The Ashes Blog

Preview: This is a big, big Test match, as it’s only the fourth time in about 40 years that the result in the fifth Test will decide who wins The Ashes. I can’t see Australia losing, but you never know what impact someone like Freddie Flintoff could have.

The teams? Well, I think England has made a mistake by choosing Harmison instead of Onions. And I think Australia would have been better off picking Brett Lee instead of Stuart Clark.

England will bat first, and we all know what happened last time. This time they’ll need to score at least 600, and I’d consider that unlikely.

Day 1: England 307 for 8 (Bell 72, Siddle 4-63)

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It was hardly a day of high skill, as Australia’s bowlers were ordinary and England’s batsmen gave their wickets a way. I posted a Tweet saying that I thought this might be Ian Bell’s day for a big score, and although not huge, his 72 was England’s highest individual score. So at least the decision to move him to number 3 for England seems to have paid off this time, but will it work again? He got there, but he didn’t fill me with confidence.

Australia played Clark instead of Lee, and although Clark was efficient he also failed to take a wicket. I still think Lee would have been a better wicket taking option, although this pitch looks like it’ll be a turner so perhaps the selectors should have included Hauritz. Mind you, if the wicket is a spinner’s deck, then Australia’s part-time spinners in Clarke, North, and Katich could probably take care of things.

Overall, the Aussies will be pleased enough. However, with the pitch looking a little dodgy they’ll need to build a 1st innings lead of at least 100 because batting last at The Oval could be tricky.

Day 2: England 332 and 58 for 3 lead Australia 160 (Katich 50, Broad 5-37, Swann 4-38) by 230 runs

Well, that was interesting. Dodgy umpiring decisions that went against both sides, dodgy batting by Australia and England’s top order, and a dodgy pitch that will unfortunately have the greatest impact on the game. Dodgy.

England is now well in control, and look set to regain the Ashes. Australia could conceivably fight their way back if they can dismiss England for less than 120 (which is possible), but then they’ll need to bat extremely well in very difficult conditions in the fourth innings. Doable, yes, but highly unlikely.

Day 3: Australia 160 and 80 for 0 (Watson 31*, Katich 42*) need 466 more runs to beat England 332 and 373 for 9 dec (Trott 119, Strauss 75, Swann 63, North 4-98)

England is now well in control, and The Ashes are almost theirs. Almost, but not quite. Although the pitch is deteriorating, and England has the bowlers to take 10 wickets, it is not a given that England will win at The Oval. This Australian team should fight hard, and if they put some pressure on England’s bowlers, anything could happen. Mind you, I only give the Aussies a 0.2 per cent chance of getting there.

Day three at The Oval was a great one for England. I said yesterday that if England could be dismissed for less than 120 then Australia would be back in the game. Clearly that didn’t happen.

New boy Jonathan Trott scored a century in just his second innings (and became only the second Englishman to score a century in this series), and looks the part. The lower order of Swann and Broad also added valuable runs, and really made the pitch look rather tame. The Aussie bowling was, however, pretty ordinary. They bowled wide of off stump far too often, and just made it too easy for the batsmen.

Australia now faces a massively monumentally hugely big total to chase, and it will be close to unattainable even for a pretty strong batting side like Australia. However, based on England’s effort, if the Aussies can get to 200 for  no more than two wickets down, then they are on track for a new world record. And watch out for Ponting. This is his last innings in England, and he does tend to play well in the big games.

Day 4: England 332 and 373 for 9 dec beat Australia 160 and 348 (Hussey 121, Ponting 66, Swann 4-120) by 197 runs

Congratulations to the England cricket team on a comprehensive 197 run win at The Oval. It was always the most likely result, though as an Australian fan I am pleased with the fight shown by our batsmen. To score 348 on this pitch (which is more than England scored in their 1st innings) is a great effort, and it ended up being a couple of run-outs that finished things off for Australia rather than the bowlers.

As I expected, captain Ricky Ponting batted brilliantly for 66, and it was only a poor call from Mike Hussey that led to his run-out. If it weren’t for that then he looked set for a really, really big score. As for Hussey, he might have done enough to keep his place in the side for a little while longer with a determined century.

So as England regain the Ashes, again, I suppose we can expect to see jubilant scenes across the UK. Last time England won their players were given an MBE. This time I suppose they receive a Dukedom. They might want to watch that they don’t overdo the celebrations, however, as the events that transpired after their 2005 victory inspired Australia to a 5-0 whitewash the next time they met.

When these sides meet again in Australia in 2010/2011, there will be some small changes but a lot of the personnel could be the same. There’ll obviously be no Freddie Flintoff, and possibly no Michael Hussey or Stuart Clark for the Australians. It will be an interesting series, as Australia will once again seek revenge on the old enemy. I’ll be booking my seat at the Gabba for the First Test for sure.

Preview: England have picked Panesar and Swann – smart move. Australia has picked Hilfenhaus and Hauritz – not so smart. Why would you pick Hilfy over Clark? I’m not quite sure, but I hope it works.

Anyway, England have won the toss and elected to bat, and that’s massive. A huge boost for England. If they lose the First Test, batting first with a team that is focussed on spinning, they might as well all give up and go and play darts. However, Australia still has the better batting lineup, and although England has a statistically stronger bowling group, Australia is ahead overall when you compare batting and bowling averages.

Day 1: England 336 for 7

(Pietersen 69, Collingwood 64, Prior 56)

That was an evenly matched first day, with each side delivering a counter-attack at some point. I thought Johnson was off his game early on, but he came back really well. Hilfenhaus surprised me with his effectiveness, and he may yet turn out to be Australia’s new Terry Alderman.

England will be frustrated with their day. Enough of their recognised batsmen had good starts (three half centuries and only one guy scored less than 30), and someone should have gone on to get a really big score. But the funniest thing was the sight of James Anderson, England’s number 10, coming out as nightwatchman ahead of Stuart Broad who bats at number 8. Why do you need a nightwatchman to protect your number 8??!

I mentioned in a Twitter post that this was a 400+ pitch, and I reckon England will be under par if they don’t make that. Let’s see what the second day brings us.

Day 2: Australia 249 for 1 (Katich 104*, Ponting 100*) trail England 435 (Pietersen 69, Collingwood 64, Prior 56, Johnson 3-87, Hauritz 3-95) by 186 runs

I think Australia’s back in this game, and I’m a little surprised at how easy it’s been. England’s spinners were supposed to destroy Australia because, well, if Nathan Hauritz could make the ball turn then anyone could. It looks like Hauritz got more out of the pitch than his (supposedly) superior English tweakers, who barely beat the bat all day. Yes, maybe Katich should have been out LBW, but England also had a bit of quick with LBW decisions (did you see Kevin Pietersen get hit plumb in front?) so it all evens out.

In the first session the England tail wagged, and gave a hint that perhaps this pitch wasn’t going to be as difficult to bat on as we were being told. But I don’t think anyone expected two centuries from Australia’s top order. One England commentator (was it Botham or Hussein?) at Sky Sport said that there wouldn’t be any hundreds scored in this Test. Yeah, right.

How many more runs does Australia need? I reckon they’ll want to be at least 100 runs in front, and that’s going to be tough. They’ll probably lose a few quick wickets on day three, and if England can stretch that out to 6 or 7 quick wickets for only a few runs, then the hosts will be right back in it. It’s not going to take much to turn this match on its head yet again.

Day 3: Australia 479 for 5 (North 54*, Haddin 4*) lead England 435 by 44 runs

England did pick up a few quick wickets as I suggested they would, but they’re now a long way behind Australia.  I think England’s bowlers have simply been ordinary. Sure, it took a lot of determination and class from Australia’s batsmen to put on so many runs, but the English bowling was pathetic. It was only when Anderson was getting the ball to swing around that they looked seriously threatening. Is it time to swing the axe and give a few other bowlers a chance for the 2nd Test at Lord’s?  With Andrew Flintoff they may not have a choice. Dean Jones is wondering if Flintoff might not be quite 100% fit, and that could be affecting his performance. Jones also put forward a rumour he’s heard that Flintoff is ready to retire from Test match cricket at the end of this series, and I reckon that could be right. Big Freddie isn’t playing as well as he used to, and I think his repetitive injuries might have a lot to do with that.  It might be time to join the other retirees in the IPL.

As for the Aussies, they’re all doing well. The only disappointment is Mike Hussey, who seems to be the weak link in the batting chain at the moment. He did play well at Worcester, but apart from that he hasn’t been great for the past year or so. Are his days numbered? Could he be replaced by his younger brother David Hussey? We’ll have to wait and see.

Day 4: England 435 and 20 for 2 (Strauss 6*, Pietersen 3*) trail Australia 674 for 6 (Ponting 150, North 125*, Katich 122, Haddin 121) by 219 runs

Things just keep getting worse for England, and Australia seems to have the Midas touch. Here are some facts for the Australian batting card:

• 674 for 6 (dec) is the nation’s highest Ashes total since 1934.
• four century makers in their first innings – the first time a team had done so in an Ashes battle since England did it at Trent Bridge in 1938.
• North and Haddin became the 15th and 16th Australians to score a ton in their maiden Ashes clash.

I’m increasingly surprised at how well things have gone for the Aussies, and totally surprised at how inept England is playing. Everything about them is wrong. I heard Geoffrey Boycott last night on the BBC saying that Andrew Strauss is a poor captain, and based on this Test I would have to agree. Not that now’s a good time to change captain, of course.

As for tomorrow, well England needs someone to stand up and get them through the day. The pitch isn’t as bad as people were saying it would be, so I think it’s possible for England to survive day 5.  One of their biggest obstacles will be themselves and their obvious lack of confidence. Oh, and watch out for Michael Clarke – he loves bowling late on day 5.

Day 5 – Match drawn. England 435 and 252 for 9 (Collingwood 74, Hilfenhaus 3-37) drew with Australia 674 for 6 dec

Well, England managed to hold on for a draw, much to everyone’s surprise. Monty Panesar and James Anderson held on at the end, much like Australia did at Old Trafford in 2005. However, it will be a hollow celebration for the England players, because they’ll know they were well and truly beaten in every way in this First Test.

The positives? I think one of the biggest will be the impact it has on cricket fans in England. If the Poms had lost, then a lot of people would have lost interest in the series. I even mentioned to my father-in-law yesterday that if Australia won this First Test, then it would be in the best interests of the game for England to win the next Test at Lord’s just to keep things close.  It was hard work for a mad keen Aussie cricket fan like me to say that, but I know that Test cricket needs an absorbing battle between the old enemies in order to grab back the imagination of the English and Australian public.

As it is, there’ll be a little bit of pride in England from managing to not lose.  England fans should be disappointed with the performance from their (supposedly) best XI, but they need to keep on supporting and keep on staying interested in this series. As Alex Brown writes at Cricinfo, the Ashes 2009 has all of the drama and intrigue of 2005’s epic battle, and is worth watching.

I thought I’d put up a couple of different angles on how things are shaping for The Ashes 2009. First up is a review from my father-in-law, a keen English cricket fan now living in Brisbane, Australia:

I think it will be close. Neither team looks a dominant force to me, though both are capable of playing winning cricket. If the wickets favour spin, I think England will probably win, though I rate Michael Clarke and Katich as good spinners, probably better than Hauritz. But it is unlikely that more than a couple of the pitches will help spinners much.

The weather is very good at the moment. It was hot for Wimbledon. But English weather ….

Here are my thoughts as an Australian fan:
Read the rest of this entry »

I thought I’d try and put together a playing list of recent Australian and English players who have struggled to play as much cricket as they would like because of various injuries. Some seem to spend half their life on the bench, whilst others have experienced occasional injuries but have nevertheless missed out on some big moments. Here’s my Injured Ashes XI:

1. Marcus Trescothick
2. Phil Jaques
3. Michael Vaughan (c)
4. Shane Watson
5. Andrew Symonds
6. Andrew Flintoff
7. James Foster (w)
8. Brett Lee
9. Simon Jones
10. Shaun Tait
11. Bryce McGain

Not a bad playing list, but do you think all eleven could be simultaneously fit for a game??! And how many of these guys will play a Test in the 2009 Ashes series?

Who would win in a match between an Andrew Flintoff XI (that is, a team of eleven Flintoffs) and a Mitchell Johnson XI (a team of eleven Johnsons)?

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve done a stats analysis before, at the start of the last series, so I thought I’d do one again for the 2009 Ashes.

I wanted to compare player averages to see which side was statistically more likely to win. I could just add up the batting averages for the eleven players in each side, but that doesn’t take into account the quality of the bowling of the other side. So what I’ve done is add up the batting averages for each team, and then add to that total the bowling averages for the opposition, to give me a total team score (ie. add up the batting averages for England’s eleven batsmen, and then add to that total the combined bowling average for Australia’s five bowlers). So if a side has a very good, and therefore low, bowling average then they won’t be adding too many runs to the oppositions total batting average, so it seems to me like a fair comparison. When I do this, I get the following result:

Australia: 594
England: 510

This would suggest a comfortable Australia win, with the Aussies ahead in both the batting and bowling averages.

You can also have a bit of fun with this concept. For example, a team of eleven Simon Katichs would defeat a standard England XI with Strauss, Pietersen, Flintoff and Co. Don’t believe me? I’ll show you how you can try it out for yourself, using any combination of players on both sides. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, it looks like England’s hero of the 2005 Ashes crashed in the 2006/2007 series in a big way. According to a book by former England coach Duncan Fletcher, Flintoff turned up drunk at a training drill in Sydney:

We were doing one drill called the ‘cut and pull’ with two groups either side of me, requiring an accurate throw from one side so that I could cut.

Flintoff was in such a state that he could not throw properly. He had to pass the ball to the bloke next to him to do so … I was fuming and stopped the practice early. Remember: this was the England captain in this state.

Fletcher considered dropping Flintoff as captain. I think he should have. In fact, he should have taken the lead that the Australian team did with Andrew Symonds when he was also inebriated at a training run – dropped for the game. It turned Symonds around, and maybe it would have helped Flintoff as well. As it is, they did nothing, and things only got worse as Flintoff again got too friendly with the drink at the World Cup.

A few days ago a newspaper article appeared in The Guardian quoting Michael Vaughan criticising Andrew Flintoff’s drunken adventure in the Caribbean. In the article Vaughan suggests that he’d have done a much better job at captaining the side if it weren’t for Mr Flintoff and the death of Bob Woolmer … however, I think we can ignore the issue of Bob Woolmer’s death as everyone at the World Cup had to deal with that so England was not unique in that regard.

Naturally enough, this criticism of England’s Super Fred has caused quite a furore, with Lancashire’s CEO saying that Vaughan’s comments were “despicable”, and now Vaughan is saying he was misquoted, a claim The Guardian denies.
Read the rest of this entry »

What happened, Freddie? Well, we know what happened – you went out on the town for a bit of that famous Caribbean hospitality, and had a few too many drinks. You couldn’t skipper the national cricket team, and it looks like you can’t skipper a pedal boat either.

Perhaps it all became just a bit too much for him. Granted, he was in charge when England lost the Ashes 5-0, then Vaughan came back and England defeated Australia in the one-day series final. That can’t have done much for Freddie’s confidence. Then the England team heads over to the World Cup with some degree of confidence, and promptly lose to New Zealand in their first game. Time to, er, celebrate with a few drinks and a cruise. In a pedal boat. And a bit of a swim at 4am.

Mind you, this isn’t the first time a top cricketer has found the appeal of a right royal booze up too hard to resist, and it won’t be the last. However, it should not ever be encouraged, and I congratulate the England team management on their tough stance against such behaviour. Apparently Flintoff was warned about his excessive drinking a few times on the recent Ashes tour, but it wasn’t until he took things just a little too far that any firm action was taken.

It’s time to move on, Freddie. Let’s see if you can get back some of that lost form, and show some heroics on the field, not off it.

England: 291
Australia: 4/188

It really was one of those days. England started off the day in a pretty strong position, then completely fell apart, but fought back really well to be on top once again, before allowing Australia to go slightly ahead by stumps.

Australia bowled pretty well in the morning session, with the final 6 English wickets falling for just 57 runs, which is almost as bad as their disastrous 2nd innings in Adelaide where the final 6 added just 56 runs to the total. This 2nd day Sydney wicket is a pretty decent place to bat. All of England’s recognised batsmen made a start, but only Bell (71) and Flintoff (89) were able to knock up half centuries. It shouldn’t have been that bad.

Or so it seemed.

Like England, Australia’s batsmen all put runs on the board, and seemed settled at the crease. Yet somehow the bowlers were able to strike back, and so far, none of the Australians have managed to get past 50. That may change on day three, with Hussey and Symonds looking to stick around for a while and give Australia at least a bit of a lead. However, as we saw today, there is enough in the pitch for the bowlers to trouble the willow wielders, so anything could happen.