First Test, Day 5 Recap

England batted on and on at their own pace, declaring unsportingly, with no team any chance to win. The Poms looked more intent on padding their stats rather than getting stuck into the collapse-prone Aussie batting order. Yes our bowling was shite, and everything Mitchell Johnson did was terrible beyond adequate description, but seriously, what is with these fucking road pitches on days 4 and 5 of a Test match? I want to see a killer minefield out there, with confused and terrified batsmen, not guys knocking around double centuries. I want old school Test matches where chasing 150 in the final innings was treacherous. Where balls would fly off the pitch at some hapless batsmen's throat. Where you'd see guys bowled out by mully-grubbers! Fuck these curators. Now we go to the biggest road of them all in Adelaide, which will be 5 days of my life wasted watching another draw. Being pretty handy as a kid against a tennis ball in our street, I'd fancy myself to bludgeon a century at Adelaide Oval.

Johnson finished with match figures of 0/170, took 32 mins and 19 balls to score 0, and dropped a catch to kill off the game as a contest. It was the single-most useless all-round performance in a Test I've ever seen and if the selectors think he's worth a shot in Adelaide, then they're kidding themselves, insulting the fans, and depriving Johnson of some practice time back with WA. I can just see them, after bringing Bollinger and Harris into the squad, and making it seem like they're serious, not having the balls to make the change. That's how they roll. Show some gumption you pussies. And by the way, if you play two spin bowlers, Marcus North is not a fucking spin bowler just because Strauss got heat exhaustion and his brain snapped. Although he'd be pretty handy if he could bowl to himself...

Musings/Rantings

After suffering through a Grand Final loss featuring Tony fucking Archer and pouring rain, two things that the Roosters are allergic to, my attentions turn now to cricket I guess. I'm not sure what else to do with myself to be honest, after a massively boozy, yet ultimately disappointing extended weekend. So cricket it is, and arriving home I got to watch the tail end of Ricky Ponting captaining the Aussies to another Test loss...and with some cricketing mastermind coming up with the Two Test series, it could well be another Test Series loss for Punter. The thing that annoyed me the most was Mitchell Johnson somehow managing to take 5 wickets in the first innings. I'm sure Punter thought that was all well and good, but watching him bowl leg-side pies to try and close out the match was a bit hard to cop. I honestly have no idea how that guy won an ICC Cricketer of the Year award. Was every other cricketer in the world just absolute rubbish that year?!? Surely there was someone who at least had an alright year...maybe every batsmen facing Johnson that year got cut-shot-from-a-wide-one-and-caught-at-point happy. It's the biggest mystery of the sporting world for mine. Actually, it's the second biggest. The biggest is why you'd even bother to select Nathan Hauritz if you're just going to bowl Marcus North at the business end of the match. Maybe it was just Punter's way of trying to justify a guy being in the team who's been clogging up the No. 6 spot in the order with meaningless knocks for a couple of years. Seriously, how the fuck is Marcus North still in this team? Don't we have the best domestic competition in the world? Is there no-one else? Do we have to settle for such mediocrity these days? Apparently so. If you're going with North as your off-spinner then how about picking another batsmen to compensate for the huge hole that's at No. 6.

The other big news in cricket is the introduction of a new one-day format, seemingly devised by James Sutherland. I've generally found that when Sutherland has anything to do with anything, it gives me the shits. But anyway, the new Ryobi One Day Cup has split innings and is like a "mini-Test match". I boycotted the first match because it sounds as stupid and not properly researched as everything else that James Sutherland has ever been linked with. You can re-invigorate the game all you want, but in the end, cricket is simply ball vs bat in any form of the game. If you really want the crowds to come back to the one-day matches, here's a free tip pal; let the people have a bit of fun. And by fun, I don't mean sitting silently and motionless, drinking light beers all day and not building cup-snakes. That's not fun you clown and that's why no-one goes. Seriously, cricket in this country would be the only sport in the world to ban the Mexican Wave...

The Second Test vs India starts this weekend, let's see if Punter can bag a 2-0 loss to prepare for his final frontier...a possible home Ashes series loss.