England’s first innings scorecard

What an embarassing display by England, all bowled out for 157. The highlight was the ‘washed up’ Glenn McGrath taking 6 wickets. To make matters worse for the English team, Ricky Ponting decided not to enforce the follow-on, and at stumps Australia was 1/181 with Justing Langer unbeaten on 88 and Ponting unbeaten on 51. It seemed a questionable decision not to make England bat again straight away, but it looks like a good move now because the English psyche has to be crushed at the ease of which Australia is scoring runs, taking wickets, and totally dominating the English.

Got him, Yes!

Total domination displayed by the Aussies

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

I must apologise to anyone who has been checking here regularly only to find a lack of updates. The reason for the sporadic entries is that my mum is currently visiting from the homeland, and I have been trying to spend as much quality time with her as possible. Before my mum flew over though, I had asked her to pick up a couple of sporting books that I have been wanting to read for quite some time - one of those being Steve Waugh’s autobiography, “Out of my comfort zone.”

Steve Waugh’s patented ’slog sweep’

Any number of the guys that grew up with me playing cricket, whether it was outdoor, indoor, or in the driveway, would tell you that my idol growing up was Steve Waugh. A brilliant cricket player who struggled early in his career but proved his worth when he returned to the team and later went on to captain the most successful cricket team in history. Steve Waugh was at his best when the odds were stacked against him, and I will always remember the partnership he had with his twin brother, Mark, during which he scored his highest test score of 200 and won the series against the West Indies in 1995.

Steve Waugh at the launch of his autobiography

The autobiography itself is rather lengthy at just over 800 pages. However, the book provides a history and insight into how the game and business of cricket evolved during Steve’s time in the team, and it is an extremely interesting read. In his renowned down-to-earth manner, he writes about relationships within the team dynamic that, up until now, have been kept under close guard. One moment that stands out was during the 2001 Ashes tour when he had to inform former opening batsman, Michael Slater, that he was being dropped from the team. Slater responded with “You can all go and get f..ked” and left the room. As the Australian team always seemed to get a long so well, this was a rare insight into the team dynamics and the pressures that the Captain of the team was presented with.

For any cricket fans out there who have not read this book, I suggest that you do.

I found an interesting article in the tech section at smh.com.au. I don’t normally read the tech section, but I found this and decided to take a look.

I have to applaud Cricket Australia for their decision to cancel a reported 1300 tickets for this summer’s (Australian) Ashes series that have been bought from auction sites such as ebay. It is always frustrating when you wait hours upon end to buy tickets online only to miss out, but no more than 5 minutes later the tickets are up on the auction sites with asking prices that, at a minimum, are twice the face value of the original ticket price.

The headline following England’s first ever cricket defeat

Ever since the English regained the Ashes for the first time since 1989, the rematch in Australia this year has been one of the most anticipated sporting events, for both countries, in recent memory. Cricket Australia has done the right thing by trying to ensure that the action will be available at a reasonable price for those who are lucky enough to get tickets, but hopefully they will learn from the mistakes they made while selling the tickets online and implement new systems in the future that ensure the general public, and not online scalpers who are out to exploit the public, get the best access to these tickets.

I was only joking yesterday when I mentioned that Jason Gillespie had a chance of scoring a double-hundred. I went to bed last night right after Hussey got out, but I really wanted to stay up and see if Dizzy would score reach the milestone that great Australian players like Mark Waugh and Damien Martyn never reached. He even passed Steve Waugh’s highest score of 200.

The selectors are going to have a really tough time now because you can’t really drop him from the side after he goes out and scores a double-hundred and bags some wickets. Personally, I don’t think he should have been dropped in the first place, and you know that when the Ashes start later this year he’s going to be fired up for revenge. I never thought I would see the day when a designated bowler would score 100, let alone 200. Even though this was accomplished against the lowly Bangladesh side, it’s still Test Match Cricket and will go down in history as one of the most memorable and unlikey innings ever played.

You’d want a little bludge too after batting for nearly 10 hours and facing 425 balls.

So every morning I get up and do the rounds of the Australian news sites so I can keep in touch with what is going on in the homeland. When I checked the cricket this morning, I was expecting maybe Ricky Ponting to have scored another hundred, but I was shocked (and really bloody impressed) when I saw that Jason ‘Dizzy’ Gillespie had done the unthinkable and scored his first test match hundred - or his first hundred ever, as he claims he never even scored one in backyard cricket!

What else I find impressive is that Dizzy has managed to spend 5 hours at the crease. People may complain that he took too long to score his runs, and to those naysayers I have two words: Mark Taylor. I don’t think he ever scored a hundred in less than 5 hours so Dizzy’s knock was a little beauty if you ask me! Who knows? He may go on to score a double-century!

I bet Shane Warne must be a little annoyed at the moment. Twice he has been out in the 90s trying to reach three figures, and now he has to show some respect to the batting prowess of Dizzy!

Now some of you Americans might be wondering what the big deal is. I would have to say that the equivalent of this would be if a pitcher hit 4 home runs in a game - it just doesn’t happen. Jason Gillespie is a bowler, and while he can stay at the crease and defend till the cows come home, no-one ever expected him to get a test match hundred.

Good on ya, mate!

In my previous Cricket article, I replied to a comment that if Australia could bowl Bangladesh out without conceding another 50 runs, the Aussies would be in good shape. The Aussie bowlers provided exactly what we needed and picked up the remaining wickets for only an additional 24 runs, with Jason Gillespie and Shane Warne picking up the remaining wickets.

This left the Aussies chasing 307 runs for victory. Normally this would be a pretty high target, especially in the 4th overall innings of a test match, but against Bangladesh it should be reachable. The Aussies got off to a pretty good start, and at stumps (click on the stumps link for a list of terminology used) they are in pretty good shape, with Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist at the crease.

The Aussies need another 95 runs to win a match that, following a horrible first innings, I thought they were going to be embarrassed in. Even if the Aussies walk away from this match with a victory, I believe the match will be remembered for the inspired Cricket that was played by a Bangladesh team that many thought would be slaughtered by the Aussies.

What is up with this? The worst cricket playing country in the world and they absolutely made the best cricket team in the world look worse than the team I played on in the under 14’s league. Two of their players scored more than 50 and another scored his first ever 100. All this against a bowling attack that is going to be the future of Australian Cricket. Australia needs to find a consistent strike bowler to eventually replace Glenn McGrath - at the moment they have no-one that is anywhere near as consistent as he is. If this is what life after McGrath is going to be like, Australia could be heading into a period that resembles what it was like after Australia lost Dennis Lillee, Greg Chappell, and Rod Marsh in the early 80’s (on a side-note - what a glorious period for Aussie moustaches!).

I haven’t seen the manner in which the Australian batsman were dismissed, but I highly doubt it was anything to do with quality bowling. Were they playing rash shots or were they just outclassed by the bowling??

Australia needs to put some runs on the board if they want to have any hope of salvaging this match. If they lose to Bangladesh, it will go down as one of the worst defeats in the history of Australian sport - even more embarrasing than losing the Ashes to England last year.