Showing posts tagged the ashes
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I take no issue with Bell’s review. My concern would be that they overturned an on-field decision without irrefutable evidence that it was wrong. Therefore we are now taking the element of umpire’s judgment completely out of the game, which begs the question how long until umpires are entirely replaced by robots that make calls based entirely on the technology available and stand on one leg at Nelson’s?

England won because Australia were very significantly worse than they were.

“Dominate”? Sorry, but that really is garbage. This is the weakest Australian team in a generation , with quite a few members hopelessly out of form. England’s top order filled their boots on pitches which were pretty ordinary & then collapsed like a pack of cards when there was any life in them.

This is NOT a strong England side. Below Strauss in the batting order and patience for higher test scores on anything but flat tracks is slim, and out of the bowlers used, none of them are match winners without the pitch or atmosphere doing something for them.

We seem to have forgotten that England have been dire in Australia for the last 24 years, barring this series, and at no time in that period, other than this series, have Australia been a weak side.

Put Warne, McGarth, or any number of recent losses to Australia in this test series and England would have struggled.

Alleged transcript of a debate on Fox Sports 3's Inside Cricket show

  • Brendan Julian: "So where do we go from here boys, Junior what do you reckon?"
  • Mark Waugh: "Mate if I was a selector there are at least five, maybe six, of those blokes who'd be looking for something to do next week, because they wouldn't be playing cricket in Perth."
  • Damien Fleming: "Such as?"
  • Waugh: "Mate, Doherty for a start. I mean jeez, we've picked a bloke because we don't know who our spinner should be. Should we seriously pick a guy who has played 10 state level tests in his life to go up against Pietersen, Cooke and those guys?"
  • Julian: "Bit harsh"
  • Waugh: "Bit harsh? He was chucking that many pies at Pietersen he may as well have opened a bakery on days 2 and 3."
  • Fleming: "North?"
  • Waugh: "Gone"
  • Julian: "Bollinger? Siddle?"
  • Waugh: "Gone"
  • Gladstone Small: " Can I interrupt for a minute?"
  • Waugh: "No"
  • Julian: "Junior is on a bit of a roll here Stone"
  • Waugh: "No I mean fair go, we've got it wrong here. If I'm the only bloke not happy that we've been rolled for an innings and 70 odd runs on a runway of a pitch and that lets be honest we're going to have a summer of the poms handing us our arses in this series then fair go boys, something's wrong here. What's Clarke doing after getting out? He's on twitter saying sorry for not walking? Mate if he did that in our side there'd be hell to play. AB would chuck his twitter box off the balcony or whatever it is. Sorry for not walking? Jesus Christ man."
The first of many times in your life you will see this catch. Ricky Ponting caught by Paul Collingwood at WACA in the 3rd Ashes test Photograph: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

The first of many times in your life you will see this catch. Ricky Ponting caught by Paul Collingwood at WACA in the 3rd Ashes test Photograph: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images