5th ODI England v Australia

Australia 302 for 6 (Ponting 126, Clarke 52) beat England 299 (Morgan 58) by four wickets

I was rather hoping for rain so we would all be spread yet another tedious, one sided affair but alas no. England won the toss for the 5th match in succession, and again chose to bat. Dimi Mascarenhas came into the side for Luke Wright who injured his foot facing a bowling machine a few days ago. Australia chose to give Brett Lee a breather after his devastating performance in the last game, so what was already likely to be an underwhelming game now had to contend with the absence of the most exciting bowler. Great. Peter Siddle replaced him in the line up.

After what could best be described as a watchful start, England moved through the gears courtesy yet again of Andrew Strauss who was operating at a little under a run a ball as England reached 50 without loss in the 12th over. Once he fell in the 14th over though, LBW to Hauritz for 35 trying the reverse sweep, it would have been fair for the crowd to expect a mini collapse.

That had been the norm up to now in the series anyway, one down quickly becoming three down between the 15th over and the end of the 20th over. This time round Denly and Bopara got England through to the fourth ball of the 20th over when Bopara, for some reason best known to himself, tried to smash Shane Watson over the square leg fence and picked out the fielder. Well done Ravi, a valuable 18 from 21 balls. Just what England needed from their number three batsman. Matt Prior was in next.

Shortly after Engerland reached three figures, the third wicket fell. Denly gone for an entertaining 45 but why, when Strauss and Bopara were already out, he felt it would be a good idea to walk across his stumps and try and whip Mitchell Johnson up in to the on side will forever remain a mystery. I know he’s only new in the side but as an opening bat he should have been looking to stay where he was until the fortieth over at least. If he got out fair enough but shots like that are why England are routinely below par and left with bowlers to score runs during the last powerplay. Three down after 23 overs, so just about running true to form. Prior joined by Shah.

At the 30 over mark these two had both passed twenty at almost a run a ball and England were 149-3. Double the score after 30 overs remember so they were on course for 300, provided Shah didn’t run himself or his partner out and trigger a collapse. He didn’t, but Prior got himself stumped charging down the pitch to Hauritz to end a 60 run partnership. Stupidness again, as he had already hit the previous ball, only the second of the over, for four. Still plenty of batting to come for England though as they took drinks at 165-4. Hauritz completed his ten overs finishing with figures of 2-54.

England took the remarkable step of taking the third powerplay before the 40th over while there were still batsmen at the crease. One over into that Shah wafted his bat outside the off stump and was caught, which brought six hitter extraordinaire Mascarenhas out to face almost fours overs of powerplay. Another English batsman gone meekly between 20 and 40. The powerplay yielded 45 runs for England, but for the loss of two wickets. Mascarenhas out for 19 from 13 giving Johnson his second wicket, Stuart Broad in with 8 overs still to go. At the other end Eoin Morgan was going well with 39 from 29 balls. England 231-6 and the innings could have gone either way at this stage.

Morgan knew which way he was going though, bringing up a fine fifty in the 45th over with a slog sweep six. His third 6, and the fifty up from 37 balls. Stuart Broad joined in the fun with a bright and breezy and hard hitting 22, he as run out by dead eye Ponting with 3 overs to go. Shane Watson through his 10 overs with 2-60. Morgan fell three balls later which meant that two new batsmen would have to face the final two and a bit overs. 58 for Morgan from 41 balls.

Bresnan didn’t last long and the last man Sidebottom was in with an over and a half to go. He assisted Adil Rashid in lifting England up to 299. Eighteen runs from the last over with Rashid run out off the last ball going for the 19th. 299, that’s right, a good total! Despite the annoyance of so many batsmen getting in and set and getting themselves out, the top 9 all scored double figures, three of them 30+ one 40+ and one 50+ so well done England.


They would have been confident of defending that, but so too would Ponting and his men have been confident of chasing it down. And, inevitably, they did. They set off at pace, reaching 45 before the first wicket fell in the 9th over, but the problem with getting one man down in the Australian line up is that it just brings Ricky Ponting to the crease. And the problem with getting the second opener out, as they did in the 15th over with the score on 76, is that it brings Michael Clarke to the crease.

This last night had the result that it was 132 run later before England got their third wicket. Michale Clarke gave it away on 52 minutes after Ponting had reached his hundred. Australia 209-3 so with 91 runs still to get the game wasn't quite in the bag, but these two had got pretty close to it.

Hussey couldn't offer Ponting much support but with the Australian captain in this sort of form the game was surely only heading one way. With ten overs to go the Aussies were 230-4, needing 70 from 60 balls with a batting powerplay still to take.

They took the powerplay in the 44th over needing just 47 to win, but disaster struck for them and hope appeared for England as Broad took two wickets in the over including that of Ponting to leave them reeling with two new batsmen at the crease still needing 39. English hope didn't last long though as a combination of poor bowling and clean hitting saw Australia in the form of Cameron White and Mitchell Johnson canter home with 10 balls to spare. Johnson finished the match with a huge six over long on.

So hats off to Ponting whose hundred was his first in a one day international for 18 months. England's fielding was sloppy and catching poor, with a better display in the field they might have snuck it but credit to Australia for whom Ponting and Clarke set up the game and a perfectly timed powerplay was played out expertly by White and Johnson to recover from the loss of 2 wickets in the first over. In the end the game was never in doubt, England had a sniff at the start of the Australian innings, and when Ponting fell, but those two moments aside Australia were always in control.

Apologies

Hello and profuse apologies for the fortnight and more of non activity, but with the Ashes over and having no interest whatsoever in the tedious One Day aftershow that is going on, real life took over for a couple of weeks. Back in the swing of things now though and will be back to posting soon so if anyone is still checking in please do bear with me!

Meantime congratulations to Forfarshire who secured promotion to the SNCL Premier Division on Saturday with a 14 run win over Heriots in the play off. Good luck to them for next season.

And commiserations to Murrayfield-DAFS who as result of Kelburne defeating Fauldhouse in the National League play off find themselves relegated from East League Division One. Sure Tom and his troops will bounce back next season.

Lastly for now, another blogger with updating problems due to moving home and lack of internet is still faring better than me. With the cricket season over Left Back in the Changing Room returns to football and for those who follow the beautiful game it's well worth continuing to drop in.

Cricket, the draw and War

Have a look at Alex Massie here who has posted a wonderfully cerebral comparison between cricket and war.

"Clearly, cricket is not, even when contested between England and Australia (or Pakistan and India) quite a matter of life and death. But the point remains: an outsider looking at cricket for the first time might be advised to try and view an Ashes series as though it was something akin to the great campaigns of the Napoleonic wars."

The full piece makes for excellent reading, although if you're anything like me you may need to read it twice.

Ashes Highlights

Courtesy of Word Cricket Watch you can now watch highlights of every days play in this years Ashes here.

England Regain The Ashes!! Top 5 Moments...

23rd August 2009. The date probably won't remain etched into the minds of English cricket lovers in the same way as 12th September 2005 is. There won't be any open top bus tours and MBEs and trips to 10 Downing Street. But England's victory today was perhaps even more remarkable than that of four years ago. In 2005 England went into the final Test at the Oval 2-1 up in the series with an extra batsman in the side to replace Simon Jones and once the toss was won all they had to do was not lose 20 wickets and the Ashes were theirs. It wasn't quite as simple as that of course, these things never were when Shane Warne (12 wickets in the match) was around but the stage had been set up for victory in advance. Not so in 2009.

Outplayed at Cardiff, England held on somehow. At Lord's they finally shook off years of Ashes underachievement at the ground and stunned the Australians with Andrew Strauss's 161 and Jimmy Anderson's 4 wickets setting up a big first innings lead then Swann and Flintoff taking 9 wickets between then to finish things off. Rain and two evenly matched batting sides dictated that the 3rd Test finished a draw, and then England were driven into the ground so emphatically at Headingley as Australia won by an innings and 80 runs that despite the score only being 1-1 with one to play, England were written off. And after day one at the Oval when they lost 8 wickets having won the toss and chosen to bat, they were dead and buried. So how did they manage to win? Here are the five key moments which lead to England's reclaiming of the Ashes, starting with the spell that turned this 5th and final Test on it's head on day two.

1. Stuart Broad's spell after lunch on day two. England win the toss which was job one, then set about scoring the 450 or so they would have wanted which was job two. At the end of day one they had scored 307 runs, which would have been perfect had the wickets column not had an 8 in it. They finished on 332 and unless the bowlers could take ten wickets for under 250, Australia were clear favourites for the match. The Aussie reply stared well, Watson and Katich reaching 73 before Strauss tossed the ball to Stuart Broad. 21 deliveries later he had taken 4-8 including Ponting, Hussey and Clarke and the game was on it's head. Australia were shot out for 160 and England had somehow secured a sizeable first innings lead.

2. Two run outs on the fourth afternoon. Chasing 546 was nigh on impossible on a dusty turning wearing pitch, but with more than two full days to do it, it wasn't a completely impossible task. Less than an hour after lunch Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey were both set, playing well and past 50. Australia were 217-2 and still had Clarke, North, Haddin and Johnson to come before the tail. Then, from nowhere, Michael Hussey decided to tip and run to wide mid on, Ponting ball watched for a fraction of a second too long and Freddie Flintoff, dodgy knee and all, swooped, scooped and unleashed a flat armed rocket at the stumps, knocked the off stump clean out of the ground and the Australian captain was inches short. Then, next man in, vice captain Michael Clarke advanced down the pitch to Swann and leg glanced his fourth ball into short leg's boot, it ricocheted to Strauss at leg slip who threw down the stumps with Clarke millimetres short. Captain and Vice captain, one of the World's greatest and man of the series, gone inside a crazy 10 minutes of cricket. Australia still had a slight chance with Hussey at the crease but these guys going in such quick succession to two brilliant pieces of fielding effectively ended the game as a contest.

3. James Anderson and Monty Panesar at Cardiff. James Anderson lasted 69 minutes and Monty Panesar 37 minutes to steal a draw from the jaws of defeat after being totally outplayed in the opening Test. England began their second innings 229 in arrears and slumped to 46-4 early on the final day having closed day four 20-2. This became 102-5 by lunch and the last rites were being read at tea with the score 169-7. As Paul Collingwood was busy compiling a 245 ball 74, he had company at the other end first from Graeme Swann and them from nightwatchman and blocker extraordinaire James Anderson, but when Collingwood fell with time still to play the game was surely over with only dear old Monty left. But the two of them played the innings of their lives to hang on and secure England the draw.

4. Andrew Strauss's hundred at Lord's. After the great escape at Cardiff England moved onto to Lord's where they traditionally lose heavily to Australia. In fact they hadn't won since 1934 so the odds were against them. Step forward captain Strauss and 161 runs which set up England's first inning's total of 425. Strauss was the only English batsman to score a century and finished with almost twice as many runs than anyone else in his team, and top of the overall run scorers list just ahead of Michael Clarke. Flintoff's 5 wickets on the final morning at Lord's grabbed the headlines but it was Strauss's big hundred followed up by four James Anderson wickets which gave England the platform for victory.

5. Flintoff's Five. Andrew Flintoff's spell on the final morning at Lord's was pure theatre. Forget who he got out, charging in from The Pavilion End all morning unchanged on only one leg he whipped the crowd into such a frenzy and lifted his team mates around him to such a degree that you could have been forgiven for thinking it was Edgbaston 2005. Graeme Swann took 4 wickets and left without the plaudits, Flintoff was awarded man of the match although Strauss and James Anderson would surely have been stronger candidates, but no-one would deny Freddie this moment. It was great to witness what turned out to be his last big Hurrah as although he featured in two of the remaining three matches his impact on the remainder of the series was minimal.

Well done England and well done too Australia. Either side could justifiably have won this series, Australia took more wickets and scored more runs but England won the key sessions and the crucial plays which was the difference between the two sides in the end. Roll on 2010/1011.

Good luck England, meanwhile...

There won't, as usual, be any blogging done over the weekend so to keep you going please have a look at Alex Massie's review of Christian Ryan's, "Golden Boy: Kim Hughes and the bad old days of Australian cricket."

Also please do check into World Cricket Watch for reviews, analysis and highlights of each day's play at the Test.

Also worth visiting is Simon Barnes in Times who has done a piece about Ian Bell which is enjoyable to read, even though he isn't actually saying anything we don't all already know.

On a more "something for the weekend sir?" note, here are a few tit bits to keep you going. Not safe for work though I'd suggest.

Bikini Cricket pretty much does what it says on the tin, as does Get Them Out, after approximately 25 seconds.

On a similar level, the Daily And Sunday Sport give us Topless Cricket Babes. Howzat indeed.

Have a good weekend all.

Final Test

After 4 Tests, 16 days play, 4542 runs and 116 wickets England and Australia arrived this morning at the Oval in south east London squared at one game all in the 2009 Ashes. Only a win would do for England in their quest to win back the Ashes, and while a draw would be enough for Ricky Ponting’s men there was no way that they would be playing for anything other than a victory.

Australia named an unchanged side meaning that they would have no frontline spinner, and for England Freddie Flintoff returned at the expense of Graeme Onions to make his 79th and final appearance in a test match, and Jonathan Trott makes his debut coming in for Ravi Bopara. Andrew Strauss won the toss and chose to bat.

England made it to lunch for the loss of just one wicket, Alastair Cook again chasing a wide ball outside of his off stump and edging to Ricky Ponting at second slip. It was 50/50 how the first wicket was going to go, Strauss was either going to be LBW to a Hilfenhaus inswinger or Cook was going to do that. Let’s hope with some prolonged net work after this series he can sort this issue out. Ian Bell came in back at number 3 with the score at 12-1, precisely the sort of situation England did not want him to be in. He made it through to drinks with his captain though pushing the score on to 56-1 at exactly four an over. The second hour of the morning created no real alarms for either batsman, Strauss reached his fifty ten minutes or so before the break and a four from Bell brought up the hundred in the very next over. Well played both of them and England would have been happy to have avoided losing anymore early wickets, while Australia will still have felt that 108-1 could easily become 150-5 with the batting England have to come.

This would have been especially so after Strauss, undoubtedly the key man in this England line up, was gone in the third over after lunch thin edging a low catch through to Haddin off the bowling of Hilfenhaus for 55. Later replays would show that Hilfenhaus has overstepped and that was a clear no ball, but it was too late by then. England 114-2 and the horribly out of form Collingwood MBE came in next batting one place higher than usual at number four. Shane Warne wrote this morning in his Times column that it was about time his old friend Collingwood stepped up to the mark and took on more responsibility in the batting line up so all eyes on him.

Meanwhile Ian Bell MBE was continuing nicely along on his merry way, reaching his fifty after just 73 balls. He wasn’t looking great but then to be fair neither was the bowling. It wasn’t bad, but there was very little in the way of threat for the batsmen, both wickets to fall so far went to bad shots at balls that could and should have been left alone.

Bell and Colly made it safely through to drinks with England 158-2 after 40 overs played. Collingwood fell 15 minutes before tea after nudging, nurdling shovelling and scooping his way to a typically ugly 24. There were some nice shots in there to be fair, but he’s just not nice to watch. He too was caught in the corden driving, this time a thick edge to Hussey at gully from the bowling of Siddle. 176-3 and debutant Trott in next. He faced 11 balls before getting off the mark with a clip through midwicket for two in the final over before tea and England finished the second session 180-3. Just 53 overs were bowled by the tea break so the final session would be slightly extended, weather permitting, to reach the full 90.

Ian Bell’s attractive knock came to an end before he reached three figures. How often has that been said? Played a Siddle delivery onto his stumps for 72 in the first over after tea and a sense of déjà vu and here we go again descended over the Brit Oval as long suffering England fans sensed that capitulation for less than 250 was on the cards. Matt Prior in at number six though so all was not lost yet and the 200 came up in the 60th over.

Unfortunately Prior couldn’t hang around too long. Thirty three balls for 18 runs before he spooned a Mitchell Johnson slower ball to point to have England 229-5. Johnson had struggled a little up until this point going at five an over although he was looking dangerous with the short ball. A wicket will have done his confidence wonders. Freddie Flintoff arrived at the crease to a standing ovation from the crowd with 25 overs left in the day.

The great triumphant hero, saviour of English cricket and talisman that England simply cannot cope without lasted nineteen balls and scored 7 before he flashed needlessly at a wide ball from Johnson and edged through to Haddin. Colossal stuff. Six down for less than 250 and Stuart Broad came in to bat at number 8 with twenty overs play remaining.

Jonathan Trott’s debut innings was ended in unfortunate but brilliant fashion by Katich. A maiden fifty looked a certainty until on 41 he clipped the ball off his legs, Katich made a sharp save and as Trott fell forward following through with the shot he threw down stumps with a direct hit and Trott was gone. Bad luck but brilliant stuff from the close fielder. A good start to Test match cricket for Trott through he looked composed and comfortable. England stumbled across the 300 run line with 5 minutes or so to go before stumps, but then lost their 8th wicket from the final ball of the day. The impressive Peter Siddle accounting for Swann as he pushed forward and edged through to Haddin.

At close then England 307-8 which having won the toss and batted represents a poor return for the day. 307 runs is perfectly acceptable and if they were 4 down they would be very happy, but at 8 down they will struggle to reach 350 when 450 would have been their minimum target. Too many lazy wafts outside off stump doing the damage. Of the 8 wickets to fall 3 were caught by the wicketkeeper, 1 in the slips, 1 at gully and 1 dragged onto the stumps reaching for a ball wide of off stump. If Australia had won the toss and batted 600 would have been their target so England should be disappointed and should not believe that 350 represents a decent score. Australia have taken charge of this game and it will take a fine bowling performance to pull England back. Thank goodness we have Freddie.