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Put that down to lack of caffeine in the mornings!

Cricket wisdom from my son: Australia are looking like England:(

Heh! We’ll see in a few months time ;)

Just saw the shot Hughes played to get a four ball duck on debut, and it was a *shocker.* Here’s hoping he has a better second innings!

Wow the tail (mainly Johnson) really wagged!  Johnson’s 96no reminds me of Warnie’s 99 :=P

Johnson’s a much more capable and consistent batsman than Warnie ever was!

Hmm.

Day 5 in Durban

Is it safe for the boys in the baggy green to say “We’re back”?

And that little Phil Hughes.. .. ..who would have thought it!!?!

TZ.

2-0 baby, let’s go for the clean sweep!

I take back what I said about looking like England.
Fine performances. 
Good patient batting when necessary so they didn’t get out stupidly.
Plus some more intelligent use of the available bowling talent.
About those injured players:
Brett Lee - no.  Overrated.
Stuart Clark - yes.
Andrew Symonds - Aust. cricket authorities should have supported him better during the monkey fracas.

I can’t believe we won the test series in S’Africa! That’s an amazing turn-around after the series here.

So Australia scored 422 in the second innings - and Mitchell Johnson scored 123 not out. What a fantastic effort. It’s just a pity that they lost the match by an innings and 20 runs ;)

Oh well.  At least the Aussies reclaimed some pride by winning the series in South Africa.

Are we all watching/listening? :)

Our batting is looking (and has been) excellent, however our bowling is looking very ordinary. Really surprised Stuart Clark was left out even with the injury to Lee, but Hilfenhous bowled very well. Siddle = eh. I don’t rate Hauritz at all, but with the pitch breaking up he could be good tomorrow. No real demons in the pitch at the moment though.

Here’s hoping we get 600+ and then roll them cheaply in the next innings, and the weather stays away!

Luke Stevens - 11 July 2009 12:07 AM

Here’s hoping we get 600+ and then roll them cheaply in the next innings, and the weather stays away!

Luke, if “the weather STAYS AWAY” that will indeed be a climate change to acknowledge. Obviously you meant to hope that “RAINY weather stays away” ;)

Saturday musical nostalgia moment is at :    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIb6I8gtgtw

(  “Weather With You” is a 1991 song by rock group Crowded House. It was the third and most successful single released from the group’s third studio album Woodface, reaching top fifty charts in six countries with a peak of #7 in the United Kingdom. )

Good to see Ricky Ponting gain a big score and restore his confidence. Here’s hoping that the tail wags BIG time !

A great article from “The Times” :

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/cricket/article6676398.ece
England and Australia bound by competition

by Simon Barnes   From The Times July 10, 2009

If we don’t hate them, why do we love to beat them? Why is it Australia, above all other nations, that we like to beat at sport? Why is it that defeat at the hands of Australia is one of the most painful sensations that sport can offer? Why is it that sporting encounters between England - or Great Britain - and Australia are fought with such extraordinary intensity?

Why was it that the farcical episodes - misfields, bad balls, no-balls, byes - during that snorting partnership between James Anderson and Graeme Swann yesterday gave us such inordinate pleasure? Why did our laughter have such malicious delight, even though, on the whole, we bear Australians no malice? Why did the thought of Australians in pain give such giggling, gloating delight?

And why was the gloating tempered with the truly horrible thought that it could all go badly wrong at any stage and that we may well be the ones squirming with pain and embarrassment before very long?

Our nations are friends, most of us have individual Australian friends, the English and British invariably love Australia when they visit and Australians in their turn love England when they come here. (Probably love Wales as well.) True, there is a history of warfare shared by these nations, but they have always fought on the same side. It’s not like the traditional footballing rivalries between England and Germany, England and Argentina, in which the countries have spent time killing each other. There is some genuine hatred involved when England play either of these teams.

Nor is there a problem of conquest. When England play Wales at rugby or Scotland at football, there is always a great stirring-up of the terrible resentments of centuries-old killings and conquests. Hating England is considered by some from the Celtic nations to be a reasonable and civilised emotion. But Australians really don’t hate England. They just like to beat the crap out of them at sport.

Oh, there is the odd bigot, but you can find them in any society, not least our own. The fact is that when you go into a bar in Sydney and ask for a beer in an English voice, you are not going to feel threatened and ill at ease. You won’t even be insulted, save jovially and often. Australia is a nice place to be English in.

But now England and Australia are playing cricket and I passionately want all the nice Australian people I have met and, even more passionately, my dear friend Al to feel horribly miserable because our cricket team have defeated their cricket team. Odd: I wouldn’t wish anything bad for Al for the world, except that I long for him to feel quite desperately sad about cricket. Oh, and Britain won more medals at last year’s Beijing Olympic Games than Australia; I seem to remember making a call to point that out. Even the Olympics, with 200-odd nations, can be reduced to an Ashes contest….

See link to continue reading the article.

Wow - isn’t the First Test hotting up - at least for Australia ? In reply to England’s 435, Australia declared at 6/674 - after Marcus North scored 125 and Brad Haddin was left on 121 not out after both joined in a 200 run partnership. So that leaves a 239 run deficit for England, so being 2/20 at stumps looks like only England’s secret weapon ( “rainy weather” ) can save them. I’m happy with that, aren’t you ?

There’s a Live Cricket Blog ( with links to scorecards ) at :
http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,25765096-5017925,00.html

Absolutely mammoth score, but the rubbish bowling attacks of both sides on a slow pitch have been disappointing - the great thing about 2005 was the contest between bat and ball, imo :) That said, tonight should be very exciting, and hopefully we can get the last 8 in good time. Hauritz is going to have lots of bowling to do, and I bet we’ll see a fair bit of MJ Clarke with the ball later on too.

And yes, hopefully the rain stays away ;)

ay aye aye aye aye

we’ll see a fair bit of MJ Clarke with the ball later on too

Sadly, no. Ponting is a terrible captain. Clarke should have been on as soon as it was obvious Hauritz wasn’t going to get the job done. And where was Hilfenhaus? What was Ponting thinking bringing Siddle (who hadn’t taken a wicket all innings) back on? Why is Johnson so ordinary when it matters most?

Credit to the English tailenders though, good resistence there.

Poor result, but at least we put them on the rack.

Hopefully the English will be psychologically hurt by the experience and continue to crumble in the next four Tests, like the first part of their second innings.

Went on a Lord’s tour during last weekend while in London. The last time England defeated Australia in a Test at Lord’s was 1936 (according to our decrepit but very funny & quaint tour guide). So they haven’t won against us in Ashes series’ at the famous ground for over 70 years.

Let’s hope it continues that way in the 2nd Test!

The whole slant of the media in the UK (from BBC World, CNBC & CNN reports) seemed quite different from the Aussie media slant. In the lead-up to the Ashes, so much of what they talked about was 2005, 2005, 2005.

I kept on asking (& sometimes yelling at the TV screen in my Paris hotel room), “But what about 2006?”

The way the UK media approached things, it was almost as if the 2006 Ashes series in Australia had never happened! Honestly, they had a real penchant for focusing on the more dated positives without acknowledging the more recent negatives. Whereas from what I recall of Aussie lead-up, there’s generally more of an equal emphases on “yes-we-won-the-last-series-BUT-let’s-make-sure-we-don’t-repeat-our-2005-mistakes-Did-You-Hear-That-Ricky-Ponting??!?”

Yet, in spite of Ashes fever - which was really hard to stomach at times while in London - I’d go back to Europe in a heartbeat. And, if never able to return to Australia, at this point in my life I would be jumping up & down for joy. I made good European friends from Paris mission, & unless I ever return to that part of the world, we’ll probably never meet again - except on The Day. *sigh*

TZ.

*grinding teeth*

Why couldn’t we have kept our immaculate Lord’s record?

Why??

Why???

Why??!?

Hard to know who deserves more credit. Cook and Strauss putting on 200 on day 1? Johnson being belted for 200 (off 38 overs)? Hughes and North for doing literally nothing? Dodgy umpiring?

Nah, the hero was Flintoff. What a devastating spell last night!

This is just the kind of situation we need, 1-0 down with 3 to play. Hopefully this will be sufficient motivation for the boys.

Pietersen out for the rest of the series.  Will that have any effect?

It sure will! If we can actually bowl…

Freddie has got our number for now though. Can I just say test match cricket is so much more interesting when there’s something in it for the bowlers? That’s what made 2005 great imo.

Can’t wait for third test. I agree with Nick - if we bat first, I think we’ll get 600+ and put them right out the game ;)

Wonder if the rain will stay away tonight - we really need to get it to swing, could be very interesting if the bowlers (on both sides) do well!