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The difference between England and Australia so far is that when Australia have been down, they’ve fought like bastards. Even when they lost, they still managed 406 in the fourth innings.
England fought in the first Test, but their decline since the middle of the third Test is unstoppable. The players may not know the meaning of the word momentum, but if they take a look at their deterioration from one day to the next – that’s momentum.
But why? They’re not bad cricketers. On Australia’s bad days, they scrabble to stay in it. On England’s bad days their heads drop and they seem to resign themselves to it. It’s certainly not deliberate, but is there something in the England players’ make-up that makes them this way.
We wonder whether it’s a county cricket thing. If you look like losing a county cricket match, you endure the loss and aim to win the next match, which will probably start within 24 hours. It’s easy to forget. By contrast, Australian domestic cricketers only get a handful of matches a season, so they concentrate on the here and now.
good point that’s been made before.
the ecb won’t cut down on the amount of domestic cricket for fear of losing money, but if they did then maybe the national team would be better and they could avoid the huge finanical losses of a two-and-a-bit day test.
ignore all the county cricket excuses or whatever; it’s because they’re cunts, KC.
Especially Ian Bell – he’s King Cunt.
Sadly I fear it may be a general English thing. We just don’t have the stomach for sports.
Our cricketing troubles can be traced back to 1861. If we hadn’t exported the game to the Empire, we’d still be better at it than Australia.
I propose that we take our ball back and go home.
That’s right, blame your players. It’s not their fault. It’ s your fault – you fans, your media.
You shouldn’t have started announcing you’d won the Ashes. YOu shouldn’t have started the grandstanding before the series was finished. And you shouldn’t have held up signs mocking Mitch. And you really, really should have known when to stop booing Ponting.
But you crossed the line.
KC tried to warn you but you didn’t want to listen.
It’s not my fault! I was at the dentist.
steve –
slightly harsh.
the media and fans getting cocky doesnt explain why all the english batsmen got out to airy shots to balls that wouldn’t have hit the stumps.
much of cricket may be played in the mind but that side of things gets over-egged.
to paraphrase adam gilchrist, you just have to hit the ball.
that’s what england are trying to do. but they misunderstand what “just” is meant to mean in that sentence. aussies know it means “simply”, poms think it means “barely” – as in an edge or 10.
super mitchell johnson indeed. im afraid grandstanding might have helped the guy out by backing him into a corner and making england take their eye slightly off the fast left arm inswinging or sharply bouncing ball.
pete
exactly! It’s not just your team playing poorly, but the inner rage Australia acquired BY BEING MOCKED.
We’re bloody-minded – that’s why you got rid of us in t he first place. Remember?
You exported all the good genes back in the 1800’s and got left with the insipid genes you have now.
Just look at all the imports needed to provide back bone in your team today.
Of course there are remnants around like Freddie, Gouphie and Botham that missed the boat. Better invest in some gene therapy technology.
Maybe the 4 day game concept has merit?
What if Australia sends all its convicts to England? Will that help?
If we reduced the number of first class matches to Aussie numbers our players would hardly play any meaningful first class cricket at all.
Our weather is significantly different.
Around 30% of our first class matches are either rain ruined or so rain-affected the game is contrived.
None of this explains why this week England were so incapable of playing at Headingly, that most English of test wickets, while the Aussies took to it like ducks to water.
England are making a habit of having at least one utter shocker per series these days.
They were playing for rain. If this match had been 2 days long it would have been a draw.
That last para of yours O King was the very spit of the thoughts of Langer published today. Have you been fooling us all along and you are in fact the loathsome little dwarf?
not fooled me, always knew he was a loathsome dwarf.
can someone start a “boo billy bowden” campaign please? I hate that crooked piece of shit.
For you e normous – when he was struggling to work out the number of balls in an over….
http://tinyurl.com/billy-counts
E nourmous we already export our convicts, you will find them working in the finnce sector.
Doesn’t seem to have helped much though…
Never mind heads drop. I just wish that one day in several cases that their balls will drop.
And I don’t mean that they should drop cricket balls.