Extras

England cricketers’ Ashes sprinkler celebration

This is another good way of celebrating the retention of the Ashes.

If you don’t know about ‘the sprinkler’, it’s become the England cricketers’ official dance of the tour.

It’s a stupid dance and they’re all awful at it, but you can’t help but warm to them even more when you see the joy on their little faces every time they do it.

The only way to celebrate an Ashes win

You’ve got to pull out all the stops at a time like this.

So here’s a Venn diagram made by someone else:

Never let it be said that we don’t make the effort.

Thanks Ged.

Tim Bresnan is two players in one

More specifically, Tim Bresnan, England’s fifth-choice seamer, is Ben Hilfenhaus and Peter Siddle rolled into one.

Bresnan has the fitness, pace and accuracy of Siddle. He also bowls away swing with the new ball and reverse swing later on like Ben Hilfenhaus. Oh, and he can bat.

Bresnan’s reputation as a fatty is almost entirely down to his abnormally round head. His big tree trunk arms probably add to the impression as well, but he’s basically fat-free. Imagine a burly puma. He’s all muscle.

Jonathan Trott – unarsed England number three

Generally being unarsed about stuff is a fantastic quality for a Test batsman to have. Jonathan Trott’s got it in spades.

You can have all the shots and the best hand-eye co-ordination, but if you wobble when things don’t go perfectly, you’ll never make it as a Test batsman, because things never, ever go perfectly in real life.

Paul Collingwood highlights this well. Here is a batsman who won’t be put off by something as trivial as the fact that he’s playing bloody awfully. Playing bloody awfully won’t affect how Paul Collingwood plays; he’ll just keep going until he starts playing well again. This is his strength. Most batsmen will commit seppuku because they think the situation’s hopeless (possibly using a frisbee).

Jonathan Trott’s similar. Yeah, he plays shots on both sides of the wicket, but he doesn’t get het up if he hits a four, or if he’s nearly run-out, or if he gets knacked in the kneecap, or if the opposition suddenly lose their minds with PURE RAGE.

Jonathan Trott is so cool he can even take catches no-handed.

Ricky Ponting talking to the umpires

Whinging Poms? Has the world ever seen a whingier cricketer than Ricky Thomas Ponting?

Sport needs a bit of ‘us and them’ so that you can enjoy it properly, so it was perversely enjoyable to see Ponting spend three-quarters of an hour bending Aleem Dar’s ear. As he stamped his feet with tears rolling down his pudgy munchkin face, it was just about impossible not to feel your support for England swelling by the second – even if you were Australian.

Ponting has ‘previous’ when it comes to bitching and moaning at umpires. He’s got something of the Premiership footballer about him in that he’ll lean right in the umpire’s face, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the decision has been made and will never be changed in a million years.

Aleem Dar knows how to deal with Ricky Ponting. He blankly explained what had happened, effortlessly rising above the situation. Then, later on, he called for a no-ball review when a wicket had been taken, saving Matt Prior. On the outside Dar remained just as blank-faced when the no-ball was confirmed, but on the inside he was pointing and laughing at ol’ Spit Hands, red-faced and fuming in his tatty green hat.

A Boxing Day Test thank you letter

Dear Father Christmas,

Thanks for all the presents you brought us. You really outdid yourself. We know we’ve been good this year, but some of the things you got us were just plain ridiculous.

Thanks for the house. We’re not sure we need quite that many bedrooms and we really weren’t expecting a pool. On balance you were probably too generous.

Thanks for getting us Jessica Alba and Beyoncé as well. One of them would have been enough and they didn’t BOTH need to be naked, although it was much appreciated.

Now, the cricket. Australia 98 all out and England 157-0? Well, let’s be honest, we’re not going to throw that back in your face, are we? This was more outrageous than the other presents put together, but we can’t say we aren’t glad.

What do you do for an encore?

All our love,
King Cricket

Boxing Day Test through the night thread

Ah, the magic of WordPress scheduling – giving anyone interested a Boxing Day Test post on which to comment without the author having to interrupt his Christmas drinking.

We wrote this in advance because Coachhouse’s Posthorn will have got the better of us by now. We’re staying away from the internet until at least tomorrow.

For everyone else, the Christmas arguments are over; the apologising on behalf of various courier companies is complete; the drinking continues and the Boxing Day Test begins. Comment away if you’re there.

Wishing Ricky Ponting’s finger all the best

This is a slightly weird feeling, but we really want Ricky Ponting to play at the MCG.

Much as we want England to win easily, beating a side captained by Michael Clarke just wouldn’t be right. Ricky Ponting is the most significant player on either side and it brings the occasion down a notch if he’s not there.

To be clear, this is nothing at all to do with the fact that we want Australia to have a number three batsman who was having trouble scoring runs even when his fingers were intact, because if he plays, we reckon Ricky’ll get runs.

When there’s a crowd the size of the one expected at the MCG, everything changes. Young pretenders go all wobbly and your old gnarl dogs take advantage. Compared to everyone else, Ricky Ponting will be largely unarsed by tens of thousands of people staring at him on Boxing Day.

Do the English not enjoy winning?

Sometimes we feel utterly disconnected from this great nation. The attitude towards beating Australia at cricket being a case in point.

A week or so ago, it seemed like a number of England fans were feeling sorry for Australia. This is mental. Never feel sorry for Australia. Now there are people saying they’d rather have a close series than a resounding England win.

Sorry?

Given a choice between an easy win for England and an exciting, narrow win for England, we’d go for the latter because close matches get the heart racing. But that’s not the choice. There are no guarantees. If the choice is between an easy win for England and the possibility that they might lose, we’d wish for the former every time.

Just because England have won two of the last three Ashes series, it doesn’t mean victories are suddenly so commonplace you can start being picky about what form they take. If you’ve been starving to death, you don’t throw away some jerk chicken because you think it could do with more allspice.

We don’t really care what the series ‘needs’. Frankly, the Ashes as a whole could do with an England series win in Australia for once.

Australia could get better or they could get worse

Don’t come to this website if you don’t prefer inconclusive grey to black or white certainty.

Australia’s batting could certainly get better. At the minute, England will feel like dismissing Mike Hussey for under 50 would win them the series, so there’s room for improvement there from Australia’s perspective. Their bowling could get worse though.

Is anyone banking on Mitchell Johnson swinging the ball in the next match? That was the good bowling at the WACA, because England’s second innings was more like well-exploited bad batting, which can be addressed more easily by the tourists.

More interestingly, what if the Melbourne pitch demands a spinner? Australia’s attack would presumably then feature Michael Beer. Beer has played seven matches in his life and would find himself playing with the weight of the Ashes on his shoulders.

The literal weight of the Ashes would trouble no-one of course, but 60,000 or more fans packed inside the MCG would be a pretty obvious symbol of the metaphorical weight. In that position, Beer might well shit his pants – the literal meaning a distinct possibility.