Ashes

If surveys are to be believed, the vast majority of Australians believe that new Australian captain Michael Clarke is an incurable wanker. On the evidence of the last couple of years, it’s hard to argue. Yet beneath the Sunday social pages facade, I’m convinced there’s a good guy waiting to bust out. And an even better captain waiting to take over.

About a year ago, I interviewed Clarke at a photo shoot for Alpha magazine. In a down moment between shots, two Alpha staff members swear they heard him say under his breath “what am I doing here?”

Understandably, my colleagues were pretty taken aback by that unexpected comment.

Continue reading "The good guy trying to bust out of the wanker suit" »

The third cricket Test starts today. But whether Australia recovers, England continues to stomp its foot on our throat, or a huge meteorite crashes into the WACA, there’s really only one sports story in town.

It’s a story which has spilled well beyond the sports pages, and it shoots off in an exciting new direction each week, enlivening an otherwise flat sporting summer.

The story is of course Shane Warne.

Continue reading "Summer of Shane" »

When Ricky Ponting returned from the disastrous tour of India in October, a small scrum of media cornered him outside the international airport, asked a brace of tough questions, recorded a brace of defiant answers, then scurried off to file for deadline.

Hanging back behind it all was Ponting’s wife Rianna and his two year old daughter Emmy, who must have been busting to hug her Dad. When the last reporter disappeared, Ponting picked up Emmy in one hand, and manfully pushed his overburdened trolley through the car park with the other. He then packed his large, shiny SUV and drove off to his spacious, waterfront home in the Sutherland Shire.

In those brief, private moments, the Pontings looked like any other happily reunited family at the airport. Ricky was a dad and husband, not a cricketer and captain. It kind of made you feel all warm and gooey inside. But there’s nothing warm and gooey about the way this summer of cricket is panning out. And that same media scrum, quite rightly, is interrogating Ponting with increasing ferocity.

Continue reading "Has Ponting undermined his own team’s confidence?" »

England has won the second Ashes Test in Adelaide by an innings and 71 runs. But if you think this summer of cricket has been hard to watch for average fans like us, spare a thought for Glenn McGrath.

In an interview with The Punch, the great paceman admitted the first two Ashes Tests have been tough going for him too.

“There were a few good moments obviously up in Brisbane in the first innings where Sids took the hat trick, but the last two innings watching our boys bowl has been pretty tough,” McGrath said.

Continue reading "Ooh Aah. This is gonna be one long summer." »

The really great thing about us Australians is that we don’t let bad things get us down.

A World Cup for Qatar? No worries. It’ll probably save us all a bunch of stadium renovations we didn’t need anyway. Not to mention that we might actually move towards an economy built on more stable foundations than the questionable benefits of global events we host every quarter century or so.

Three for two against the Poms in the cricket? She’ll be right. We’ll be 3/94 by lunch once Huss and Watto have dug in.

Continue reading "As the eucalypt sprouts new shoots after a fire…" »

Any captain wants one of two things out of his pace spearhead, and ideally he’d like both.

Firstly, he wants strike power in the mould of Jeff Thomson, whose famous sandshoe crusher broke both Tony Greig’s foot and England’s resolve in the corresponding match at the Gabba way back in 1974.

Secondly, he wants unerring accuracy. He wants to be able to throw the ball to his main man and say “hey if you can’t get rid of them, at least dry the runs up and build a bit of pressure”.

Continue reading "Time to take a break, Mitch" »

Hello England. You’re that island (or portion thereof) adrift in the North Sea somewhere near, gee I dunno, Iceland or something right?

England, I’m told you used to be this terrifically confident place which belied its speck-on-the-map geographical status by civilising the world with such benevolent and enduring cultural endowments as the Westminster system, cricket and The Benny Hill Show.

But suddenly England, you’ve gone all insecure and snipey. England, I can’t tell you how genuinely shocked I was to read this piece by journalist Matthew Norman in The Telegraph the other day. Here’s the really surprising bit.

Continue reading "Land of no hope and vainglory" »

TEA DAY 2. Welcome back to the thread of a thousand headlines. Australia is 5/168 after England’s good bowling finally reaped rewards. Mike Hussey, who most of us consider over the hill, is showing that experience is exactly what’s required against good bowling. And Marcus North continues to demonstrate his mediocrity. And by mediocrity, I mean utter rubbish.

And remember, you can follow news updates of the match here.

Lunch Day 2 update. England, especially Stuart Broad and James Anderson, have been keeping a tight line. So far, their only reward is the wicket of Watson, a great comeback by Anderson after he had an LBW overturned on referral the previous ball. I’m in fear of both Broad and Anderson. These guys have improved so much since the last Ashes in Australia. Should be a great middle session. Keep posting all your cricket thoughts here and we’ll have a fresh thread over the weekend.

6PM update. England all out for 260. Six for Siddle and the last two scalps for a deserving Doherty. More cricket tomorrow on The Punch (plus lots of other goodies). I’ve got a feeling 260 may not be such a bad tally at a swinging Gabba…

4.50PM update. Peter Siddle has just taken a fantastic hat-trick. I’m excited. All off great balls too. Share your excitement below!!!

In recent Ashes clashes, the first over, and sometimes even the very first ball, has set the tone for the entire series.

Who’ll forget Harmy’s shocking wide at Brisbane last time?

Or Justin Langer being de-helmeted in 2005?

Continue reading "Hussey holding Australia together" »

Whether on the cricket field or at the poker table, Shane Warne has never been short of swagger. But last night, in the debut of his chat show “Warnie”, his customary strut was largely missing.

That’s not being harsh. Warne himself admitted “I’ve never been as nervous” at the start of the show. Then at the end, in an out-of-character plea for approval, he asked the studio audience “Did you all enjoy it? Did you have fun?”

For the record, there was indeed fun and enjoyment to be had. But only in patches. The Sheik Of Tweak didn’t reek. But he wasn’t brilliant, either. Let’s break down a few of the main segments in no particular order.

Continue reading "Hopefully the Aussies won’t follow Shane’s nervous start" »

Australian cricketer, Peter Siddle was born today in 1984.

It’s Thursday at The Punch. What’s on your mind? Share it here.

There has been no ticker tape parade. No roast and no toast. But here at The Punch, we’re all for big send-offs.

So before that spectacularly gifted Test cricketer Nathan Horowitz fades into cricketing obscurity, let’s recap the greatest performances of the man who was so good, we hardly noticed Shane Warne was gone. So many to choose from. Here are six of the best…

Continue reading "Ethan Hauritz. We will not forget you." »

A great editor once told me to “back the story” when punting on the Melbourne Cup. Wishful thinking, no doubt, but he honestly believed that the horse with the best story often won.

Of course, like all punting theories, this one is complete rubbish. If my mate the editor was right, topical tip Alcopop would have won in a canter last year, what with Kevin Rudd’s obsession with taxing said bevvies.

Thong Classic (13th in 2002) and Maythehorsebewithu (5th in 2001) would also both have won, creating heaven for headline-writers.

Continue reading "Cup form guide: our summer of English pain begins" »

It’s time for the Aussie cricket selectors to make the boldest decisions they’ve made in over two decades.

Andrew Hilditch, that other big bloke with the moustache and their fellow selectors need to run a broom through the Australian team otherwise the best we can hope for is more of the same mediocre cricket that has become common in recent times.

Back in the mid-80s, though their hand was forced somewhat by retirements and rebel tours, the Australian selectors opted for a youth policy under the guidance of captain Allan Border.

Continue reading "Ponting’s not the problem, his team is getting creaky" »

Following England’s cricketers on Twitter is becoming almost as entertaining as watching them on the field.

Graeme Swann and Jimmy Anderson led the way, giving us the inside track on everything from room service meals to the perils of only packing two pairs of underpants for a tour.

Swann, in particular, went the extra mile by providing details of a stomach bug he picked up.

Continue reading "English cricketers do something right" »

Defeat at the hands of a weak English side is the wake up call that the Australian cricket hierarchy has needed.

The Australian cricket supremacy has passed. That supremacy dated from 1995, when Mark Taylor’s team defeated the then world champion West Indians in the Caribbean. 95 Test matches were won, and only 24 lost, over the following twelve years. The cricket world became accustomed to the inexorable dominance of Australia’s national side.

Now Australia has suffered series defeats to India, South Africa and England in the last twelve months.

Continue reading "No more excuses: sack the selectors and punt Ponting" »

Ricky Ponting’s shock at his team’s emphatic defeat at the hands of England in the deciding Ashes Test is revealed in his concern for his own future he expressed after the game.

“I really don’t know what to expect,” he said when asked about facing the music back in Australia. “Hopefully most of the questions being asked will be from journalists and not from people above me.”

England’s Daily Telegraph twisted the knife, pointing out that Australia was now fourth in the world rankings and that, combined with the loss of The Ashes, would be “a permanent stain” on Ponting’s career.

Continue reading "England reclaims The Ashes and twists the knife" »

And so it begins, although it seems strangely anticlimactic.  The reason for that could be because of the two week gap between matches, which was the norm until a few years ago when International tours became compressed affairs so the Test specialists could be shipped off and the one day specialists freighted in.

Now we add the Twenty 20 specialists to the mix as well, so we’re lucky they don’t run the 25 days of the 5 Tests consecutively, or play a Test during the day and a T20 fixture at night as a double header. 

We used to enjoy the fact that five Tests took five and a half months to play during which time the players would play a couple of counties between Tests, get to travel to Scotland or Ireland for a couple of beers matches on a local village green and come home in time to have a week’s rest before the first Shield game started.

Continue reading "There’s a spark missing from this Ashes series" »

It’s often said journalism is a mirror to the society it serves. Most cricket fans know which of these papers they would prefer to be reading this morning.

At the start of this Ashes series I set out 10 reasons to love the English and said at the time they would take some comfort from being classed as underdogs. But surely, the underdog tag is too kind this time. Beedogs, perhaps.

Anyway, below are some links to previews from English and Australian commentators on this deciding Test, including Shane Warne’s. But if England’s hopes rest on Andrew Flintoff playing a blinder in his final Test match and Australia are counting on Ricky Ponting, I know which side I’d prefer to be on. Share your thoughts, predictions, and sledges in the comments.

Continue reading "Ashes deciding Test: A tale of two Telegraphs" »

There’s further evidence today of the growing contempt that modern managers of sporting codes hold for fans of their games, with English cricket managers begging the crowd to be nice to Ricky Ponting when he walks to the middle in the fourth Ashes Test, getting underway at Headingley in a few hours’ time.

For a measure of how patronising and unnecessary this is, look no further than Australian batsman Shane Watson, who says the booing Ponting gets from the crowds is to be expected - and something players enjoy, even thrive on, when playing in England.

Cricket managers in Australia have shown a similar pattern of growing discomfort with what ordinary people consider a good day out. When the Poms were last here, the Barmy Army’s trumpeter was kicked out of the Gabba for playing his instrument, despite getting prior approval to blow it. (He’s been banned from the Headingley Test, too.)

Continue reading "Boo to English cricket bosses. And the Aussie ones, too" »

No Australian cricketer has scored more runs for his country than Ricky Ponting. The Tasmanian has overhauled Allan Border’s Australian run scoring record in 22 fewer Tests, with an average six runs to the good, and boasts eleven more centuries to his name.

Yet Allan Border remains the finest Australian batsman of the last quarter century.

Granted, Ponting is Border’s superior in the one day format. But it is the pure form of the game that provides the ultimate test of the abilities of cricketers. A great cricketer’s greatness is established in the Test arena.

Continue reading "Allan Border still the greatest Australian batsman" »

It’s a good thing the Aussies have their wives and girlfriends along for the Ashes tour.

Had they not been there, it’s quite probable we would have gone down to county side Northamptonshire because we’ve all been assured by Cricket Australia that the boys play better if the WAGs are in attendance.

Seeing as we have managed to win just one of the seven tour games so far, I tremor at the thought of what would have happened if CA hadn’t had the foresight to support the significant others/B-grade celebrities and female wannabes to stay with the cricketers for the first part of the Ashes.

Continue reading "WAGs aren’t about team happiness, but marketing" »

“Two world wars and one world cup” is a popular refrain from the terraces when England play Germany at football (aka soccer).  Offensive as it may be to some, the chant has been around pretty much since England’s World Cup final win over the then West Germany in 1966 and is “popular with the Neanderthal branch of the Ingerland Supporters’ Club, to be sung at Johnny Foreigner once the Channel has been safely negotiated,” according to one fan website.

The victory at Wembley was an aberration and not to be repeated. We die-hard English sports fans of the post-war era (that’s post 1966) fully understand this fact. We’re also aware that the 2005 Ashes series victory, pleasant enough entertainment but clearly an unscripted entry into the English sporting history books, would never occur again in our lifetime.

So it is with some trepidation and a sense of dismay that we watch Freddie Flintoff and the chaps once again threaten our calm state of underachieving equilibrium.

Continue reading "Proud Britons remain quietly confident of noble defeat" »

Lawrie Sawle is the most unrecognised contributor to the Australian cricket supremacy of the last two decades.

A West Australian school teacher and administrator, Sawle became Australian cricket’s chairman of selectors in late 1984. Earlier that year the Sydney Cricket Ground Test played host to the retirements of the three giants of the national team, Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh.

Soon Australia was being beaten by everyone. The captain resigned in tears. A majority of the first Test team chosen by Sawle’s selection panel had already signed secret agreements to rat on Australian cricket and tour apartheid South Africa.

Continue reading "Australian cricket doomed if we don’t back the young" »

The monkey is not just off the back – he’s on the floor, break-dancing.

If we didn’t win this time, we would never win at Lords ever again.

For 75 years that Aussies have dominated us at the home of cricket, but by Sunday we dared to dream. A lead of more than 500, two days to bowl the Aussies out – and a bowling line-up that consisted of four seamers, one spinner and two umpires.

Continue reading "Why winning at Lords meant the world to us Poms" »

Australia last night extended the Ashes to a five-game contest by losing seven wickets to be declared all out in its second innings at Lords. The other three batsmen were dismissed off no balls, by “snicking” the ball without actually hitting it, or by being “caught” when English captain Andrew Strauss, an ornament to gamesmanship, found a cricket ball lying on the grass and shouted “howzat!”

It was the first time England had won at Lords since 1411. Anyway it’s the 40th anniversary of the moon landing today, which puts an event as trifling as a cricket match in its proper perspective. You can read about the moon in the next post. We’ve got nothing more to say.

Bumble and Aggers. Watch or listen to coverage of the Ashes from England and you will soon be familiar with these two fellows.

Both are now building a strong following on Twitter. The Ashes (sorry #ashes for Twitterers) is ideally suited to Twitter. Plenty of pauses between play, statistics-a-plenty and each moment easily encapsulated in 140 characters.
Bumble otherwise known as David Lloyd, is a regular in the Sky Sports Commentary Box – by gum, he’s the lad with the broad Lancashire accent.

Continue reading "How Bumble and Aggers tweeted their way past tea" »

Winding up Ricky Ponting threatens to overtake fishing as England’s biggest recreational sport.

From his Gary Pratt blow-up in 2005 to Sunday’s ‘Physiogate’ press conference, us Poms like nothing better than to dress up the beady-eyed Tasmanian as the pantomime villain.

It’s just so much fun to watch – Little Ricky standing there in the playground shouting, “Miss, they stole my Test match…”

Continue reading "Why Ponting the sook has given us Poms the edge" »

Most people can’t resist taking a swing at Ricky Ponting’s captaincy. Ironically, despite my menacing pose in the image below, I am not one of them.

That the bloke can bat, nobody denies. But if you buy the negative hype, then every time an opponent strikes the ball through the covers, it’s Punter’s fault because he sets poor fields.

Every time a match peters out to a tame draw, it’s Punter’s conservative declaration that’s to blame.

Continue reading "The centurion who spanked his critics out of the park" »

WHEN mounting an argument sure to rub some people up the wrong way - such as, say, listing reasons to love the English on the first day of The Ashes - it can be useful to start by invoking supporting words of wisdom from a unifying, popular figure.

Step forward, Donald Rumsfeld.

The former US Defence Secretary - not exactly of Ghandi-esque stature in global public opinion - had a favourite phrase: that America would be vindicated in “the great sweep of human history”.

In the great sweep of sporting history, the English have been the objects of increasing ridicule. They deserve much of it, especially with their tragi-comic efforts in soccer and cricket during the 1990s. But with the 2009 Ashes series beginning this evening, Australian time, we’re sure to be in for weeks of tiresome jokes about whingeing Poms, underachievers, chokers, yob fans with beer bellies, along with general mirth at moments of English failure.

When Mitchell Johnson gets the ball in hand and eyes off Andrew Strauss in Cardiff before starting his run-up, it might be worth him - and Australians everywhere - pausing for a moment to reflect on England’s place in the great sweep of human history. For England, possibly more than any other nation, deserves respect.

[More Ashes: Luke Foley on English elitists | Phil Hillyard’s photo secrets]

And as one of the 10 reasons below argues, respecting England just might help Australia win The Ashes.

Continue reading "Ten reasons to love the Poms" »

My mates would say to me “Are you serious? You’re being sent to watch every ball of The Ashes, and you call that work?” It sounds like a dream job ... and believe me it is. But a lot goes in to photographing cricket, particularly an Ashes.

I was lucky enough to be given the assignment of covering the last two Ashes series for News Limited. The 2005 tour of England and then the return battle in the Australian summer of 06/07. In 2005 we set off at the beginning of June and wouldn’t return until mid September. It was a monster of a tour, including the one-dayers it was almost a 15 week trip. And sadly, England won.

The first thing you need to be a cricket photographer is stamina. There is no other sport like it. 540 balls a day, the best part of eight hours of action, five days in a row, countless training sessions, and the series last for months on end.

Continue reading "Shooting the Ashes: 540 balls a day, and you can’t miss one" »

Tonight, a young man from New South Wales will step on to a cricket field in old South Wales. Phillip Hughes, age twenty, son of a banana farmer, will open the batting for his country in international sport’s most enduring contest, Ashes cricket.

He’s dreamt of this moment for much of his young life. One can write with some confidence that he hasn’t dreamt of playing his first Ashes Test at Sophia Gardens, rather at Lords or Headingley or Old Trafford.

The opening match of the 2009 series will be the first Ashes Test played on neutral soil. That is, it will take place neither in England nor Australia, but in a foreign country, Wales.

The first Welshman to captain England at Test cricket, Tony Lewis, wrote of Sophia Gardens, ‘a day watching there when the prevailing wind blows is like a week at sea’.

Continue reading "England’s toffy cricket elite keeps the crowds at bay" »

Leggies. Googlymen. Chinamen. Mystery spinners. Australia chooses spin bowlers to take wickets, not merely to tie up an end.

Until now, that is. Andrew Hilditch, the chairman of Australia’s selection panel, recently enlightened us on his view of the role of spin bowling in Australia’s forthcoming Ashes campaign.

“The word attacking is a bit overrated really”, he declared. “...it’s about asserting pressure and performing the role the captain wants…Nathan (Hauritz, the only specialist spinner chosen) did that very well in the times he’s played, because we wanted to tie up an end, assert pressure from that end, keep pressure on batsmen and relieve the fast bowlers.”

Continue reading "Australia’s real crisis of spin is on the cricket pitch" »