2 minute readWas it only last year when we wrote about how enjoyable it was to watch a number 11 batsman make a record Test score? ‘Cricket at its best,’ we wrote, completely forgetting that a lurching Ashes Test makes us want to vomit until we’re right down to the lung butter.
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Peter Siddle doesn’t concern himself with hype
2 minute readWho’d have thought that it would be Peter Siddle taking all the wickets? Who’d have thought that in Australia’s brave new world of James Pattinson, Mitchell Starc and shiny new Ashton Agar, it would be tired old veteran Siddle, with his 150 Test wickets, proven record and exceptional fitness who’d
Continue readingAustralia’s seam bowlers for the 2013 Ashes
3 minute readThis is an area where you find yourself being dragged along by the consensus. So many people are saying that Australia’s seam bowling is strong that you tend to think it must be true. Frequently, people will talk about the attack as a whole, which is usually a sign that
Continue readingAustralia’s spin bowlers for the 2013 Ashes
< 1 minute readAustralia’s spinners are both better and worse than people seem to think. Let’s first be clear that, as it stands, neither Fawad Ahmed nor Ashton Agar are actually in the squad. Furthermore, both benefit from being to a large extent unknown and untested. In a barren land, the distant man
Continue readingAustralia’s wicketkeepers for the 2013 Ashes
< 1 minute readBrad Haddin has primarily been brought back as child minder, but he does average 45 in Ashes Tests and he does look like an Australian wicketkeeper, which is more important than you might think. There’s a chance that Matthew Wade might play as a batsman, so it’s safe to assume
Continue readingAustralia’s middle-order batsmen for the 2013 Ashes
2 minute readWe’d say that Australia were one crankshaft short of an engine room if we knew what constituted ‘the engine room’ or what an engine room contained or what a crankshaft was. Also, they appear to be missing more than that. Flicking through our Big Book of Cricket Clichés, we find
Continue readingAustralia’s openers for the 2013 Ashes
2 minute readWith his perpetually tear-filled eyes and propensity to snap tendons while waxing body hair, Shane Watson always appears a figure of fun. Add in his comedic insistence on throwing his wicket away before he reaches three figures and the boy-man becomes symbolic of how Australia has fallen. On the other
Continue readingAustralia’s squad for the 2013 Ashes
< 1 minute readWe used the term ‘echo chamber’ in reference to the UK cricket media the other day. That was in response to Joe Root worship, but it applies just as much to the way the Australia team is assessed. Half the experts out there are simply rehashing the last thing they
Continue readingWho is Darren Lehmann and why is he called Boof?
< 1 minute readSometimes it can seem like not a year goes by without the number of people on Earth who are younger than us growing. As sickening as it might be, we have to accept that there may be upwards of one person reading this website who isn’t old enough to remember
Continue readingAustralia aren’t taking the Mickey any longer
< 1 minute readAnd thus they have sacked him. Darren Lehmann will replace Mickey Arthur as Australia’s head coach. Lehmann is a decent replacement, but we feel the side would have been better off with an alternative candidate: Alf Stewart from Home and Away. Stewart is from the no-nonsense school of professional Australianism.
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