Thursday 11 July 2013

Ashes

Thank the laws of certainty that I cancelled my Sky Sports subscription and so didn't have to watch the cricket yesterday.

For the first time since records began and probably much longer England have started a test series against Australia as favourites to win.  A look through the teams tells you why with the English team made up from players who are recognised around the globe for their cricketing prowess and a couple of players tipped to be the stars of tomorrow. The Aussies have Micheal Clarke, an ageing Peter Siddle and loads of guys that nobody has heard of (other than Phil Hughes who had a cracking spell with Worcester but who has been found wanting at international level).

The Australians have even been forced to call up a 35 year old with one previous cap to his name. That is akin to the English football team calling up a 33 year old Kevin Davies (I know we did, don't ask me why).

So when I checked the scores yesterday and saw England were running at 75-2 I wasn't unduly concerned. We bat deep. Cook, Root, Trott, KP, Bairstow, Bell, Prior, Broad and Swann are all capable of putting runs on the board. There are not many teams in the world that bat so deep.

I then went on a little journey down to somerset and didn't get back to see the scores until late yesterday evening.

I was more than a little surprised to see that Australia were batting and were at 75-4. England had not suffered one of our spectacular collapses, rather we had whimpered along through out the innings giving wickets away whenever it looked like we might take control.

Luckily we also have the second best bowling unit in the world and even with Stuart Broad unable to bowl we had Anderson and Finn bowling a great spell each to remove four Aussie wickets, including Micheal Clarke- a man I rate as the best batsmen in the world over the last two years (just ahead of our own Ali Cook).

The series still has a long way to go but all in all it just goes to show that the English never do anything the easy way.