|
|
You may have wondered why the gap between the 4th Test review and the inevitable review. Well I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and soul searching, as well as trying to rebut the un-rebuttable arguments. It is decided that I have come up with the following synopsis.
To be honest the writing was on the wall during Australia’s home series against Pakistan last year. Sure, the series was won 3-0 thanks to Pakistan capitulations but the contest at times was a lot closer. The sheer fact that our top order struggled to combat the pace of Shoaib Akhtar when he was fresh should have signalled a warning sign to the selectors. Indeed it took a couple of recoveries from number 6, 7 and the tail to give us a score that should have been a given against their attack.
Of course, it is known that they pensioned off Darren Lehmann who spent the summer in the commentary box. Perhaps they dumped Damien Martyn too late, particularly in my humble opinion that doesn’t count for too much. Those questions have been answered to a degree after this series, and will continue to be answered in our home series against the Windies and South Africa in the next couple of months.
As for England, little wonder they are partying after we beat them at just about everything else. It was interesting though to note a key to their secret of getting the ball to reverse swing. Whilst watching our Free to Air coverage provided by Channel 4, one of the analyst’s segments shoed that Steve Harmison was defying the conventions that cricket coaches taught people like myself (I played club in the Under 10’s and topped the batting averages!) by not holding the ball with fingers down the seam. This then enabled the ball to be legally scuffed up enough to let Jones and Flintoff to do their thing. It will be interesting to see if other teams have picked up on this.
So after the Ashes comes the so-called Super Series. Just 19000 turned up to the Dome in Melbourne last night to see game 1 of the ODI’s (little wonder-the cheap seats for a Wednesday match were $42) and didn’t really see a contest. The Australian performance was even whilst the world’s glittering batting lineup failed to fire save for Flintoff and the Sri Lankan keeper Kumar Sangakkara. Of course, the World XI are blaming the surface (still a disgrace as it was during the Australian Footy season) but nothing can hide their poor performance with the bat and from their seamers (1 out of the 7 wickets and Kallis, who took that 1 wicket, went for 26 from 4 overs).
Hopefully the series can lift a cog over the weekend’s 2 matches and particularly for the 6 day test match at the SCG next week. What the ICC don’t really want is for the World XI to be embarrassed and this concept to be shot down in flames before it really has a chance to develop properly. If it does, then we may as well have played Zimbabwe. Somehow I think the standard will lift for the huge crowds anticipated for the Sydney test (and hopefully the 60K over the 2 games in Melbourne over the weekend).
Hopefully I’ll be able to provide some sort of analysis (I can’t promise that it will be glowing) on the super series once it’s completed. In the meantime
UNTIL WE SPEAK AGAIN
YOU KNOW I’M A GOOD BLOKE
MOOKS