The Ashes

Day 3
-------

I slept for 7 hours last night so I only watched the last hour of the day. The Aussies scored slowly and the scond new ball did some damage to leave them 312-5, still needing 40 runs to avoid the follow-on.

Hoggard bowled very well and took all 4 wickets.

Jargon Busting
-------------------

Follow-on: Each team has 2 innings. In test cricket, if the team batting second score fewer than 200 runs than the team batting first did, they can be asked to bat again (follow on their next innings). The follow-on is not mandatory, it is at the descression of the captain of the team that batted first.

There have only been 3 instances of a test match being won by a team following on. Each time, Australia have lost (ha ha). They are:

vs England (Sydney 1894-95)
vs England (Headingley 1981)
vs India (Kolkata in 2000-01)

The 1981 Ashes series is particulally remembered for the impact Ian Botham had.

 

Day 4
--------

Hoggard put in a top display of bowling, he finished up with 7-109 from 42 overs and 6 maidens. Australia finished up 513 all out and Englands second innings was 59-1 at close of play with Ali Cook going to a outswingger from Stuart Clarke.

This means that 4 days, have passed, 1123 runs have been scored, 17 wickets taken and little chance of a result. England should bat until tea tommorow where they should declare and leave the Ausies 2 1/2 hours to loose some confidence.

The only 'spanner in the works' for England is the threat posed by Shane Warne, he was turning the ball square during the 18 overs England faced before the close. However, unless the pitch speeds up he is unlikely to be a real threat.

Jargon Busting
------------------

Overs: A bowler must bowl six legal deliveries to complete an over. At the end of the over the bowling changes ends and another bowler must bowl. Deliveries can be deemed illegal for several reasons, including - overstepping the popping crease, throwing and having too many men fielding behind square leg.

Maidens: A maiden over occurs when a bowler has no runs scored from them during the over. No balls and wides count against the bowler and would prevent a maiden. Byes and leg byes do not count against the bowler.

Byes: A run scored when the ball has not been hit by the batsman or hit the batsman and richoched for a run. Byes usually occur when the ball goes through the batsman and the wicket keeper fails to stop it.

 

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/73100.html

I don't know why maiden is used in cricket. I neither ties in with being the first nor unwed women.

The etymology of maiden comes from old english mægden (c.1300) - the diminutive is mægeþ comming from german and meaning young person.

 

Day 5
--------

Sorry for the lateness of the post, I have spent the last 24 hours crying into my beer.

The pitch sped up and England were woeful under the spell of the spin wizard. Mike Hussey then batted superbly to break English hearts.

England lost by 6 wickets.

Jargon Busting
-------------------

There a 4 possible results in cricket, win, lose, draw and tie. A draw is when the game is not completed due to time, win lose and draw all require a completed match. To complete a match the side batting last must either be bolwed out (all 10 wickets taken) or score more than the other team. A tie is when they score the same with the team batting second all out. This is very rare and off the top of my head I think this has only happened twice in test cricket.

The winner is described either as winning by runs or wickets. This is dependant on the team batting second winning or losing.

If the team batting second scores more than the team batting first then they win by the number of wickets in hand. If the team bowling last wins they win by the number of runs difference between the two aggragate scores.

So in the case of the second test Australia passed Englands total with 6 wickets still in hand and therefore won by 6 wickets.

 

The Third Test
-------------------

Now, I know what you're thinking - that I am going to spend 5 days writing about sodding cricket, well you'ld be right! But since it is nearly midnight GBFC Mean time and the SOB at work have had be going for 10 days without much sleep, I have to admit that the effort being put into this post has totally underwhelmed me. So, here goes:

Day 1
---------

England loose the toss on a good batting pitch and are asked to bowl. The usual pie tossers a wheeled out to serve up some buffet bowling.

Enlgand make 2 changes to their line-up, Anderson is rested in favour of Mammood and finally Monty is given his chance. About bloody time too.

The long and the short of it is that Monty did not really bowl that well and still took apart the Ausies leaving them 244 all out and England 50odd for 2. Now, I don't usually bounce around saying 'I told you so', but should any England selector be reading this post, they should review the last 3 bloody pages and see the points where I have advocated playing Monty. He was a star and bagged a 5 for on his Ashes debut.


Jargon Busting
----------------

Pie tossers (or chucking pies) and buffet bowling are a play on words, from the 'help yourself' buffets. A buffet bowler is someone who bowls so badly that the opposition batsman can help himself to as many runs as he likes. I should imagine there are a few buffet bowlers in baseball, generally the carry some extra weight and have no heart for the fight!

5 for (pronounced fifor). In cricket is it significant when a batsman scores 50 or 100, and when a bowler takes 5 wickets in an innings or 10 wickets in the match. a '5 for' is when a bowler takes 5 wickets. It is an abbriviation of the standard bowling analysis. In Monty's case he took 5 wickets for 94 runs. Ten in a match is usually considered a '10 wicket haul'. The only other significant bowling effort is a hattrick. This is taking 3 wickets in successive balls. It is used in footballs also, but originally comes from cricket, when a person acheiveing this feat was presented with a hat.

I appolgise for the lack of sense, grammar, punctuation and spelling - I think I may be asleep.

 

Heck, life went busy again and I find three days of cricket has been left uncommented on.

Easily, it was shown that we were rubbish and had to rely on the tail to wag with Monty and Harmison hitting the second biggest partnership in the innings. Apart from them KP hit a 70.

Australia followed up with a big 500 second innnings score, with Adam Gilchrist hitting a 57 ball ton. Facing one more ball than the legendary IVA "Sir Viv" Richards. This left England needig 557 to win - the highest ever 4th innings run chase is 407.

Strangly there are 2 other tests happeingin the world (Sth Africa vs Ind and Srilanka vs New Zealand). All three teams batting last need to score world record scores to win.

Anyhow, back to the ashes. England did fairly well until the last 3 overs of the day when they wobbled to leave them close to defeat. They require another 280 runs with PK and Freddie still in and little batting to come.

It really is only a matter of time now and Australia will have won back the Ashes going 3-0 up in a 5 match series. Incidently England cannot win the ashes since, technically, they own them, they can only ever retain them.

Gargon Busting
---------------

Tail - The players in a team who cannot bat are placed at the end of the order. This may constist of the wicket keeper and usually 3-4 bowlers.

The tail wagged - When the tail scores more runs than can be expected of them. In realit a tail end batsman will average between 7-15 per innings, and so you can expect 40-50 runs to be scored. If the tail scores 100 or more it is usually deemed to have wagged. There is usually one rabbit at least in the tail.

Rabbit - Someone who is a totally incompetent batsman. They seldom score more than 2-3 runs. The are nammed rabbit because the immitate a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car.

Collapse/Mini Collapse/Wobble - When a series of wickets fall quickly, one after the other it is called a batting collapse. A colapse would usually involve using 4 or more wickets quickly. If the batsman loose 3 wickets quickly this is usually called a mini-collapse, when 2 wickets go in quick succession this is often refered to as a wobble.

 

The Fourth Test
-----------------

I have been away after Christmas and have not had much internet access. I will keep this short. England were stuffed, embarsingly so. It took the Ausies 3 days to win. Needless to say, the GBFC household was awoken to sobs on the third morning. At least the Chelsea game has finally bought some festive cheer.

 

The final test is upon us and England need to avoid defeat otherwise it will be the first ashes whitewash since 1920-21. This test is very significant as three cracking Ausies are retiring from test cricket at the end of it.

Spin king Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer all leave - this will cause the Ausies a big problem in the future.

The Fifth Test
------------------

Day 1
---------

England win the toss and bat. They bat well enough, but score at a pedestrian 2.5rpo (runs per over - modern standards set 3 as a good mark). They lose 4 wickets in the day and finish on 250ish for 4 with Flintoff and Colly batting well. A lot depends on the first hour tomorrow - it we lose early wickets we will be rolled over for under 300 and watch the sun come out to make a batting paradise for the Aussies. COYE

 

I just thought that I would post a little postscript to the abject failure of the English cricket team in Australia. 74 days after the first game started England finally beat Australia in a 50 over per side one day international (ODI).

England lost the Test series 5-0, lost the Twenty20 game (a 20 over per side thrash) and had lost the first 4 one dayers. This does not count as salvaging some pride, it is still bloody embarassing, but I just wanted to say, no matter how good you are, sometime a pile of utter tosh can still beat you! A lesson for Fulham in that?