CricDigs Blogs

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.