What a morning, what a spell and more importantly what a test match. After a nail biting draw in Cardiff where last pair Jimmy Anderson and Monty Panesar managed to survive 10 overs to hang on all the momentum seemed to be with Australia and it all came down to the toss and who would get first use of a very good lords pitch with no cloud cover and the ball not doing anything.
Well thankfully for us Andrew Strauss won the toss and at 196-0 midway through the first day it seemed that England were All over their counterparts however after a usual England batting collapse it was left to the England last pair to put on 47 and manage to get England up to a respectable but nowhere near enough 425, or so the pundits where saying that it wasn't enough.
Come the end of the Australian first innings though and even the most pessimistic of English cricket fans could have been forgiven for getting their hopes up as we lead by over 200 runs and could have enforced the follow on but of course Straussy chose to bat again and that looked to be a good choice as the England openers raced onto 57-0 at lunch on day 3 and the lead was increasing. What followed was one of the strangest bits of test match cricket I have ever seen where Ravi Bopara (27 runs off 93 balls) and Kevin Peitersen (44 off 101) really struggled against some fairly average bowling and almost handed all momentum back to Australia. Enter Prior, Collingwood and Flintoff who with a quick 145 runs between them set Australia a mammoth total of over 500 to chase down.
Things were going swimmingly when Australia were reduced to 128-5 and thoughts turned to the win and maybe even having the final day off, yeah not likely. Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin proceeded to put on 185 runs to get them up to 313-5 at the start of the last day. They say cometh the hour and cometh the man and this hour was Freddie Flintoff's and his hostile, accurate and rapid spell that accounted for the wickets of Haddin, Hauritz and Siddle soon saw the Australians bowled out for 206 and England had beaten the Australians by 115 runs.
So with this being Andrew Flintoff's final test match series what a better way for him to depart than with his first 5 wicket haul at lords for England and a place forever on the honour boards for that magnificent spell of bowling late Sunday and early Monday morning. So with 2 tests down England lead 1-0 and with 3 more to play can Ricky ponting become known as the captain that lost the ashes twice to England in 2 away ashes tours? We shall see.
Tuesday 21 July 2009
Tuesday 7 July 2009
The Ashes Approaches
Ok so we are finally here, just 1 sleep away from the ashes and the cricketing world has received a shock with Brett Lee being ruled out for the 1st test definitely and possibly even the 2nd test aswell with a rib injury.
England on the other hand go into the series with a fit group of 13 players where it has already been assumed that Ian Bell is a backup batsman and will only play should any of the other batsmen get injured or possibly later on in the series if Paul Collingwood or Ravi Bopara have a bad run of games and they need replacing.
Which means that the only contention in the England ranks is who will take to the field for the 1st test tomorrow morning at Cardiff between Graham Onions and Monty Panesar. With the everybody that has been interviewed about the pitch over the last week seemingly not having a clue as to what the pitch will actually do it looks like being a very last minute decision, however surely with Australia only having a mediocre spin bowler in Nathan Hauritz then the way to go would have been to prepare a turning pitch and then pick 2 spinners and spin the Australians out.
With Brett Lee injured it looks like the pace attack from Australia could become Mitchell Johnson, Peter Siddle and Stuart Clark however if they choose to go for an all out pace attack and leave Nathan Hauritz on the bench then Ben Hilfenhaus could also play.
So with the weather settling into sunshine and showers across the UK and with both teams already in Cardiff this series is almost here, now we just have to hope that its as good as the 2005 Ashes and that England can win them back after a poor showing in Australia when we lost them 5-0. So until next time come on England lets teach those Aussies a lesson in test matches in English conditions and reverse swing them out!! :)
England on the other hand go into the series with a fit group of 13 players where it has already been assumed that Ian Bell is a backup batsman and will only play should any of the other batsmen get injured or possibly later on in the series if Paul Collingwood or Ravi Bopara have a bad run of games and they need replacing.
Which means that the only contention in the England ranks is who will take to the field for the 1st test tomorrow morning at Cardiff between Graham Onions and Monty Panesar. With the everybody that has been interviewed about the pitch over the last week seemingly not having a clue as to what the pitch will actually do it looks like being a very last minute decision, however surely with Australia only having a mediocre spin bowler in Nathan Hauritz then the way to go would have been to prepare a turning pitch and then pick 2 spinners and spin the Australians out.
With Brett Lee injured it looks like the pace attack from Australia could become Mitchell Johnson, Peter Siddle and Stuart Clark however if they choose to go for an all out pace attack and leave Nathan Hauritz on the bench then Ben Hilfenhaus could also play.
So with the weather settling into sunshine and showers across the UK and with both teams already in Cardiff this series is almost here, now we just have to hope that its as good as the 2005 Ashes and that England can win them back after a poor showing in Australia when we lost them 5-0. So until next time come on England lets teach those Aussies a lesson in test matches in English conditions and reverse swing them out!! :)
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