Well there you go. After a week and a half of our bowlers being blasted for their hopelessness, they've made the Poms look absolutely stupid. Partly because of the English press, the Barmy Army and Peter Roebuck declaring Ashes victory after Adelaide, and partly because they literally made them look stupid. As I suggested after the Adelaide debacle, our batsmen were more to blame than the bowlers there; our bowlers sent down overs and overs on a batsmen's paradise, while our batsmen failed miserably (twice) on a batsmen's paradise. But the cricketing media would have none of that shit. Anyhow, with favourable bowling conditions, our pace attack fired up and skittled the hapless Poms. Great to see a WACA green top with some old-school bounce! And the Pommies didn't like it one bit!
At this juncture, I am not yet going to apologise to Mitchell Johnson. The series isn't over yet, and even though everyone thinks you're wonderful again champ, consistency is the key. What I will say is that his first innings bowling was superb and if he could produce that most of the time, he wouldn't be reading about himself on WHAB so much. Good to see him fire up a bit too, especially at that belligerent tosser Anderson...
Onto the other bowlers, and go the Rhino! We've always had a huge opinion of the guy here and it was nice to see him get some serious rewards for his honest toil at Adelaide Oval. The wickets weren't there for Hilfy but here's a shoutout to the man who should never have been dropped for the Second Test. He bowled brilliantly with some nice swing, and was just unlucky that the English batsmen weren't good enough to get the edges. He was ultra economical, tied down an end, and it was largely due to the constant pressure he applied that England fell apart. Siddle didn't end up getting much of a go due to the capitulation (s), but from what I saw, looked like he might have taken a few if the Poms hadn't been humbled so piss-weakly.
Onto our batting...and there are still real problems here. If you take out the contributions of Hussey, Watson and Haddin, then we're likely down 2-1 in this series. Hughes didn't fire in Perth but I'm happy enough to give the guy another go, whether the cut-throat selectors are is another story. Ponting and Clarke are just in rubbish form. Considering they are captain and vice-captain, the method of their dismissals is quite alarming. There's a lot of unconvincing poking around going on. Punter now also has a fractured finger to worry about and given he looks reminiscent of one Bruce Reid with the bat at present, this sure isn't going to help him find some form. The Huss has been nothing short of brilliant. Gritty when he needs to be, showman when he doesn't. His hooking and pulling at the WACA (except for his dismissal!) was the highlight of the series thus far for me. Surely though, we can't go another Test with Smith at 6. Some may say that he made a tidy 35 in the second innings. Others, myself included, say that I thought he was going to get out on every single ball he faced. We desperately need a specialist batsmen at 6, especially when we're carrying a couple of guys further up the order. We're obviously not going to bowl four quicks anywhere else in Australia either, so dropping Smith to 8 looks a great way to juice up the batting. McDonald (if available) at 6, all of a sudden makes this team look awesome given you get a genuine medium pace option to go with his career best batting form. Otherwise, I think Khawaja is about ready for the next level. Hopefully the selectors don't get so wrapped up in our huge win that they overlook the thin-ness of our batting order...
The thing that struck me most during the Third Test is that James Anderson is one of the biggest wankers in Test cricket. The guy just gobs off at everyone, and probably even gives his grandmother the odd spray for good measure. Hussey is averaging about a thousand in the series, and is not one for a chat, but Anderson still just let fly at him. Gobbing off at the main reason Australia is still in with a fighting chance to reclaim the Ashes? The worst thing is, it's not tactical sledging, it's just a guy running his mouth because he can't help being a complete fucking tosser. Setting a great example for his newborn child. Fuck right off Anderson.
And fuck right off Roebuck. Yeah sure, England are the greatest team ever, Australia are the worst, South Africa and India, well they don't play in the Ashes so they can't be the best in the world, and can someone just give me a 10,000 word column so I can write a great big turd of an article...?
How does get fucked sound?
It's the reason us purists love Test cricket; the unpredictability of it all. And it can sometimes creep up on us, or sometimes it happens in a flash. The stage is set for another classic finish to the Ashes...here's hoping that this time we come out on top and Anderson and Roebuck go home looking like a couple of twats!
No comments:
Post a Comment