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Brisbane’s Courier Mail floated the possibility of not mentioning Stuart Broad by name at all during this Test. Does anyone know if they did actually go with this front page in the end or was it just a canny publicity stunt?
The newspaper suggested that they were only going to refer to him as ‘the 27-year-old English medium pace bowler’ but that clumsy, inaccurate description’s going to be something of a yoke around the neck while they try and report on his five wickets. You fall to 100-5 against a medium-pacer? What would happen against a real quick?
Is this likely to be a low-scoring game? It could be, but as the clock ticked towards 2am UK time, it looked for all the world like we’d be getting up to see the same two batsmen at the crease in a few hours’ time. The surprisingly small wicket-taking window presented by the new ball appeared to have been shut and locked with the latch key lost down the back of the sofa.
We therefore conclude that Australia’s batting was ‘not all that’.
It wasn’t not all that, it was much, much less than all that. It was a precise continuation of their inverted efforts in England, in which their batting started at #7 and their tail started at #1. Lehmann seems to have changed the atmosphere and nothing else.
Judging from the reports, once the new ball had been properly seen off (40 overs or so), batting became distinctly easier on a flat wicket. Getting to this point relatively unscathed IS THE MAIN JOB OF THE OPENERS. Not the main job of the openers is scoring an 80-ball 50. Australia were six down at this point, and completely relying on their wicket keeper and bowlers to dig them out of a hole. Had they been 100 for 2 instead of 132 for 6 after 44 overs, they would have been able to reap the rewards of seeing off the new ball. A run rate of three-an-over doesn’t seem especially fast, but it is supposed to be the average of slow for the first 40 and quick for the second 40, not a target at 40 overs.
They’ve given their hate figure all the edge he needs for a good series, and proved to themselves and their fans that they remain a bunch of talentless, useless incompetents who have no idea how to play test cricket. Expect Watson to open in the second test, with Hughes, while Smith gets dropped for Khawaja and Warner keeps wicket.
Ace from JRod:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/690845.html
As he says, all that happened between then and now is that Australia got better by not playing.
Mr. Boof, did you see that weak chined smirk as he waved his ball around? Get used to it.
Describing Broad as “the 27-year-old England medium pace bowler” reminded me of dear old Dan Maskell, who always referred to Ivanesevic as “the big Yugoslav” – but I think his problem was more to do with pronunciation.
They were great times, when commentators would genuinely struggle with Ivanesevic and Navratilova, but would have no problem whatsoever with Farquharson-Cholmondeley-Smythe.
Does anyone else think that the world chess championship between Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen could use the same level of bile and opprobrium? A vicious home crowd to sledge the mono-browed Norwegian?
If he was a 27 year old Pakistani bowler without half of his DNA supplied by an ICC match referee he would be under investigation for that deliberate no ball at the start.
I think The Courier Mail are reporting that Australia are 280/3 this morning
He’s the Phantom Menace as it happens: http://bit.ly/18SKuYA
To be fair that movie was Medium Pace at best.
nice mask though, perhaps they’ll come in with cricket’s next sexing up… 10/10 maybe.
1 – The repeated failures of the Australian top order means we edge closer to something we can all get behind. A Test cap for Mark James Cosgrove.
2 – The phantom Ashes dreams are back. Wake up at 3.30am certain that a Graham Onions inspired England have reduced the Aussies to 90-8. Wake up at 5 convinced that Watson is still batting on 120, event though you literally watched him get out.
I had a dream once where Mike Atherton scored a century, *after he’d retired*.
We had a dream once where Mike Atherton took five wickets. *Naked*.
ooh, i didn’t need that image 🙁
They are all medium-pacers, not that it matters. What a shower. Some excellent deliveries to take wickets but some laughable batting. Should get funnier the further the series goes.
Shows where the Aussies are that two headcases like Haddin and Johnson showed the most application.
He bats to the left……
We’re thinking of having a moratorium on references to that song.
Might we also have a moratorium on references to your dreams, KC, given the example set out a few comments above?
The other Johnson song, though much crueler, is by far the funnier of the two.
hmmm. i am unaware of this “other mitchell johnson song”. have tried googling it and looking on youtube, but to no avail… all anyone seems to have on there is endless re-runs of MJ’s golden duck at the SCG (i actually felt sorry for the guy at the time. what a surreal experience, to come out to bat in a “home” test and find yourself at the mercy of an away crowd like that… extraordinary pressure)
I believe it was inspired by the public spat between the ladies in his life:
The Johnson Family
(to the tune of the Adams Family)
His mother hates his missus
His missus hates his mother
They all hate each other
The Johnson Family
de le la le de le la le de le la le
aha 🙂 cheers!
ah, i haven’t had a good laugh like that in a while. that front page… the unbelievable hypocrisy!! i mean… i know that these guys are out to sell papers and all, but… actually getting up on their high horse over a form of “cheating” that everyone knows the aussies themselves invented, and perpetuated… it beggars belief! and then the fact that they now have to deal (as you say, kc) with the fallout from their designating broad a medium-pacer, now that their captain/best batsman got out to him for 1… it’s just all too beautiful 🙂
(sorry wolf et al – but it really is! regardless of how this match actually pans out)
Reminiscent of Will Swanton’s classic, from roughly this time in 2010.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/cricket/reasons-why-poms-wont-win/story-e6frey50-1225955985591
They just won’t learn.
hahaha… what did he have to say afterwards then? or had he joined the oz-team-bashing bandwagon by that time..?
I seem to remember an Australian paper going to some length explaining how and why Paul Collingwood was England’s worst ever #4, in the days before Adelaide 2006.
That was also amusing. Briefly.
Gosh, I’m tired.
Do we have to do it all again tonight?
Be decent Sam.
Not sure what that means. Maybe I’m just too tired to comprehend tthe sarcasm and double speak that populates these parts.
A yoke around the neck to go with the yolk on their faces.
I suppose we should reserve full judgment for at least two wickets and an innings but they look to me to be just as much of a shower as they have looked for some time.
Rogers’ filthy arm guard looks like some desperate attempt at authenticity, Clarke’s back is as serviceable as Bailey’s defence, or Watson’s patience gene. Warner needs a punch in the tache – what must Booney and Big Merv think of that?
Steve Smith looks like he might get a few runs somewhere, and yet he also looks like he learned to bat from a manual translated via a third language, or by being talked down via radio instruction from an actual batsman, having found himself alone at the crease one day. It’s very strange.
Well, this is a shambles. I guess we should make the follow on, just.
Jesus. Two more wickets in the time it takes me to write two sentences.
shoe on the other foot!
But I’m really apprehensive about cheering too loud for the Aussies, we are the masters of the sudden collapse.
This is the problem with earlies. You wake up excited and are instantly crushed by the scorecard.
There would have been very long odds on CricInfo having its current headline of “Johnson, Lyon rip through England” this time yesterday!
I do enjoy reading this post, as you lot are 9/110, day 2. Worst pom batting collapse they say, since 1954
Who says that? Someone who fell into a coma in 1955 and only just awoke?
Someone on radio. You know, experts. Do nothing but memorise stats.
as the king implies, rusty, “england cricket” and “batting collapse” went together as naturally as salt and pepper for years. (decades, was it..? seemed like it)
what about that time when ambrose ran through us like a spoiled goat curry? all out for 40-odd wasn’t it? ah, the good old days of proper english collapses (wipes tear from eye)
It’s probably something once they’ve added the qualifications – ‘wickets two to seven’ or ‘at the Gabba’ or whatever.
Our favourite ever England batting collapse was 270-1 to 320 all out against Pakistan in 1992. That was one for the connoisseurs.
I think Cricinfo said it was the worst since 1990 at Melbourne where England navigated the difficult task of transitioning safely back into the pavilion with a total of 150 from the tricky position of 5/147.
aaaaarrrrrggggghhhh
thought this was supposed to be a perfect batting pitch? guess the oz masterplan (of not letting the tourists face anything faster than a nice bit of dibbly-dob during the warmups) worked like a charm… of course, that was dependent on the test bowlers holding up their end and MJ not reverting to his “bowling machine set on random” mode, but, dammit… etc
one question. if there was nothing in the pitch for swann, what the hell made lyon so ferocious?!
All in all, a rather reasonable day of cricket from an Australian perspective. There seemed to be some sort of gentlemen’s agreement that Broad and Anderson could score some runs as long as we could pelt them with cricket balls, which seemed to be satisfactory to both parties.