Ashes

[Firkinelle]

Wow thunder and lightening 2 hours after the game finished what good timing

[johnsmith]

like all aussies, i'd rather die an inglorious death than have rain save us...

[Firkinelle]

Are you still living there JS or have you moved?

[mark]

Quality performance from England over the whole 5 days and a well deserved victory. Next match will be interesting at the WACA will the bowlers be able to maintain their discipline or with the extra bounce will they get excited and start pitching it halfway down the track?

I am guessing the probable replacement at Perth will be Tremlett for England and the Aussies will probably bring in Hughes and possibly Smith?

All that matters is England are playing well and Australia are not and long may it continue.

[Firkinelle]

Legendary cricket enemies Sir Ian Botham and Ian Chappell had to be pulled apart after a furious bust-up in the car park after the end of play on the fourth day in the Adelaide Test.

The England and Australia icons have a feud going back more than 30 years and squared up before their Sky and Channel 9 colleagues intervened.

Botham, who hasn't spoken to former Australia captain Chappell since 1980 despite them working in close proximity in cricket ground television booths around the globe, was waiting for his Sky transport to collect him outside the Adelaide Oval.


Wished I'd seen that

[Firkinelle]

Ian Chappell says if Australia draw the series, they will almost see it as a victory, was that before Beefy hit him?

[Firkinelle]

Ricky Ponting has fallen out of the world's top 20 batsmen for the first time since 2001 following his double failure in Adelaide

[Firkinelle]

Good article in the Sydney Morning Herald



As the clouds of despair engulfed Australian cricket at a far greater rate than the storm clouds that were supposed to provide ill-deserved salvation, the inclination was to declare all hope lost. However, I remain confident Australia can win the series.

Yes, the opposing batsmen will plunder an attack that penetrates about as deeply as a picnic fork pressed on a chargrilled T-bone and the Australian top order urgently requires an alarm clock that rouses them before midday. Yet, with eight or nine changes, some favourable umpiring, the aid of seasonal monsoons and the possibility the series will be cancelled altogether because it clashes with the Indian Premier League, Australia remains capable of retaining its place in the top dozen or so Test playing nations after April's proposed tour of Bangladesh.

You thought I was referring to the current series against England? Are you 'avin' a laugh?

On the evidence presented, Australia has a snowball's hope at the 2022 World Cup of regaining the Ashes. Indeed, the idea of Ricky Ponting and his demoralised battlers halting the English juggernaut is like putting a toothpick on the tracks in the hope of derailing a speeding bullet train.

The final two days at Adelaide, we were assured, was when we would find out what this Australian team was made of. The results are not yet back from the lab, but it seems to be some sort of gooey, soft-centred material that melts rapidly when heat is applied, is easily removed from flat surfaces, does not bounce or spin and which stinks to high heaven.

The taste? Ask Alastair Cook, Kevin Pietersen or one of the other Englishmen who have dined out on the Australians for the past eight days of Test cricket.

Australia, of course, should not be disappointed by their dismal performance in Adelaide against an abundantly talented English line-up. They should be chastened, humiliated and utterly sick to the stomach.

Not merely because their ineptitude means the closest they will get to holding the Ashes is on a sightseeing tour at Lord's, but because they allowed the Barmy Army to complete the most chilling invasion of Australian soil since Japanese bombs rained down on Darwin. Listening to the endless choruses of Jerusalem and God Save Your Queen, you would have thought Adelaide was a small city in Shropshire, not the local home of mullets, serial killers and Christopher Pyne.

Which is not to say the Australians achieved nothing at the Adelaide Oval.

Xavier Doherty managed something that was, just two weeks ago, on the ''you must be daft'' side of implausible - he forced a nation to turn its lonely eyes (back) to Nathan Hauritz. Which is a bit like a chainsaw killer making you fondly reminisce about the home intruder who merely beat you on the head with a tyre lever rather than dicing up your spleen.

Marcus North, in his last match for Australia, provided a reminder of his significant place in the game's history - he was, according to Cricinfo's archive, the only Test player whose surname is also a point on the compass. North failed at the crease. But, without him, Australia might have lost all sense of direction.

In the second innings, Michael Clarke showed his backbone to someone other than the team physiotherapist. Yet he remains the most baffling figure. While you could easily forgive Clarke's decision not to walk on the (hastily tweeted) grounds he was devastated by his dismissal to Pietersen in the last over of the day, his later admission that he was trying to push the ball around the corner for a single so he could get off strike is not the type of revelation you want from the captain-apparent.

Otherwise, in the outer, we are left with nothing but our savage second-guessing of the selectors, our black humour and, for English friends, our overflowing message banks. And with the very real hope that, when required, those Bangladesh monsoons move at a greater rate than the sluggish Adelaide storm clouds.

[Temujin]

Ricky Ponting has fallen out of the world's top 20 batsmen for the first time since 2001 following his double failure in Adelaide

I find this to be a rather amusing post to be honest. What exactly are you basing it on?
Ricky Ponting is second all time highest scorer. 4th all time half centuries. 2nd all time centuries. Scored over 25,000 International runs, yet you can find 20 current players that are better than him? rotflmfao...

All good being happy that you are winning something, but lets remember, Australia are coming off being the best ever test cricket side and have lost some of historys best cricketers. The only way for them was down.

Just goes to show how easily pleased some people are.

[Charles49]

Sadly much of what Firky has reproduced here has more than a basic element of truth contained therein. Australia has enjoyed a respectable position as one of the premier cricketing nations for some time now but alas in recent months it has been dislodged from that mantel not only in the optium Test arena but also in the shorter versions of the game.
We all have our opinions as to why this has occurred and the frontrunners are too much cricket and not enough time spent on educating and promoting the future baggy green cap wearers. Some would argue that the likes of Ponting and Hussey have reached and passed their use by dates whilst others point to the lack of depth of good bowlers that was evidenced when the gap created by the departures of Warne and McGrath failed to find able and capable replacements.
There has even been some discussion that the Wags have created some angst and I guess in the much publised episodes surrounding Michael Clarke's there is some evidence that gives weight to this.
Cricket is a game I love and its depressing to see the slide that currently confronts Australia ......but the tide will eventually turn..unfortunately it wont be this year.!

[mark]

Lets face facts Australia had a golden period with the best players in the world playing for them, They had match winners all through the team and at a point had Adam Gilchrist when he was ranked number one batsman in the world as their wicket keeper and batting at number 7! I think it is fair to say that some teams have one or two superstars in their team in a given timeframe but look at that Ausralian team It had Waugh, Hayden, Gilchrist, Warne, Mcgrath and Ponting all world class and could walk into any team. Unfortunately for Australia they all have finished very close to each other and that leaves a massive gap that nobody could fill. All I have to say though is I am surprised Australia did not blood a few youngsters against SA and again against India just to see what they were like and how they coped with the pressures of test cricket. One another note I remeber seeing Damien Martyn play for Leicestershire in the 1990's and he alongside Ben Smith if I remeber correctly played exceptionally well against a touring WI team and everyone thought then Martyn was destined for a great future the way he looked so classy at 19 yet he hardly registered in that great Aussie team and I think that just shows how good they were.

Still it is nice to sit up and watch Austrlia toil in the field and watch them be ground down as it has always been the other way around and I have had to put up with alot of grief from Aussie relatives during the last 4 tours that I have watched so it is very nice to hear them so quiet for a change.

[Firkinelle]

I find this to be a rather amusing post to be honest. What exactly are you basing it on?

I am not basing it on anything, the ICC official rankings are -

ICC Player Rankings


1 882 K.C. Sangakkara 938 v England, 01/12/2007
2 859 S.R. Tendulkar 898 v Zimbabwe, 21/02/2002
3 850 V. Sehwag 866 v Sri Lanka, 18/07/2010
4 806 J.H. Kallis 935 v New Zealand, 18/11/2007
5 793 A.B. de Villiers 793 v Pakistan, 20/11/2010
6 785 I.J.L. Trott 785 v Australia, 03/12/2010
7 781 D.P.M.D. Jayawardena 883 v India, 20/11/2009
8 779 S. Chanderpaul 901 v New Zealand, 19/12/2008
9 766 G.C. Smith 843 v England, 14/01/2010
10 763 T.T. Samaraweera 763 v West Indies, 23/11/2010
11 758 V.V.S. Laxman 775 v Australia, 01/10/2010
12 750 H.M. Amla 842 v India, 14/02/2010
13 739 A.N. Cook 739 v Australia, 03/12/2010
14 726 M.E.K. Hussey 921 v West Indies, 23/05/2008
15 723 M.J. Clarke 855 v England, 09/08/2009
16 715 Younus Khan 880 v Sri Lanka, 21/02/2009
16 715 K.P. Pietersen 909 v West Indies, 28/05/2007
18 711 R.L. Taylor 775 v Pakistan, 03/12/2009
19 709 C.H. Gayle 755 v Sri Lanka, 15/11/2010
20 707 R. Dravid 892 v Pakistan, 16/03/2005
20 707 Tamim Iqbal 707 v England, 04/06/2010
22 703 Mohammad Yousuf 933 v West Indies, 27/11/2006
23 700 S.M. Katich 807 v Pakistan, 13/07/2010
24 698 G. Gambhir 886 v Sri Lanka, 24/11/2009
25 694 R.T. Ponting 942 v England, 01/12/2006

[Firkinelle]

Lets face facts Australia had a golden period with the best players in the world playing for them, They had match winners all through the team and at a point had Adam Gilchrist when he was ranked number one batsman in the world as their wicket keeper and batting at number 7! I think it is fair to say that some teams have one or two superstars in their team in a given timeframe but look at that Ausralian team It had Waugh, Hayden, Gilchrist, Warne, Mcgrath and Ponting all world class and could walk into any team. Unfortunately for Australia they all have finished very close to each other and that leaves a massive gap that nobody could fill. All I have to say though is I am surprised Australia did not blood a few youngsters against SA and again against India just to see what they were like and how they coped with the pressures of test cricket. One another note I remeber seeing Damien Martyn play for Leicestershire in the 1990's and he alongside Ben Smith if I remeber correctly played exceptionally well against a touring WI team and everyone thought then Martyn was destined for a great future the way he looked so classy at 19 yet he hardly registered in that great Aussie team and I think that just shows how good they were.

Still it is nice to sit up and watch Austrlia toil in the field and watch them be ground down as it has always been the other way around and I have had to put up with alot of grief from Aussie relatives during the last 4 tours that I have watched so it is very nice to hear them so quiet for a change.

Good post Mark and I agree with you we all thought Australia had some magic formula for Test cricket but all they really had were alot of World Class players.

i think their Test team was a bit of a "closed shop" situation so not many new players were brought in,

It's funny how we've had to endure their jibes for years yet when there's a reversal it is quickly dismissed, by my friends and relatives in Australia, as if we are not allowed to talk about it. I call it a "didn't happen" mentality and one I've witnessed at first hand between good friends who support different AFL sides.

No one particularly likes losing but when you give it out you've got to expect some back

[Firkinelle]

Not to be held back, I see the Aus X1 for Perth has been announced. Lawry Simpson Chappell I Chappell G Walters Yallop Marsh Benaud Lillee Thomson McKenzie.

[johnsmith]

side note, how good is tendulkar to be still kicking arse

and firk for what its worth , personally ive enjoyed your whit and thought the paper article was quite funny