A suggestion arising from Boof Lehmann’s attack of hoof and mouth? So thinks a resident in England who sent me this note
“Why is it that the Australian male – from Tony Abbott to Darren Lehmann – never misses an opportunity to prove the stereotype of the colonial Neanderthal?”
by Tom Farman, 18 Jul 2013
This recently unearthed British Council documentary provides a snapshot of English cricket over 60 years ago. Narrated by Sir Ralph Richardson and the great BBC commentator John Arlott, it shows beautiful footage of Test cricket and the theatre surrounding it, as well as the more humble cricket on the village green. There is some splendid slow-motion footage of the Lord’s Test of 1948, featuring such legends of the game as Sir Don Bradman, Sir Len Hutton, Denis Compton and Keith Miller. The Pathe documentary footage is also very strong on the crowd, the sense of occasion of a Lord’s Test that remains every bit as much of a national event today as it did in Sir Don’s last Ashes tour of England.
Bradman’s Invincibles at Tilbury docks, 1948
Filed under Ashes Tests, Australian cricket, cricket tamashas, cricketing icons
Saroj Pathirana of BBC, 19 July 2013 …. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sinhala/multimedia/2013/07/130719_sonia_ashton_pirith_kiribath.shtml
සිය දෙටු පුතා ඕස්ට්රේලියානු කණ්ඩායමට තේරීමත් සමගම යළිත් වරක් ශ්රී ලංකාවේ සංචාරය කිරීමට හැකි වනු ඇතැයි සෝනියා විශ්වාසය පළ කරන්නීය. (සෝනියා සහ ජෝන් ඒගාර් ග්ලෙන් මැක්ග්රාත් සමඟ) Continue reading
Filed under Ashes Tests, Australian cricket, BBC sinhala service, performance
Chloe Saltau in the Sydney Morning Herald
For the 2005 Ashes tour, in the aftermath of Darren Lehmann’s retirement, Australia propped a small, rotund Shrek doll at the front of the team bus to ensure that the spirit of ‘Boof’ lived on. On Monday in Bristol, Lehmann returned as coach of Australia to declare Australia could still, despite all the on-field malfunctions and dressing room ructions of the past few months, win the Ashes. Whether or not that is possible in the current mess, it was easy to see why his refreshingly simple blueprint appeals to his players.
“Yes, definitely,” Lehmann said of the Ashes. “It’s a challenge for all the playing group and everyone involved in Cricket Australia. The team is going to play a certain way, an aggressive brand of cricket that entertains people and fans but also gets the job done.
“There won’t be any ongoing problems. We will get everything right on and off the field. It’s important to talk about the game whether it’s over a beer or a diet coke, I don’t mind being perfectly honest. Continue reading
Wayne Smith, in The Australian, 25 April 2013
DECORUM dictated that the Poms should at least wait until Australia’s Ashes squad had been named before ridiculing it but given how many starters there will be in that fiercely contested race, it was inevitable someone would jump the gun. Not leaving anything to chance, respected English cricket writer Mike Selvey rushed into print in The Guardian on Monday with the breathless prediction that “Australia’s fragile Ashes hopes (would) rest on the frail, flabby and fallible” — as his headline writer neatly summarised his thesis. The only leavening in this weighty condemnation was that his assessment of the Australians as “flabby” referred not to their waistlines but their batting technique, although there would be many in this country dubiously eyeing this 16-man squad who would happily exchange its (generally) lean athleticism for the courage and skill of such portly fighters as David Boon and Colin Cowdrey. Continue reading
Patrick Smith, in The Australian, 25 April 2013
Chris Rogers–Pic from AFP
THE first question — the essential question — that needs to be asked is: can we make that Test squad bound for England any better by fiddling with the work of John Inverarity and his mates? The summer gone has us fretting. If there are no obvious places that need to be overhauled or even fine-tuned, no names chucked overboard, then Inverarity, Mickey Arthur, Michael Clarke, Rod Marsh and Andy Bichel have settled on a sensible, fair and uncontroversial collection of players charged to bring the Ashes to Australia. That doesn’t mean they will come back with anything more than battered limbs and tarnished reputations, rather just that we have gathered together the best of a bad lot. Continue reading
Peter Lalor, in The Australian, 25 April 2013
Pic by Brett Costello in Daily Telegraph
MARK Taylor believes Twenty20 cricket is to blame for the impoverished state of batting in Australian cricket and says that the existing players have to stand up if the visitors are going to have any chance in the Ashes. The former captain, who was one of the authors of the Argus review and is tipped to return to the board of Cricket Australia this year, was speaking at the announcement of the Ashes squad in Sydney yesterday.
The selectors have, as revealed in The Australian, gone back to Brad Haddin to inject some experience in the side. The wicketkeeper replaces Matthew Wade behind the stumps and Shane Watson as vice-captain, although Wade remains in the squad. Selectors have also dusted off 35-year-old opener Chris Rogers who has scored more than 19,000 first-class runs — many of them in England — but has played only one Test, in Perth in 2008. Haddin and Rogers, along with Ricky Ponting, were the form batsmen of a Shield summer in which no young batsman could score enough runs to force his way into one of the weaker Test batting lineups of the past two decades. Continue reading
Aleem Dar—Three Howlers and OUT he should be
Aleem Dar—Three Howlers and OUT he should be
Michael Roberts
When a batsman nicks or plays a ball to one of the slips most human beings can perceive the splice of the process so to speak. But not Dar… Not once, not twice, but THRICE. I have a vivid mental image of all three moments. Continue reading →
Leave a comment
Filed under Ashes Tests, Australian cricket, confrontations on field, cricket and life, DRS, fair play, foul tactics, Mahela Jayawardene, performance, politics and cricket, sportsmanship, television commentary