Ashes

Glamorgan’s pitch for the first Ashes Test

Some of you might have seen that Glamorgan were docked two points for producing a duff pitch. This is at the beautifully monikered Swalec Stadium, where the first Ashes Test is due to take place.

‘Oh no,’ people have said. ‘What if the pitch for the Ashes is sub-standard?’

These people are missing the point.

If ‘the point’ is sellotaped to the door of the fridge, these people are wandering blindfold round Dorothy Perkins. They’re slowly approaching the top of an escalator and not a year – not a year! – goes by when we don’t hear about some poor soul falling down an escalator at Dorothy Perkins because they were wearing a blindfold.

Glamorgan were docked those two points because the pitch in question offered what was deemed to be ‘excessive’ turn. Quite apart from the fact that huge turn is always a plus point, England’s best bowling attack features two spinners, while Australia’s features none.

So we say: come on Glamorgan, take a series of two-point deductions for a good cause.

Phillip Hughes in England

After scores of 118, 65 not out and 74 last week, today’s 99 not out marks the moment when we move away from admiring an exceptional young Antipodean talent and towards being sick to the back teeth, the front teeth and tonsils of a winnetty-faced, cork-hatted bastard.

Phillip Hughes is getting on our wick and he’s only been in the country for a week.

Andrew Strauss loses the Ashes

Why, Andrew? Why? Why do you say these things? Have you never watched a film? You’ve just turned yourself into the character who overlooks a minor detail in the first scene, unaware of the DIRE CONSEQUENCES your seemingly minor oversight will have.

Strauss was speaking about how Australia’s Phillip Hughes will be playing for Middlesex alongside him going into the Ashes.

“It’s not a huge concern of mine – there are lots of things to worry about in the coming weeks, the fact he’s playing here’s not one of them. There’s no point losing sleep, it won’t win or lose us the Ashes.”

This absolutely will lose us the Ashes.

Andrew Strauss is neglecting to put the last bolt into the bit of submarine he’s working on because a shipmate has come into the room with some rum. The rum can wait, Andrew. The rum can wait. Put the bolt in. Put it in.

Do you not know that you’re messing with people’s lives here!

Kent want Stuart Clark fit and firing for the Ashes

Why else would Kent sign Stuart Clark other than to help him recover from injury and to help him get a few overs under his belt in English conditions? It’s perfect. How delightfully accommodating of them.

In the unlikely event that Kent come up against an England batsman in those first few weeks of the season, maybe they could do some extensive analysis of defects in said batsman’s technique and feed them to Clark for use in that vital County Championship fixture.

They could even make a polite request that he doesn’t share that information with any of his Aussie team mates. He’s a good sport. He’d honour a gentlemen’s agreement.

Alternatively, they could make him bowl 45 overs a day while he’s with them and then tell him that there’s A REAL DRAGON in Wales just before he sets off for the first Test.

Mitchell Johnson takes England back to the Nineties

At one stage South Africa were 6-3, effectively 6-4, as Graeme Smith had been hospitalised. The man who did this was Mitchell Johnson and he forced Jacques Kallis to retire hurt shortly afterwards.

Johnson provided bounce, swing and crucially, pace. Mitchell Johnson is a fast bowler. We’d say a ‘genuine’ fast bowler, but in our eyes, you either are or you aren’t.

A month ago, England could at least comfort themselves that Australia were matching them shambles for shambles. Now the Aussies have Phil Hughes set for 15 years of Test destruction and they’ve got Mitchell Johnson scaring the hell out of a top drawer South African batting line-up.

Meanwhile, England have a glut of fast-medium bowlers waiting for the ball to swing and the team changes after every Test. We seem to be returning to the Nineties at a rate of knots.

Younger readers might not fully appreciate the concept of the Nineties. They might think it’s just another decade. In English cricket terms, it’s actually a form of purgatory.

The Ashes was rather like India against Zimbabwe, only there was no chance that the ICC would take pity on England and ban them from Test cricket. They couldn’t even get away with two or three match series. Because it was the Ashes, they had to play five or even six Tests.

It might be time to officially start hating Mitchell Johnson. Shall we put it to the vote?

Are Australia the worst team in the world?

You’d be forgiven for thinking so with some of the things you read. The fact is Australia are still a feisty outfit and England in particular shouldn’t be fancying their chances against them too much. Australia may have slid a bit, but they’ll never implode. It’s not the Aussie way.

Openers

England will not be bowling at Matthew Hayden in the next Ashes series. They shouldn’t be grateful. They should be wary. Hayden’s been a walking wicket of late and had a pretty dire Ashes in 2005.

In contrast, Simon Katich has averaged 56 since returning to the side as an opener, hitting four hundreds in 12 matches. The man most likely to replace Hayden, Phil Jaques, will actually strengthen Australia’s batting. He averages 47 in Tests and, unlike Hayden, is on an upward curve.

England supporters might want to note the name Phil Hughes at this stage as well. 20 years old and with the priceless ability to score runs when no-one else can. You might as well save time and start hating him now.

Middle order

Whatever form they’re in, most international sides would trade all their laptops in for a three-four-five combination of Ricky Ponting, Mike Hussey and Michael Clarke.

It’s hard to guess Australia’s number six. You wouldn’t want to rely on either Andrew Symonds or Shane Watson turning up on any given day. If they go with a specialist batsman, they’ve a zillion to choose from.

Wicketkeeper

He’s not Adam Gilchrist, but when did that become a crime? Brad Haddin is up there with the best wicketkeeper-batsmen in Test cricket already. Honestly, have a think about it. Who’s better? Dhoni? Sangakkara isn’t Sri Lanka’s wicketkeeper any more, you know.

Fast bowlers

Bowling averages over the last two years: Brett Lee – 25.82, Mitchell Johnson – 27.85, Stuart Clark – 27.52. It isn’t the best bowling attack that Australia have had, but it seems worse than it really is when you compare it to previous incarnations.

The attack seemed weak when Australia toured India last year as well, but none of those three bowlers had previously played at Test in India and India is traditionally branded ‘unforgiving’ for fast bowlers.

Johnson and Lee can both bat better than you think they can, as well.

Spin bowling

We’re saying they’re not the worst team in the world. Even in cricket it’s not always possible to ‘take the positives’.

They also have a secret weapon – Pat Farhart.

Ian Botham says England will win the Ashes

Ian Botham’s been doing his bluff overconfidence thing again:

“What I’ve seen so far, I don’t see as too much of a threat and if England’s bowlers stay fit then they’ll win the series.”

This is why Ian Botham was a brilliant cricketer. He lets a few facts seep in, but not enough to divert him away from the path of supreme confidence.

We saw the path of supreme confidence once. We cut across it at 90 degrees precisely. We also tripped at the crucial moment so as to make no contact with the path itself. Then we got lost in the thicket of extreme doubt where a snake of anxiety bit us on the arse.

The problem is that while Australia’s bowling attack has looked mediocre, they’re playing in India. Their bowlers aren’t suited to Indian conditions and nor have any of them really played there much before.

We’ve said ourself that Australia’s bowling attack’s worse than it was, but let’s each round up some horses and hold them, as they say. Why we do this, we don’t know, but equine grippage is a necessary step when drawing conclusions from relatively small amounts of sample data.

Top ten Ashes players of all time

Patrick Kidd’s already started his fiendishly exhaustive build-up to next year’s Ashes series at The Times’ Line and Length blog. He asked us to supply a top ten of influential Ashes characters, so we did.

Our top ten is a personal one really. We didn’t want to produce a boring composite of everyone else’s top tens, so it’s mostly recent players and the reasons are quite disparate.

Kidd deliberately put our top ten up on the same day as his Matthew Hayden: Ashes hero post, the malicious hound.