Wow, where do you even begin with this ?! From an Australian point of view, so good to come out on the right end of one of these close finishes.. One up as opposed to one down in this series feels enormous too.
I woke up and checked the score on my phone when we were 7-210.. put it down and willed myself to go back to sleep.. realised that was futile after about 15 minutes so checked the score again and we were 8-230.. then saw Cummins plonk 14 off Joe Root and decided to keep watching..
Unfortunately, in the spirit of extreme cricket superstition that meant holding the same uncomfortable position propped on an elbow for the next hour or so, checking the live score, checking the twitter feed at the end of each over, until the very end!
One thing that really stuck with me from the Ashes twitter feed was the gushing plaudits for Test cricket.. Australians, Poms, neutrals, everyone was so into that contest and talking up how its the sort of thing only this form of cricket can deliver. Viva la red ball cricket !!
In many ways, it felt bigger than any one game. It felt like a battle between old and new, sequel trilogy v prequel trilogy but actually good.
There were so many key moments, so many contributors and three greats not really contributing much in Smith, Anderson and Labs. That was arguably England’s best chance with both Aussie gun bats not contributing much but this is clearly a team with resolve.
England were for the most part also great and their new style is fun to watch. We also have a new punchable villain in Robinson and for the winning runs to come off him seemed like poetic justice. Khawaja will be extremely satisfied with that outcome, he was immense.
Warner is an ongoing issue but who do you replace him with? Harris somehow looked even worse 4 years ago and doesn’t have the runs on the board Warner does.
But back to that final session, Cummind and Lyon take a bow and then another one and several more. That was absolute top shelf cricket. England bowled amazingly well and Cummins and Lyon earned every single run they got, they were made to win it.
How do you get yourself up for the next test after that? And one final word because he wouldn’t let any others in, Peterson is an awful commentator. Everything was spelled out and repeated over and over and over again. He’s on par with Mat Thompson in the muteable stakes.
In fact, let me do a mock up Peterson style commentary while you are watching what is happening yourself:
He’s eating a biscuit. An Anzac biscuit. An Anzac biscuit from a tin. An Anzac biscuit from a blue tin, a dented blue tin. And he’s eating the Anzac biscuit one bite at a time from that blue tin, the Anzac biscuit from the blue dented tin. And now he’s got a part bitten Anzac biscuit from the blue tin, the blue dented tin and he’s chewing it, he’s chewing that mouthful of biscuit from the partly bitten biscuit from the blue tin, the blue Anzac dented blue tin.
KP was going on about Australia struggling with Root.. it was all good, he was making a lot of sense, the problem is though that the bloke he was saying it to is a no nonsense/matter of fact kind of guy.
I know I’m that guy on here but seeing as it might spark a bit more discussion and interest being in this thread rather than its own, I’ll cover the Women’s Ashes that has started tonight.
Still playing the mixed format series, but the Test is up first. Australia are batting first and are currently 6/249
A rain delay upset our rhythm as we lost 4 wickets for only 36 runs, including an awful duck to Healy and the latest was Perry out for 99.
Man, that sucks for Perry. I watched a bit before going to bed and thought she looked good. Test cricket is a rarity for the women so it will hurt more.
I feel we'll be the Men's England team from the first game - slender lead from the first innings and get bowled out cheaply in the second innings to be undone by a lower partnership on the last day with a few overs left
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