CricDigs Blogs

If it wasn’t upto a heroic batting effort by Graeme Swann and an in-your-face kind of a half-century from Stuart Broad, England would have packed-up on the morning of the 3rd day itself. However, as it turned out, England added more than 150+ runs in the first session, scoring at a run-rate of nearly 6 runs per over, until the lunch break broke their momentum. Swann is still playing, while Broad got out after playing some swashbucling shots. What is heartening to see is English lower order trying to ensure that Australia don’t walk away with the victory and all the positives from this match. One thing is certain, England will lose this test match but if the players are crushed by Australia from a mental perspective then there is no chance of them competing strongly in the last and the decisive, Fifth Test Match. The one thing England can still do is bat and frustrate Australia a bit longer. This way the lower-order batsmen would have gained some confidence of batting and you never know, this may prove to be handy as both teams head for the final game.

It had to happen at some point during the Ashes 2009 - the England batsmen had been guilty of trying to be too flashy outside the off-stump and for some reason, or just plain luck, their edges had managed to seep through between the close-in fielders on just too many ocassions. As it turned out in the fourth Ashes 2009 test, the English batsmen pushed their luck too far, again and this they paid for it. England was dismissed for under 110. Some would say that it was Siddle and Clark who did the damage. However, if you look at most of the dismissals it is just poor technique against disciplined bowling. The ball wasn’t moving around too much but the batsmen kept playing away from their body and kept getting out. What must be bothering England is that Australia look set to take a good lead and the pitch won’t be very conducive to swing bowling on the second day when most Aussies would look to get stuck to the crease and make it count. Further, Australia doesn’t have a spinner this time around and an all-pace attack would come back to haunt the English batsmen in the second innings wherein they would be expected to score somewhere around the 450-500 region.

There have been widespread reports about the Indian cricket captain and the players having meetings with BCCI officials and now even a special team has been convened to make the international authorities understand that why the Indian cricketers are apprehensive about the random dope testing regimen. However, it would be fair to say that the BCCI may find itself cornered in this argument. For starters, this clause is being slowly spread across the entire globe and nearly all sporting franchises are slowly warming-up to the idea that random testing is indeed the only solution. However, I would like to say that if the international agencies don’t think of cricket as a game good enough to be included in the Olympics, then why this obsession with making our players comply with international regulatory benchmarks??

You can always bank upon Pakistan to be what no cricket fan wants them to be — hopelessly unpredictable and judgemental. The team just won the T20 World Cup and just when it looked like things were getting back to normal, the tests and ODI series loss to Sri Lanka has come to the fore. What is more disturbing is how comprehensively Pakistan was defeated in every aspect of their game. Further, the ODI loss has evoked negative reactions like match-fixing and news of supposed bookies in the Pakistan team’s hotel lobby is sure to fire-up this issue beyond control. These are self-destructive habits that have always haunted Pakistani cricket and it is about time that the PCB shed its image of being some sort of a colonial powerhouse and started acting like a sports regulatory body and took responsibility for its actions.

Michael Clarke is continuously building upon the reputation of being Australia’s next Steve Waugh as he delivered once again when the team needed it the most. Had it not been for his partnership with Marcus North, Australia would have surely gone down by 2-0 in the Ashes. As things stand now, the momentum seems to be with England as they are already one-up in the series and it is up to Australia to make all the right moves. However, if the England team does sit back and think that they can be passive and let Australia do all the hard work, then things could go horribly wrong. Australia would strike back with vengeance in the fourth test and if England cannot continue with the sustained intensity they have shown till now, it could soon be one all.

The England team was well served in having two all-rounders at number seven and eight. With Flintoff and Stuart Broad walking in after mark prior, it means that this English side does have some serious depth to its batting and it showed on Sunday. Hillfenhaus would have seriously dented any chances of England gaining a lead as he kept on dismissing the top-order batsmen. However, with these two bowler-cum-batsmen coming together, England was able to pile up the lead and more critically, at a fair clip. The run rate and the volume of runs were both important considering that this is a rain-hit match and conditions and the length of session could both go awkward at any time. As it turned out, Flintoff was the highest scorer for his side and Broad too contributed with a half century.

Sri Lanka is really having it good in the ongoing one-day series against Pakistan. They had a bit of a scare before winning the first match and now they have just wrapped up the second game, rather comfortably. What is more surprising is the ineffectiveness of Pakistan’s middle order and the fact that both Ajmal and Afridi haven’t been able to spin the ball and make their overs count for anything substantial. This combination was being looked upon as the core of Pakistan’s strategy to contain the Lankan batsmen but both the bowlers have been found guilty of pitching the ball short or make it hurry on to the batsmen, losing out on guile or any degree of appreciable spin. This has been combined with the problem of the skipper, Younis Khan, not firing and being the mainstay of Pakistan’s batting in the middle overs, it has made the team struggle even more. The decision to send-in Afridi up the order too hasn’t fired, but given his past record that cannot be surprising.

It was a James Anderson show according to some folks as he made the Aussie batting line-up crumble after being at a commanding situation wherein they were 125 for the loss of just one wicket. The conditions were typically English, moist and wet to the core, and two typical England bowlers who knew how to utilise them to their advantage — Anderson and Onions, swung the ball beyond conventional expectations. Everybody had been commenting about how Hillfenhaus has been consistently swinging the ball, but it was Anderson who created exaggerated swing this time around and claimed five wickets. Onions was the more controlled of the two bowlers. His four wickets were just as crucial, particularly the two he took in the morning, off two consecutive balls. Anderson looked like a completely different bowler once he started pitching-up the ball and some of his deliveries that came-in towards the batsmen were simply unplayable.

It took Graeme Swann’s bowling to provide England with the breakthrough after Australia chose to bat first in the 3rd Ashes Test Match at Edgbaston. It has to be said that the English bowling was mediocre during the initial 17 – 18 overs. For starters, nearly all the bowlers bowled too short, hardly ever enticing Katich or Watson to be invited on the frontfoot. This was surprising given the fact that it had rained so heavily during the hours just before the test match and everyone expected the ball to swing a lot. But then, to make the ball swing you would have to pitch it up and this clearly wasn’t the agenda of the England bowlers. Swann’s wicket too came more from a change of pace rather than having fooled the batsman or having spun the ball in any way. Even Shane Warne, as a commentator, stated that England were simply wasting the new ball, forgetting the fact that they won the second Ashes test match by making the Aussies batsmen play a lot more shots when they were new at the crease.

Australia were seriously worried about the form of their new-find Hughes and they did what everyone expected them to do — drop the young left-hander for the crucial third encounter against England in the ongoing Ashes 2009. This meant that Watson who has limited experience opening the innings and that too only in the ODIs was promoted at the top of the order. To the surprise of many folks, he didn’t look as out of place as it was imagined. He drove with a lot of confidence and barring a few rash attempted slashes outside the off-stump, Watson was like your regular test opener. He pounced upon the lose deliveries and looked equally good against the short ball, something that was bothering Hughes with Flintoff & Co. continuously digging the ball and making it rise under his helmet.