Geoff Lemon's Blog, page 19
July 27, 2023
Australia’s gamble pays off as durable Starc once again shows his class | Geoff Lemon
Injured in Manchester and early on at the Oval, his toughness was evident with a four-wicket haul on day one of the fifth Test
Pat Cummins had been waiting a long time for this. Across the Ashes series, at Lord’s and Headingley and Old Trafford, he had kept losing tosses, being asked to bat, and saying that he would have bowled first if given the chance. Perhaps luck spared him three mistakes: Australia made 416 at Lord’s and won, and in the other matches had plenty of partnerships without making the most of them in decent batting conditions.
In the fifth Test at the Oval he finally got his way. You could see the arguments in favour: cloudy day, tinge of green in the pitch, the chance to take control of the match. But it was also heart-in-mouth for Australian supporters, like any bowl-first decision tends to be. It was the same fixture four years earlier when Tim Paine made the same decision, losing the match and tying the series 2-2. Or go back a few weeks, when India asked Australia to bat first before losing by a mile.
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July 26, 2023
Pat Cummins ponders unfinished business as final Ashes Test looms
Australia may have retained the urn, but winning the series outright would give them a powerful sense of vindication
When you talk about coming back to where you started, there is no better place than the Oval. Elliptical shapes supposedly have no beginning or end, but they do when you first start drawing one. Australia’s trip to England’s summer began at the Oval with the World Test Championship final and will end there to close the Ashes. Now, just as then, there is one match’s worth of opportunity to claim a prize.
Of course, whatever the result, Australia will go home with both pieces of silverware tucked safely away. But given the way the Ashes series has panned out, losing the fifth match to draw 2-2 would be a very flat ending. Two wins from two had Australia on the verge of a series win in straight sets, but all manner of turmoil has happened since. Touring around the country, packed with incident from the grave to the trivial, the past few weeks have been anything but elliptical.
Continue reading...July 24, 2023
Australia coach McDonald denies his side were saved by the rain in Ashes
The Australia head coach, Andrew McDonald, does not agree that his side was saved by rain on the fifth day at Old Trafford, and is confident they have been the better team across the Ashes series. “Yep,” was his one-word response when that question was put to him after the fourth Test was washed out on Sunday, an assessment resting on the fact that they had secured the trophy by dint of winning the first two Tests.
As for the assumption that the weather had robbed England of a 2-2 scoreline before the fifth Test, McDonald says otherwise, with his team 60 runs behind with five wickets in hand. “We still had some batters to come. We could have shifted some pressure. So it feels as though we sit here and [say] it was a foregone conclusion that England were going to win the game – I don’t believe that and that change room upstairs doesn’t believe that.”
Continue reading...July 23, 2023
Australia get lucky but retaining the Ashes was reward for earlier efforts | Geoff Lemon
Washout denied England chance of victory and rare fifth-Test decider and tourists still want to win the series
Sometimes in life, you get away with one. You glance away then look back just in time to hit the brake. You double-check the recipient field before texting the wrong person about what a prat they are. You snag a few fingers in the back of a jumper when a toddler has materialised on the edge of the kitchen bench. You make a stunning catch when a loan shark launches your mother’s Fabergé egg off the back of a truck.
It’s not because you deserve it. It’s just the way things happen sometimes, a counterpart to all the times they don’t. At Manchester in 2013, Australia had England 37 for three on the last day, having declared overnight with 332 to protect, the list of dismissals reading Cook, Trott, Pietersen. The ball was doing all sorts, Ryan Harris was on one. Then it rained and England retained the Ashes by virtue of having won the first two Tests.
Continue reading...July 22, 2023
Marnus Labuschagne restores normality to ease Australia’s angst | Geoff Lemon
The task facing Australia is still incomplete and unclear but the No 3’s serenity was key to frustrating England
On the fourth morning of the Manchester Ashes Test, it wasn’t clear what the job was. Rain was still falling after coming down all night. The ground was drenched. Four wickets and 162 down in the match, Australia might not have been required to bat again all weekend. They might have got on at lunchtime and had the rest of the day. Or they might have faced what they eventually did, something in between. Marnus Labuschagne, Mitchell Marsh, Cameron Green and Alex Carey were the principal four with that clouded task ahead.
Around 90 minutes after the scheduled start, Labuschagne arrived, appearing between two of the stands on the eastern side of the ground and trekking across the wet grass towards the dressing room. Tiny with distance, hunched against the rain, rugged up in the warmer range of the team training uniform, his officially mandated woollen bobble hat gave him the look of a Santa’s workshop elf. The large cardboard box clasped to his chest might as well have been inscribed with giant letters saying “RUNS”.
Continue reading...The Ashes 2023: England v Australia, fourth Test, day four hit by rain – as it happened
Joe Root grabs the wicket of Marnus Labuschagne to keep England’s Ashes hopes alive as as rain washes out most of the fourth day at Old Trafford
Here’s a thought. Those rainfall probability numbers in all of your apps – does anybody know what those numbers actually mean?
Last from our slate of writers, the subject of the hour – Bairstow being Very Mad, and taking that out on a passing cricket team. This one from Andy Bull.
Continue reading...The Ashes 2023: England v Australia, fourth Test, day four hit by rain – live
Here’s a thought. Those rainfall probability numbers in all of your apps – does anybody know what those numbers actually mean?
Last from our slate of writers, the subject of the hour – Bairstow being Very Mad, and taking that out on a passing cricket team. This one from Andy Bull.
Continue reading...July 21, 2023
Cummins and co come up short as hapless Australia disappear from view | Geoff Lemon
Pat Cummins has endured two of his worst days as Australia captain, with the tourists left hoping for weekend rain
You can start with pure numbers. Once in Test history has a team made a bigger score at a faster rate. In a world of obscure stats that one offers clarity. In Manchester on Friday, England made 592 runs at 5.49 an over. The team to better this mark was England again, pretty much the same team, eight months earlier, with 657 runs at 6.50 against Pakistan. That time it had been a calculated plan to create a chance to win on the flattest track imaginable in Rawalpindi. This time was about using an opportunity that gradually took form as Australia disappeared.
It will be crowned as the pinnacle achievement of the Bazball era. Ashes on the line, ascendancy required, ruthlessly taken. It’s an interesting quirk then that most of the third day was not truly Bazball style. The third chapter did have Jonny Bairstow looting sixes and fours while farming the strike. That is also the kind of declaration batting you see after one team has ground the other down, like Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja slaying boundaries around the SCG in 2019, the last time that Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood each went for more than 100 runs in an innings.
Continue reading...The Ashes 2023: England v Australia, fourth Test, day three – as it happened
Jonny Bairstow smacked a cathartic 99 not out before Mark Wood reduced Australia to 113-4, still 162 runs behind
Test Match Special overseas, you say? The soothing sounds of British voices and the occasional trumpeting Jim Maxwell shipping forecast? Go on then. Click.
The big story of the day, of course, was the big innings of the day. It might well prove be a story much bigger than one day, too. Jonathan Liew on The Zak.
Continue reading...The Ashes 2023: England v Australia, fourth Test, day three – live
Test Match Special overseas, you say? The soothing sounds of British voices and the occasional trumpeting Jim Maxwell shipping forecast? Go on then. Click.
The big story of the day, of course, was the big innings of the day. It might well prove be a story much bigger than one day, too. Jonathan Liew on The Zak.
Continue reading...Geoff Lemon's Blog
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