After losing the Ashes to the old enemy last year, Australia will be looking to regain them in the Test series that started yesterday. If the first day is anything to go by, it’s going to be a long and frustrating summer for England. At the end of the first day’s play, Australian captain Ricky Ponting was unbeaten on 137 (his 32nd Test century, equalling Steve Waugh’s mark), Mike Hussey was unbeaten on 63 and overall Australia was 3/346. A very nice start for a team that came under a lot of fire for losing the Ashes against a team that they really should have beaten.

Beautiful cover drive by Australian Captain Ricky Ponting

With a little over an hour left on the second day’s play, Australia have built a massive first innings total of 588, with Ponting falling just short of yet another double-century. Even though the Poms will be hoping for a draw in this match, Australia’s Shane Warne will be used early and often in the hope that they will be able to bowl the Poms out twice in the remaining 3 days. Warne has had fantastic results at the Gabba in Brisbane and will be looking forward to facing the English yet again. It will definitely be an exciting finish to a match that has been dominated by Australia.

Prior to the Ashes starting last year, I boasted to some English people that the Aussies would embarass them 5-0. I’m not going to go that far this time around, but I am absolutely positive that the Aussies will regain the Ashes and will allow everything to go back to the way it should be! If this happens, we Aussies will have to hope that the Wallabies turn good in time for next year’s Rugby World Cup.

The Aussies just declared at 9/602. Leaving the Poms with one hour of facing McGrath, Warne & co.

Scorecard from Australia’s first innings

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 23rd, 2006 at 10:02 pm and is filed under Cricket. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.