loungeroom.
There you have it. And you don't want to mess with a super-hero do you?
January 14, 2007
Posted on 01/14/2007 in Ashes
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Was it really Freddie out there?
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Mike Brearley, in The Observer, picks out four images of the Ashes humiliation, starting with Andrew Flintoff's batting and captaincy. Brearley feels that the captaincy was a constraint, an oppression for an immensely gifted and likeable cricketer.
An Australia fast bowler bowled to him just short of a length and just outside off stump. Flintoff carved at the ball, it caught the outside edge and flew first bounce to the fielder placed for just this, perhaps 20 yards in from the third-man boundary. Flintoff stood stock still, looked back and suddenly jerked as if to run. My guess was that he hadn't noticed the fielder there, otherwise there would have been an easy single. He seemed in a dream. How could he not have noticed?
Read the full piece here.
January 11, 2007
Posted on 01/11/2007 in Ashes
This entry’s a slightly left-field one for a Thursday, but hey ho. It concerns the Ashes poet-in-residence, David Fine, who you may recall received thousands of pounds of Arts Council funding to describe England’s disasters Down Under. The book section of The Guardian questions what the point was of having him on tour, particularly as the Times Literary Supplement was moved to describe his work as "more than mildly distressing".
January 7, 2007
Posted on 01/07/2007 in English cricket
Maurice Chittenden reveals Andrew Flintoff, despite leading England to a 5-0 thumping, has netted over £1m this winter, through his company Freddie Flintoff Enterprises Ltd. Read more on his moolah at The Sunday Times.
Posted on 01/07/2007 in Ashes
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Is Harmison sad to be leaving Australia? Is he heck...
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Michael Atherton dissects his revealing, and worrying, interview with Steve Harmison - which he conducted during the Sydney Test - in today’s Sunday Telegraph and concludes that something is rotten in the England team.
This England team is not bereft of talent, but there is a fug of complacency that needs to be stamped out. All the talk at the end of the series from the captain and players was that this is a young England team, the vast majority of whom will still be in place the next time the Ashes are up for grabs. If I was in an England team that had just been wiped out 5-0, I don't think I'd be taking my place for granted.
In the same paper he urges England’s bowlers to learn how to bat.
Meanwhile Andrew Strauss insists that he, and England, “will be better for the experience” in his tour diary. He adds that the defeat “will give us more than enough motivation to take our game to another level”.
Scyld Berry laments the ECB’s so-called “special review” and calls for a complete reform. But he also highlights Simon Jones, the injured and forgotten fast bowler who was so instrumental to England’s success in 2005
Since then England have been unable to re-create that constant pressure on opposing batsmen, thanks primarily to the injuries to Jones. He, indisputably, was the difference between England winning the first Test in Multan and losing it by 22 runs; and England have gone downhill since. They have continued to use the new ball effectively, but from overs 40 to 80, when the second new ball is due, England have failed to pressurise, except when Monty Panesar has found turn or bounce.
Jones was more than a master of reverse-swing, he was also the one intimidator in a pace attack of otherwise gentle souls. But there is no point lamenting Jones's absence because injuries are a given norm in the international schedule that the ECB commit England to playing, well in excess of the amount dictated by the International Cricket Council. The point is that nothing was done, or could have been done, to make good his absence.
Posted on 01/07/2007 in Ashes
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For England to win the Ashes in 2009 they must feel the hurt of the 5-0 defeat this season
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The true relevance of England's memorable victory in 2005 will be gauged when the teams next meet on English soil in two and a half years, writes Andrew Ramsey in The Australian
As far as visitors go, England's Test cricketers have proved the perfect guests. Apart from a few moments in Brisbane and Adelaide, the side has proved no trouble at all to its host. And at many times it was so unobtrusive it was easy to forget it was in town at all.
Ricky Ponting and his team have made no secret of the fact it was the feeling of hollowness and hurt when the Ashes changed hands at The Oval in 2005 that drove this summer's relentless five-nil redemption.
Perhaps it was due to the vastly different scoreline - Australia held hopes of levelling the 2005 series until the final session, while England was a beaten team with two Tests remaining - but there did not appear to be the same steeliness in the England players' eyes yesterday
January 6, 2007
Posted on 01/06/2007 in Ashes
The plaudits continue to come Australia's way after their 5-0 whitewash with comparisons with the greatest teams of all time. The debate will never be settled as to which era - Australia of '48, West Indies of the '80s and a few others - was the best ever, but this Australian team is making a strong claim. Matthew Engel, editor of Wisden spoke to the Courier Mail and says they are a match for the great West Indian era.
"They are the two dynasties – there is no one else in history who has lasted as long as they have and beaten everybody they have been matched against," said Engel after witnessing Australia's 5-0 triumph yesterday.
In The Age Peter Roebuck gives his assessment of Australia's performance.
Ponting devoted himself to the task. His first step was to admit that England had deserved to win and that his side had been off its game. Australia worked hard in preparation. Ponting took his side to a boot camp, urged senior men to keep playing, developed plans with John Buchanan, his underestimated coach. No stone was left unturned.
Posted on 01/06/2007 in Ashes
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Damien Martyn joins his fellow retirees at the SCG
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He has been the forgotten man of Australia’s Ashes campaign and retirement celebrations, but Damien Martyn made a shock reappearance in the SCG dressing rooms after Australia wrapped up their 5-0 win. Alex Brown writes in The Age that Martyn surprised his team-mates by turning up an hour after stumps.
Wearing jeans and a T-shirt, the reclusive West Australian walked into the rooms to a roaring reception and was immediately embraced by Australia's opener Matthew Hayden. Martyn later sat in front of Hayden's locker, and had his first face-to-face conversation with Ricky Ponting, the Australian captain and best man at Martyn's wedding, since his shock retirement after the Adelaide Test. "It was emotional," said one team source. "As emotional as anything you saw out on the field yesterday."
Just as emotional would have been Justin Langer’s rendition of the Australian victory anthem, Beneath the Southern Cross. As Andrew Stevenson writes in The Age, the tradition has an interesting history.
Southern Cross passed, first from Rod Marsh to Allan Border and then to David Boon. But where did it come from? Talk to Ian Chappell, Marsh advised. Chappell, the former Australian captain, was happy to put his hand up for bringing it into the Australian dressing room. But, poet he is not.
Such dressing-room customs are hard for us outsiders to understand, explains John Harms, also in The Age. The inner sanctum of Australian cricket, Harms says, remains a mystery.
One of the only things we mortal outsiders can observe with any confidence is that the inner sanctum is very, very inner. So inner that, in recent times, I reckon the Australian team has become a cult. Not everyone is accepted. I once asked Rod Marsh whether some cricketers were the victims of circumstance: had things gone their way they'd have had long and successful Test careers. I mentioned Martin Love, Stuart Law and Jamie Cox. "There's no luck," he assured me. "If you're good enough, you'll play 80 Tests." Such self-congratulatory logic dismisses anyone outside those who have done it.
January 4, 2007
Posted on 01/04/2007 in Ashes
Richard Branson, a man who has never knowingly missed an opportunity to self-publicise, stepped up and announced that the Ashes should stay in Australia. Sadly, in relying on Ian Botham to brief him, he picked someone whose knowledge of the game’s history might be best described as sketchy. The end result was that Branson was there to be picked off, and as David Hopps reports in his Guardian blog, Gideon Haigh did just that in response to Branson’s own version of events:
“The Ashes were burned when Britain, ehm when England, lost the 1882 game and it was turned into a trophy which the Australians took back to Australia and I think, and I may be wrong, but I think the MCC may be rewriting history."
He might as well have added that the Russians put the first men on the moon and that Alexander Graham Bell was the father of the railways. It brought an impassioned rebuke from Gideon Haigh, a renowned cricket writer and historian who has written for the Guardian on Ashes series for the past five years. It was time for a historically accurate version to take precedence.
January 3, 2007
Posted on 01/03/2007 in Ashes
There have been some suggestions that England’s poor form this series is somehow related to having the WAGs on tour. In a column in The Daily Telegraph, Australia’s captain Ricky Ponting scoffs at such notions.
I remember we had to answer all the same questions when we got back from our Ashes defeat in 2005. To be honest, I just dismiss all that talk as a load of rubbish.
There are certain times, yes, you do have to devote yourself to the team and it's important to steer clear of all distractions. But at the same time, to be all the way over here and not see your wife or family for two or three months would be very difficult.
Posted on 01/03/2007 in Australian cricket
John Coomber in The New Zealand Herald notes that Australian cricket’s marketing men risk destroying Test cricket because of their ignorance of the basic product. He bemoans the “relentless clamour of advertising, silly competitions and mega-decibel announcements that have swamped the grand old game in recent years.” And he continues:
In places like Adelaide they still have the good sense to leave the cricket as the cricket, with a minimum of music and advertising noise. In this series the Gabba and Sydney Cricket Ground have been by far the worst offenders. Presumably it happens at the instigation of marketing types who rely on research that tells them this is what people want. Test cricket needs nothing of the sort. The people who pay their money to be at the SCG do so to enjoy a loved summer ritual.
December 29, 2006
Posted on 12/29/2006 in Ashes
The Australian press is revelling in the team's Ashes dominance and plenty of space is being devoted to Shane Warne, who signed off his final MCG Test with a man-of-the-match award for his seven wickets. In The Age Greg Baum writes about how he exploited a demoralised England team allowing himself and Glenn McGrath and fine send-off.
On what became his final day at the MCG, Warne made more runs than any of England's XI, which was bowled out for 161. It is doubtful that it would have fared better even if Australia had published its bowling plans in advance, with diagrams and explanatory notes. Few teams in history can have raised expectations and disappointed them on the scale of England this summer.
Meanwhile, Peter Roebuck says the reasons behind England's thumping can be traced back to the huge celebrations that followed the 2005 victory while Australia quickly went back to the drawing board.
In truth, the seeds of England's defeat were planted amid the celebrations that followed victory. Gongs were dished out to every player, a gesture resented by their opponents, books were written, players were wrapped in paeans of praise and an entire nation went into a state of rapture.
And he also saved a few words for Warne…
In 1992-93, Richie Richardson had fallen foul of the delivery. Now a lesser soul, Sajid Mahmood, was equally baffled. Warne had struck again with his flipper. It was not a bad way to say goodbye.
Over in the Indian paper, Mid Day, Terry Jenner gets a lump in his throat as he talks about the retirement of his star pupil and witnessing his 700th Test wicket.
“It (quitting) is sad because we’ve been together for 16 years. Everyday when you wake up, the guy is in your mind for one reason or the other. Today for example, I woke up thinking how he is going to bat.” Wicket No 700 was witnessed by Jenner behind the bowler’s arm at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Posted on 12/29/2006 in Ashes
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Unwanted history looms for England after crashing to their fourth defeat of the Ashes series at Melbourne
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After a fourth consecutive hammering, the English press are gearing up for an Ashes whitewash and talk as one about how the tour continues to lurch from one disaster to another. In The Guardian Mike Selvey dissects the innings and 99-run defeat and struggles to find anything that England can be proud of.
Now Sydney looms, and if there is an echo of the situation from four years ago, when England went on to win the final Test in grand style, then at least they had given Australia a scare in the penultimate match. They would have rattled them more this time if they had hidden round the corner from the dressing room and gone "Boo!" as Ricky Ponting took his side on to the field.
In The Times Christopher Martin-Jenkins says that although Andrew Flintoff is likely to pay for England's failures with his captaincy role, the other players also need to share the blame and, after Melbourne, especially Kevin Pietersen.
The home team have made a point, in print and in press conferences, of praising Pietersen’s skill whenever possible. Perhaps they believe that it will go to his head. It would certainly not be beyond the plans of John Buchanan, the Australia coach, to see him as a means of dividing the England dressing-room and thereby of ruling them.
Continue reading "Whitewash looms"
December 27, 2006
Posted on 12/27/2006 in Ashes
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Shane Warne's 700th Test wicket was something special ...but was it really No. 694?
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| While Shane Warne has been showered with accolades after taking his 700th Test wicket, the respected statistician Bill Frindall has bucked the trend and suggested that Warne is not quite there yet.
Martin Johnson in The Daily Telegraph flagged the issue:
When the electronic scoreboard flashed up "Congratulations Shane Warne: 700 Wickets" yesterday, the coughing and spluttering emanating from the commentary booth were the sounds of an indignant man choking on chocolate sponge. You could strap Bill Frindall into a barber's chair and threaten him with a fate worse than death, which would be a stick of shaving foam, a razor and a bottle of aftershave.
Continue reading " Frindall queries Warne's 700th"
Posted on 12/27/2006 in Ashes
Shane Warne’s 700th wicket really was memorable stuff – he did it on his home ground, on Boxing Day, with a typical legbreak and went on to take four more. And Australia’s newspapers – rightly – lavished praise on one of the greatest bowlers in history. One of his home-town dailies, The Age, led its front page with the headline “89,155 salute the ’G Wiz”. Greg Baum writes that once England decided to bat first, Warne was always going to be the Boxing Day star.
Throughout Warne's incomparable career, it usually has been a matter of when, not if. This was even more so on the big stage and occasion, which he has always relished. This was Boxing Day, his last - an all-star crowd, including Brian Lara, an Ashes Test and an obdurate opponent; Warne could no more resist this moment than he could be resisted.
Ron Reed writes in the other Melbourne daily, the Herald Sun, that it was not just the achievement but the way Warne did it that made yesterday special.
Shane Warne's 700th Test wicket belongs not only at the very front of the cricket history books but should be placed prominently in a textbook too. Fittingly, it was a classic example of the exquisite and difficult art of legbreak bowling, the revival of which is the priceless legacy he will leave the game when he bows out next week. The master craftsman pitched his stock delivery on a full length just outside left-hander Andrew Strauss's off stump and watched in glee and satisfaction as it spun challengingly but not extravagantly past the bat to strike middle stump.
Continue reading "Warne's magic Melbourne moment"
December 21, 2006
Posted on 12/21/2006 in Ashes
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Shane Warne's retirement has provoked an avalanche of tributes in the English press
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| The English press is predictably full of Shane Warne's retirement and most seem to have the tone spot on, focusing on the fact that the game is losing a legend rather than the fact that England might have a better chance against a Warne-free Australia....
CMJ gets the ball rolling in The Times paying tribute to Warne's influence on friend and foe and pointing out that he is the one member of their retiring old-guard that they will find impossible to replace.
It had to happen one day, but the news that Shane Warne will announce in his home city today that he is to retire from Test cricket at the end of the Ashes series will be as much a matter for regret as for rejoicing among the batsmen he has tormented for 14 years.
Continue reading "A fond farewell"
December 19, 2006
Posted on 12/19/2006 in Ashes
The Ashes series was all but decided after the Adelaide Test, so the British press had plenty of time to come up with their back-page headlines when the urn was finally lost. In typically tabloid fashion, The Sun called it a “Perthetic” effort.
Sorry England surrendered The Ashes in record time yesterday. Freddie Flintoff’s Perth flops handed back the urn to Australia after just 15 days of Test cricket Down Under - the shortest defence in history.
Continue reading "Press slam "Perthetic" England"
Posted on 12/19/2006 in Australian cricket
While most Australians celebrate the return of the Ashes, Chloe Saltau in the Age sounds a warning that Australia’s renewed dominance is a bad thing for the long-term future of Test cricket. And the paper is clear that the blame for that can be laid at the feet of the ICC and the incompetent way it continues to handle world cricket.
Hold the champagne, if only for a moment. As the frail Ashes urn is escorted across the country to Melbourne, and Australia's cricketers wake rather dustily from their richly deserved series victory celebrations, it is worth considering what it means for world cricket if the second-best team in the world can be so comprehensively slaughtered by the best, as England have been by Australia in 15 days of cricket.
Posted on 12/19/2006 in Ashes
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Geraint Jones was asleep to the possibility of a run-out
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Australia’s newspapers have no doubt why the Ashes series has been such a one-sided affair. As Robert Craddock explains in the Herald Sun, the perception is that Australia were more desperate to win.
Justice has been done ... the Ashes have gone to the team that wanted them the most. Winning the Ashes means everything to this Australian team. They've been saying it for a while but it's not until you see Matthew Hayden shedding a tear or other players simply delirious in celebration that you realise it had become their life's obsession.
Greg Baum, writing in The Age, said Australia was simply harder and tougher than England.
Australia's harder edge was apparent yesterday when Ponting ran out Geraint Jones who, while waiting the outcome of an (unsuccessful) lbw appeal, forgot to put his foot back in his crease. Australia has been alert to every half-chance. Jones was not alert even to the danger. It was daft cricket.
And in the Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Roebuck lauded the man he saw as the driving force in Australia’s win.
Ponting deserved the acclaim that came upon him. He has been the campaign's outstanding figure. Sooner or later his achievements as captain will be acknowledged. A superb cricketer, he presided over an incisive performance from a hungry team. He has stood glint-eyed at the crease, alert at slip or poised at silly point, unblinking and composed. He began with a masterful hundred in Brisbane and ended with a sharp run-out in Perth.
December 18, 2006
Posted on 12/18/2006 in Ashes
Rod Marsh has come out with some interesting comments about English cricket over the last few weeks, but his ability to spot a talented player has never been in doubt. This piece in The Observer was written the day before Alastair Cook made 116 at Perth.
Cook will probably captain England before he is 30 and will probably average over 50 in Test cricket. I'm not concerned that he is not yet in the England one-day set-up. As he matures he will find his way into that team and he will work hard enough on his athleticism and general fielding to do a more than adequate job in the field.
Posted on 12/18/2006 in Ashes
The attendance for the Perth Test has broken WACA records, but the crowd is missing one man who'd hope to make it via a slightly different mode of transport. Sir Robin Knox-Johnston set sail from Bilbao in late October and aimed to reach Fremantle in time to collect tickets to the third Test. Alas, a lack of wind in the has left him stranded in the ocean. Read an interview he did with The Observer.
Tragedy it is, then. While the first two boats in the race have been in Australia for several days - their Swiss and Japanese skippers oblivious to the fact that there is a cricket match going on - Sir Robin is in the middle of nowhere and does not expect to reach Australia until 27 December. Alone, alone, all all alone, alone on a wide, wide sea, as someone once wrote.
December 17, 2006
Posted on 12/17/2006 in Ashes
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Sajid Mahmood: Where was he?
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Duncan Fletcher faced the media yesterday evening after England had been flayed around Perth by Adam Gilchrist. Selections issues were high on the agenda for the press and he continued to defend his treatment of Monty Panesar. But that isn't the only decision that has left people scratching their heads, with Michael Atherton in The Daily Telegraph asking why Sajid Mahmood was used so little by Andrew Flintoff.
Not that Mahmood was the only one who was puzzled. Rumours in the press box abounded. Maybe Flintoff was making a point of his very own. Maybe familiarity breeds contempt, and Flintoff, a fellow Lancastrian, was not particularly enamoured with Mahmood's selection in the first place. Lots of maybes and lots of rumours, which has been the case with England's selections ever since Duncan Fletcher let it be known that he and the captain did not necessarily agree on the team who took the field for the second Test.
In The Guardian, Vic Marks says that Flintoff's problems on this tour have been increased by his lack of cricket leading into the series and the England selectors have some tough decisions to make.
Inevitably, Flintoff's lack of form is now being highlighted. Last night Duncan Fletcher was asked whether he thought the captaincy was affecting Flintoff. 'I don't think so,' he said, 'at this stage'. Which prompted many to focus more on the second element of his answer: 'at this stage'. Fletcher stayed loyal on his captain's batting as well, though his observation that 'he has played some good shots' is faint praise indeed. Great batsmen play great innings. They are not interested in great shots.
Selection has also been a hot issue for the Australians and Mark Waugh says the decision to name Adam Voges in the Perth squad was the right move, while Peter Roebuck discusses Mike Hussey, who had to wait an eternity for his Test chance and is now making the most if it.
Indeed, versatility counts amongst the left-hander's attributes. He seems equally happy against pace or spin, up or down the order, defending or attacking, on hard or soft pitches, in five-day or 50-over matches. He adjusts his game without fuss, puts his head down and goes about the business of putting runs on the board. Long apprenticeships need not be harmful. Provided hope does not die, they can be instructive. In his years of relative obscurity, Hussey learnt a lot about cricket, most especially about batting.
December 16, 2006
Posted on 12/16/2006 in Ashes
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The English media are scathing in their remarks about Panesar's omission from the first two Tests. Panesar took 5 for 92 in the first innings at Perth
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As Australia move closer to regaining the Ashes the knives are being sharpened against Duncan Fletcher, the man many in the media feel is to blame for England's problems. The earlier omission of Monty Panesar is still fuelling the criticism and James Lawton, in The Independent says Fletcher has out-thought and out-planned.
Panesar didn't only represent the possibility of a striking new weapon in England's attack. He also promised a fresh state of mind, optimistic, attacking, filled with a belief in his own ability to make a difference.
In the Guardian, Richard Williams writes pessimistically about Flintoff's chances of playing the next Ashes. The bowler, Williams feels, has been hurried into service with an ankle yet to heal fully.
For a fast bowler, particularly one of Flintoff's heft, to feel pain in his landing foot is to be condemned to a very distinctive kind of agony. In order to deliver the ball properly, that foot must mash down hard on the compressed earth, acting as the load-bearing pivot for the entire effort. Any mental reservation created by the hurt will tend to remove the desire to add the final ounce of weight that creates the edge of hostility
December 15, 2006
Posted on 12/15/2006 in Ashes
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Monty Panesar leads his team-mates off the field after taking 5 for 92
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The papers, both in England and Australia, are paying tribute to the efforts of Monty Panesar for breathing life back into the Ashes series with his five-wicket haul on the opening day at the WACA.
In The Age Peter Roebuck talks about the efforts Panesar has put in to make the most of his talents.
Perhaps the sight of a familiar figure standing at the opposite end had helped to settle such butterflies as must have been fluttering in the slowie's stomach. Panesar and Michael Hussey had spent a season together in Northampton and spent every spare moment wrapped in mutually advantageous duels in the nets, thereby impressing comrades prepared to consider a wider range of activities.
In the same paper, Alex Brown takes the popular line that Panesar's success has fuelled the debate about where he'd been hiding for the first two matches.
The "team balance" defence used to justify the selection of Giles in Brisbane and Adelaide now seems more preposterous than ever after Panesar yesterday became the first Test spinner to claim five wickets on a first-day Perth wicket. A cricket team must pick its best bowlers, irrespective of their skills in other facets of the game.
Richard Williams, in The Guardian, suggests if the BBC Sports Personality had been announced a week later, Monty would have been a shoe-in.
Meanwhile, Simon Barnes raises a glass to Panesar and says he should always have been the first choice.
Two iron rules of selection. The first is that you never pick a player for his secondary accomplishment, unless there is nothing to choose between two players for their primary skill. You don’t pick a bowler because he can bat. The second rule is that defensive selections almost always go wrong.
December 14, 2006
Posted on 12/14/2006 in Ashes
The Australian media has been obsessed with Monty Panesar in the lead-up to the third Test and after the way he bowled when finally given an opportunity, that is unlikely to change. But what grabbed reporters’ attention the day before the Test was the size of Panesar’s hands, as Robert Craddock explains in The Courier Mail.
Panesar's hands are so big he can comfortably fit three cricket balls into the palms and fingers of each. The middle finger of his left hand, which controls his deliveries and imparts some turn, is an extraordinary 11cm from base to tip.
Chloe Saltau wrote in The Age that Monty’s big hands give him a natural advantage.
John Emburey, the former England off spinner who was coach of Northamptonshire when a 16-year-old Panesar arrived for a trial with the county in 1998, said the young Sikh's fingers were the longest he had seen on a finger spinner, and provide a prodigious natural advantage.
Posted on 12/14/2006 in Ashes
The supposed lack of character in Australia's Test pitches has kept all sorts of "experts" talking during the Ashes series. A common theme is players harking back to the good old days of raging turners at Sydney and hard, fast Perth strips. Peter Roebuck, writing in The Age, made his opinion clear.
As a matter of the highest urgency, Australian pitches need to recover their pip. Curators around the world are under pressure to prepare featherbeds so that matches go the distance and television revenues are paid in full. Australian surfaces used to be lively on the first morning, and winning the toss could be a mixed blessing. Now most of them are duds. Presumably, some clown will presently blame the ICC.
December 13, 2006
Posted on 12/13/2006 in Ashes
Steve Harmison is a rhythm bowler. And, although Ponting was polite enough not to say so, when the rhythm disappears, the melody and the harmony tend to go with it. Harmison began this Test series with a ball so disastrous that it has already gone down in Ashes history; last week the sheer ordinariness of his final spell in Adelaide, at a time when England needed an all-out effort, appeared to exhaust the patience of Andrew Flintoff, his captain and friend.
In The Guardian, Richard Williams looks back to Harmison's last Test outing at Perth when he again lost it.
Harmison himself is unlikely to need reminding that it was here in Perth, in his first Ashes series four years ago, that he lost his rhythm in the biggest possible way. There were nine runs off his first over, four byes in his second, Matthew Hayden pulled the last ball of the third into the hands of Alex Tudor, Ponting hooked him for six in the fourth and at the close of the opening day Harmison had bowled eight overs and taken one for 27. It had been an eventful spell but gave no hint of what would follow the next morning ...
December 12, 2006
Posted on 12/12/2006 in English cricket
Rod Marsh, the former Australia wicketkeeper who headed the ECB’s Academy from 2001 to 2005, has slammed the England board, accusing it of virtually losing the Ashes when it decided to allow Troy Cooley to return to Australia. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Marsh pulled no punches.
I've been really saddened by what's happened to England since then … I've just thought, 'What's going on here?' How can you beat Australia last summer and then perform so dismally in the winter against Pakistan and India - and even more abysmally in one-day cricket?
England, instead, have gone in only one direction - and that's backwards. So that's why it doesn't surprise me in the least that they're already 2-0 down. The only thing that will surprise me about England is if they don't lose 5-0. If we get rain and a flat pitch they might escape with one draw - but otherwise it's 5-0.
December 11, 2006
Posted on 12/11/2006 in Ashes
Jon Pierik writes in the Herald Sun about Damien Martyn’s possible retirement bonus of $200,000.
Martyn, who shocked the cricket world by retiring last Friday and fleeing to the United States, had around five months left to run on a contract believed to be worth around $460,000 per year.
The Australian Cricketers’ Association was hopeful the remaining $200,000 for the unfulfilled months of his contract would be paid to Martyn and several prominent CA board members saw merit in this. Its logic was that it wanted to send a message to the side's ageing generation of senior players not to let money keep them in the game longer than they wanted to.
Chloe Saltau writes in the Sydney Morning Herald about the England team’s trip to see Elton John in Perth. Andrew Ramsey reports in The Australian about Alastair Cook’s claim pitches are bouncier in England than in Australia.
Paul Daffey, a Melbourne freelance writer, talks to Andy Gemmell, a blind England cricket fan who is enjoying his third Ashes tour to Australia, for the online publication Eureka Street.
December 10, 2006
Posted on 12/10/2006 in Ashes
Jon Pierik writes in the Daily Telegraph about the upset of Andrew Flintoff after Adelaide.
"I have never experienced such a sense of loss after a cricket match and I hope I never feel that bad ever again. I wasn't boo-hooing or anything like that but the tears were there. We've taken huge stick and I can't argue with that but don't accuse this England team of not caring ... I was in shock for hours after the game. It wasn't until I woke up the next morning that the real horror began to sink in.
Robert Craddock also focusses on Flintoff in the Herald Sun, as does Chloe Saltau in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Andrew Ramsey looks at the exit of Damien Martyn and how it has hurt Australia’s World Cup plans.
A London bobby is coming to sit with the Barmy Army in Sydney, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Posted on 12/10/2006 in English cricket
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Monty Panesar: is his time nigh?
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The Sunday newspapers are bursting with analysis of England’s capitulation at Adelaide last week, beginning with a roundtable at The Sunday Telegraph. The usual lot are there: Mike Atherton, Ian Chappell and Andrew Strauss are chaired by Scyld Berry – and the quartet discuss England’s negativity on the final morning
Chappell: I didn't understand the lack of urgency, like in the running between wickets. I'd have sent Pietersen in at two-down on the fifth morning to let Australia know we still wanted to win the game. To me, that was the difference on the last day – one team were thinking they could win it. A lot of Test cricket is about the message you are sending to the opposition. For instance, when Gilchrist started whacking a few he was sending the message 'we can still win this game'. I don't mean whacking them in the air but you've got to attack Warne. He got one for 167 in the first innings because you guys attacked him thoughtfully. Collingwood [who made 206] doesn't go belting balls in the air but he played attackingly the whole time.
And Atherton sounds a warning to those who believe, or hope, that Monty Panesar will turn England’s fortunes around
Atherton: Monty's not going to be the panacea that the public think he is – finger-spinners are rarely match-winners here – but he is a more attacking option than Giles and therefore should be in the team.
Chappell: What is your back-up plan if the ball's not swinging in Australia? Unless you can bowl really fast or wrist-spin, you've got to have somebody who can beat batsmen in the flight because it's bloody difficult to get wickets, especially if you're up against good players. Even though Giles is bowling slower there's just nothing on it. If you're reverse-sweeping him on the fifth day [as Mike Hussey did], that tells you something about what's going on.
Atherton: Giles hasn't played any cricket for the best part of a year.
Strauss: In Ashley's defence it became like a one-day game, when fields have to be different and you can't create that pressure with men around the bat. All credit to Mike Hussey who made it harder for Gilo to build up any pressure.
In the same paper Berry senses that Panesar knows his time is nigh
It was the first time England's left-arm spinners had gone head-to-head. Ashley Giles and Monty Panesar had bowled a couple of overs each in tandem during the tour-opener in Canberra against the Prime Minister's XI, but yesterday was the first time that they could be fairly compared and contrasted. The comparison ended up all in the younger man's favour, and is sure to lead to Panesar's reinstatement in England's team for the third Test starting on Thursday.
The difference in quality was as wide as the gap between their ages. Panesar, 24, bowled heavily over-spun balls which dipped and gripped and were yet so accurate that he usually had three men around the bat. Giles, 33, rolled his index finger and floated up balls which were as neat and respectable as a dowager on her way to Sunday church, and about as seductive.
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Brett Lee the man for celebrations
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Over at the Sunday Times, Brett Lee gives a behind-the-scenes view of Australia’s win – and celebrations
I had been charged with providing the entertainment for the evening and kept the party swinging with an iPod until 30 seconds to midnight, when I pressed the pause button and stood on a chair. At first everyone thought I was going to make a speech and I had to endure some pretty crude heckling before order was restored.
“Okay, boys,” I announced, “we’re going to have a toast. I want everyone to hold up their beers because . . . (I glanced at my watch for dramatic effect) . . . in exactly five seconds time Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff will be 29 years old!” The room erupted with a massive cheer, and after we had sung Happy Birthday and some hip-hoorays, the party resumed with a dedication that I thought he might appreciate: My Way by Frank Sinatra.
“Happy birthday, Freddie, you old bugger!” I said.
“Thanks, mate,” he grinned.
In the same paper Andrew Longmore talks to another left-arm spinner, Phil Tufnell.
December 9, 2006
Posted on 12/09/2006 in Ashes
Ashley Giles is once again fighting for his England future after two poor Tests against Australia, which included dropping Ricky Ponting on 35 at Adelaide and then leaking runs as the home side marched to victory. In his tour diary for The Independent Giles reveals that missed chance will continue to haunt him, but all he can do is keeping trying.
You can't bring it back - it's gone. I will just spend the next 20 years worrying about it...I am two first-class games in to my comeback and I know there will be a push for Monty to play but if I am called to do a job I will, as always, do it the best I can.
December 8, 2006
Posted on 12/08/2006 in Ashes
Robert Craddock writes in the Courier-Mail about a “major rift” forming in the England camp.
Duncan Fletcher is privately fuming at being held accountable for omitting Panesar from the Adelaide Test, a match where England's No. 1 spinner Ashley Giles took just 2-149 to leave his career hanging by a thread.
The Courier-Mail has learned that at team selection meetings in Adelaide, Fletcher leaned toward Panesar to play in the Test but captain Andrew Flintoff went for his Lancashire team-mate, swing bowler Jimmy Anderson.
In The Australian Malcolm Conn re-visits Kevin Pietersen and his decision to leave South Africa.
December 7, 2006
Posted on 12/07/2006 in Ashes
Brett Lee reveals in his News Ltd column how Ricky Ponting inspired the team to victory at Adelaide, which was the “greatest Test win of our careers”.
"Look, there are a lot of people who have written us off in this Test match," Ricky said during Australia’s first innings. "Not just winning but even getting a draw. Let's go out and prove to them we can win this Test match."
In the Sydney Morning Herald Trevor Marshallsea speaks to Terry Jenner about Shane Warne’s wickets at Adelaide while the paper also tells how Michael Hussey changed to bat left-handed after watching Allan Border.
Malcolm Conn writes in The Australian about the cutting of Shoaib Akhtar’s ban.
December 6, 2006
Posted on 12/06/2006 in Ashes
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Andrew Flintoff has a huge task to lift England after their demise on the final day at Adelaide
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The post-mortem into how England managed to lose the Adelaide Test is in full swing throughout the British press. The universal theme is that their final-day performance will go down as one of the worst and will haunt the team for a long time to come. In The Guardian Gideon Haigh says it has undone all the good work that Edgbaston in 2005 achieved.
For their part, England have found a way of cancelling out their chief good recent memory of Ashes cricket. They will always have Edgbaston '05, but they will now also always have Adelaide '06.
In the same paper, Lawrence Booth picks out 10 reasons why it all went wrong for England and Richard Williams says that Andrew Flintoff's personality alone is not enough to make him a successful captain.
It was distressing to watch him in that final session, sending down ball after ball of immaculate length and focused aggression at who knows what personal cost, while at the other end his team-mates failed to produce anything that might seriously inconvenience the opposition. But leading by example is not enough in a game as sophisticated as Test cricket, and Flintoff was able to match neither the guile with which Ponting managed the game nor his skill at identifying the right moment to fire up his players.
In The Times Simon Barnes follows the line that England fell to new depths by managing to lurch to defeat from the apparent comfort of a draw.
It was a marshmallow-hearted performance from the batsmen, who failed spectacularly and en masse. It seemed impossible that any team could be in any kind of trouble - still less lose a match - after declaring the first innings closed on 551 for six. Perhaps they should have batted on. No England team had lost a Test match after such a towering first-innings performance. England have, once again, set a benchmark for ineptitude.
For a slightly different take on the result, The Independent has a piece by David Este, a Brit who has lived in Australia for 19 years, on what it's like taking the flak after such a defeat
I have reached the point where I can shrug off the comments of my next-door neighbour Don, who is convinced I keep my money under the soap and is always kind enough to offer me a warm beer on a hot day. But everyone has a weak spot, and mine is cricket, or more accurately the Ashes. Each successive series brings hope followed by the inevitable disappointment.
But just to bring a more positive spin to events, back at The Times Patrick Kidd gives England fans 11 reasons not to give up hope just yet. They certainly need them all.
Posted on 12/06/2006 in Ashes
Warne's contribution must count amongst the mightiest of his career, writes Peter Roebuck in the Sydney Morning Herald
Greg Baum, writing in the The Age, describes the historic scenes at the Adelaide Oval:
Pie stalls re-opened. The authorities threw open the gates. The stands and terraces filled, the crowd's voice became a force. The tide had turned.
Holders of urn exposed as impostors in ultimate arena, says Mike Coward in The Australian
Robert Craddock passes his verdict in The Courier-Mail: Magnificent Shane Warne made an entire England cricket team freeze on a hot summer's day in Adelaide yesterday to all but guarantee Australia will snatch back the Ashes.
December 4, 2006
Posted on 12/04/2006 in Ashes
For those watching the Ashes through the dark winter days in England and don't have access to Sky (or just fancy hearing a different set of commentators) there has been the chance to sample Channel 9's coverage through the BBC's highlights. During England's first-Test mauling there was much predictable bemoaning of the performance, but at Adelaide the Australian commentators have seemed to have gained as much enjoyment out of England's improved show as the Barmy Army. David Hopps assess Lawry, Greig, Chappell at Co in The Guardian.
The real surprises remained with Lawry. He anointed Pietersen as "a great cricketer" by the end of the first day, and on the second he even turned on Warne, his fellow Victorian, as he retreated into leg-stump line. "We've had enough of this round-the-wicket rubbish," Lawry barked. O'Donnell added of Pietersen: "This guy is stunning; he has only played 20 Tests and he has taken one of the world's greats and made him look skill-less."
Posted on 12/04/2006 in
Cricket Australia announced today that Michael Parkinson, the renowned television interviewer and fervent cricket fan, will interview Shane Warne. The show will air early next year.
Parkinson: The Shane Warne Interview will be recorded before a live studio audience and
will air in early January, 2007, exclusively on UKTV.
The interview will have no boundaries and will cover Warne’s stellar career on the cricket field, as
well as his personal mishaps and controversies on and off the field.
“It will be a real pleasure to interview Shane Warne,” said Parkinson. “He is a man who evokes
different emotions from people depending on the subject in question. He is in my view the greatest bowler of them all, certainly in my lifetime.
“Warne is a charismatic, complex and fascinating man. I am greatly looking forward to sitting down with him to find out what makes him tick.”
Shane Warne said: “I respect Michael, he is passionate about cricket and I have only the highest regard for him as a journalist and interviewer. I am looking forward to our chat.”
December 3, 2006
Posted on 12/03/2006 in Ashes
Accusations of negativity and boring play were coming thick and fast after day two at Adelaide Oval, but the Australian media couldn’t decide which team was at fault. Writing in The Sunday Age, Peter Roebuck was in no doubt.
Australia has played its most negative cricket for 20 years. A nation that relishes adventure on the field has been forced to twiddle its thumbs as its highly paid cricketing representatives resorted to the most persistent form of leg theory seen since Trevor "Barnacle" Bailey dumped his bags in the attic. A side proud to the point of boastfulness about its unceasing aggression put up the shutters in the most craven manner. Far from entertaining a crowd agog for a stoush, the home side pursued tactics calculated to kill the game.
Continue reading "Who was the most boring?"
December 1, 2006
Posted on 12/01/2006 in Ashes
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Some sections of the media are turning their backs on Justin Langer
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It seems a batsman scoring 182 runs in a Test match is not enough for some critics. Ben Dorries in The Courier Mail writes that Justin Langer must retire at the end of the Ashes series for the greater good of the Australia team.
If Langer won't willingly walk the plank, chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch must have the courage to push him. Ask yourself a simple question: do we really want a 37-year-old opening batsman taking block against Sri Lanka and India next summer? He's not going to get any better and he's keeping out a bold new wave of openers like Phil Jaques and the underrated Chris Rogers from Western Australia. If Langer keeps taking block, the extraordinary talents of the generation-next openers could be lost completely.
Continue reading "Writing off old man Langer"
November 29, 2006
Posted on 11/29/2006 in Ashes
Brett Lee lifts the lid on Australia’s subdued celebrations after the first Test in his News Ltd column.
Had our first Test celebrations been shown to the world, you might have been surprised by what you saw. Sure, there were a few cold beers being swilled in the dressing room but there were also players drinking Gatorade. Others were drinking water. Others interrupted their celebrations to get ice treatment on their sore spots.
Martin Johnson, appearing in The Age, says there’s a hint of Allan Border’s 1989 team in the current outfit.
When Border brought the 1989 Australians to England, Ian Chappell had told him to stop being matey with the opposition, and Border soon demonstrated that he'd digested this advice when Robin Smith was incapacitated by a blow to the midriff.
Michael Clarke tells the Sydney Morning Herald’s Trevor Marshallsea he’s happy with his batting, but would have liked more t |
