Skip to main content

The Poms blink.

This is a minor update and premature gloat on developments in the current Ashes series in England.

The Third Test was a pretty tame draw, due mostly to English wet weather (which doesn't seem to have changed all that much afterall). Michael Clarke did score a classy second innings century to make the game safe for Australia, but it will otherwise be a forgotten match.

The Fourth Test at Headingly in Yorkshire resulted in Australia inflicting a crushing innings defeat on England. There have been two main reactions from the English:

Firstly, the fickle and superficial British press have suddenly and savagely turned on their own. Their batsmen are now apparently too fragile for Test cricket and their bowlers inept under pressure. Yeah, I know, it's a return to situation normal for the English press, and we are reminded yet again that they know not the meaning of steadfastness, nor dignity under fire; but how quick was that?

Secondly, there is the betrayed hero: Freddy Flintoff. This story line has been trotted out to salve wounded pride and sell pommy papers. It seems England also lost because their limping and now retiring champion, Lancashire allrounder Flintoff, was not selected for the match, even though he had told his captain and manager that he could play. Oh please! How can anyone seriously buy this bill of goods after all the blather about him carrying his injury wracked body beyond human limits in the previous Tests? This truly is a sentimental pommy whinge on a grand scale.
.

Finally, there is now the delicious prospect next week of the Fifth Test at the Oval in London, with the teams at one match a piece. But there is a minor issue niggling away at me in the lead up to this match: the likelihood of the rough treatment that the Australian selectors are to mete out to Stuart Clark, the Trojan seam bowler who played such an instrumental role in breaking through the English batting in his return from injury in the Fourth Test. Amazingly it seems the selectors seem likely to leave him out of the Fifth Test, because they reckon Johnson, Siddle and Hilfenhaus are better credentialled as fast bowlers, and that they need their sole spinner, Hauritz to take the fourth bowler slot.




Selectors aren't doing their job if they can't make tough choices when picking Australian Test teams. But this isn't even all that tough. Neither Johnson nor Siddle are well suited to these seaming English pitches and both of them have struggled for extended periods in the first four Tests. Just drop one of them for Clark. His record against England speaks for itself and any decent judge of the game will tell you he is in the ideal Terry Alderman/Mike Hendrich "line and length" mould for English conditions. Dear God if Mitchell Johnson's sensitive ego is too fragile to deal with the disappointment of being dropped, then just dump Siddle, who seems to be a robust and resilient enough character to take such a minor setback in his stride.


Australia's bowling attack would then consist of two "hit the deck" speedsters: Johnson and Watson, two canny seamers: Clark and Hilfenhuas, and the finger spin of Hauritz with occasional back up from Michael Clarke and Kattich. Not that shabby.




Roll on Thursday night.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Michael Jackson, martyr ?

. Someone has to die for their beliefs to be a martyr . Drudge pointed to headlines last Friday saying that Jackson's was a " Death by Showbusines s". So in the sense that Jackson seems to have died for his belief in celebrity, yes, he might be called a martyr. I never got Michael Jackson. Thriller didn't thrill me at all ( Now Noel Coward, that's another story ). But I did get a bit of a kick from seeing others get him. He was boppy and catchy and slick, as well as monumentally fluffy and hugely impaired. What I struggle with is the apparently massive consequentiality of fluffiness and impairment like Jackson's. What is the fuss about the passing of a semi-talented song and dance weirdo from decades past? Boris Johnson, the London Mayor, has had a stab at explaining it to we mystified souls who struggle to get with the programme. He reckons it's just like Princess Di. And I agree, to the extent that I was almost as unprepared for and dumbfounded by th

Today's Woke guide to Gender, Race and Climate

Gender, Race and Climate. These are the big ideas that matter in the 21st century. So get with the Zeitgeist folks.  You gotta go woke. As I understand the current, constantly changing, received progressive position on these big 3 topics, here's what we're supposed to think and believe: Gender : A person can be whatever gender they want to be. Anyone who thinks or says otherwise commits a crime against humanity. Race : Only blacks, the indigenous and people of colour can have and express legitimate views on blacks, people of colour and indigenous issues. Any white person doing so is a racist, wrongly appropriating the exclusive privilege of disadvantaged victims. Accordingly it is wrong for a non-BIPOC person to believe or, worse, say that all races are equal and that we should never discriminate against any person on the basis of race. This is because a non-BIPOC person cannot understand racial prejudice because they have not experienced negative racial discrimination and beca

Perpetual pretenders proclaiming possession of Truth ... (fact check the fat cheque)

Samizdata.net  have pointed me to an article in Public entitled " Nacissism of the Fact Checkers ". It's a sobering though disturbingly unsurprising read.  It adds to the litany of distressingly wrong facts that have been endorsed and perpetuated by the "official narrative" and with the reciprocal suppression or censorship of correct "falsehoods".  Here's a list of such behaviours by fact checkers from the article: - calling out a self avowed parody site for misinformation on the Paris riots for posting a typically over the top clip from the action movie "Fast & Furious"; -  that claim by the New York Times, AP and the BBC that fake news travels 6 times faster than the factual news, turns out to be fake news itself. The claim is based on a single MIT study on small number of tweets , not news. - Facebook removing 20 million posts, and labeling 190 million posts about Covid-19 as "content moderation" because those posts did