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When Australia first landed in the UK, we renounced level-headed reportage in favour of mindless jingoistic cheerleading. Many of you might have thought that this reached a peak when we asked ‘are England going to win the Ashes?‘ last week and concluded ‘yes, of course they are’.
But they did, didn’t they? They only went and won the frigging Ashes.
We’re taking this as proof that ‘thinking about stuff’ is fundamentally flawed and ‘just kind of hoping that everything works itself out’ is far more productive.
It’s Sunday night as we write this, so we’re going to go and get a drink now. We’ve got all week to indulge in some real, full-on, world-class gloating and that’s exactly what we intend to do. Tomorrow we’re going to tell you why Australia lost the Ashes.
You don’t have to wait til tomorrow, KC.
I’ll tell you now why we lost them —
Because we wanted to. Because the burden of being so great was too heavy. And to make you Poms feel better about that absolute utter drubbing we gave you last time, the one that you’ve wiped from your collective memories, it was so painful.
Remember?
5-nil?
so while your having your gloat, just remember that you can’t even have a gloat the size of the gloat we had last time.
Congrats anyway. Til next time.
The day Australians want to lose will be a rum day indeed.
A memorium to a lost Ashes:
“tis better to have lost and loved, than never to have lost at all”
(apologies to Tennyson)
If you loose a five match series the only reason can be that you simply weren’t good enough!
Both sides were average and lacked in certain areas but in a series of 5, 5 day matches there should be no excuses for defeat and to be fair to the Australians they haven’t offered any!
England win the Ashes and Australia plunge to 4th in the world Test rankings. Ouch!
But England need to build on this – not do what we did in 2005 and treat it as an end in itself.
Ultimately though, sustained success can only be achieved by the ECB and the counties dusting off those “Reform English cricket” reports and making some serious changes to the domestic set-up. Unless they do this – 2009 may be a joyful but fleeting experience.
Now – where’s my champaign?
Come on, KC! Get on with it! I’m sat here fit to explode, with gloat building up inside me. I need a release, and you’re the man to provide it.
…and while you’re at it with the gloating can you give miserable Aussie Steve a damn good thrashing?
Now I bet England will miserably lose the ODI series but who cares abt that??? Wat a match……Better yet WAT A FINISH!!!!
Why just one week of gloating, KC?
Unfortunately, I see this as a bit of a watershed, with India and the dirty Saffers soon to be confirmed as the dominant forces in cricket, with SL, England and Australia snapping at their heels.
‘Til then though, I’ll enjoy the sunshine. Both metaphorical and actual, for a change.