Geoff Lemon's Blog, page 3

Usman Khawaja refuses SEN interview after radio station’s sacking of journalist

Peter Lalor was taken off air over social media posts relating to Gaza

Australia opener snubs station after day one of first Test in West Indies

Usman Khawaja refused an interview with Australian sports radio station SEN after the first day’s play of the first Test against West Indies in Barbados, four months after the station sacked the journalist Peter Lalor due to his outspoken support of Palestinians.

Khawaja too has been vocal in protesting the deaths of tens of thousands of Gazan civilians during Israel’s 21-month military assault on the territory, after a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and took 250 hostages on 7 October 2023. In late 2023 Khawaja clashed with cricket’s international governing body over his wishes to display messages or symbols of peace on his playing equipment during a Test. The ICC ruled that such displays would be “political” despite their vagueness and general applicability.

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Australia’s new-look top order blown away by West Indies before bowlers fight back in first Test

Day one: Australia 180; West Indies 57-4 | West Indies trail by 123

Australian batting ripped apart by Shamar Joseph and Jayden Seales

Houston can’t help in this case, but Australia has a problem. When the top order batting sets itself for launch of late, the results tend to be less Nasa, more SpaceX. Which is to say, the whole thing blows up. Ten days after scraping past 200 in both innings of the World Test Championship final, the specialist bats had another rapid unscheduled disassembly in Bridgetown, bowled out by West Indies for 180 to start the first Test. No Australian team in the Caribbean has ever made so few after choosing to bat.

You can trace a line back to the last time Australia played West Indies, in Brisbane. That first month of 2024, Shamar Joseph tore them up for 209 and won the match. In the 18 months since, Australia have been bowled out for 164 in Wellington, 256 in Christchurch, 104 and 238 in Perth, 234 in Melbourne, and 181 in Sydney. The fact that they managed to come back and win most of those Tests is impressive, but has relied on late-order runs and late-game rallies. It shouldn’t disguise the fact that the batting hasn’t delivered.

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Australia lose stability without batting axis but could find a future against West Indies | Geoff Lemon

A new era begins with Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne both missing from the XI as Sam Konstas and Josh Inglis take their place for the first Test

Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne have been the axis of Australia’s batting since the Ashes Test at Lord’s in 2019. You say their names in that order even though Labuschagne usually came in first, because there was no doubting who was the senior half of the pair. But a pair they were, if we can go a bit hero-myth for the origin: first innings there was Smith felled by a bouncer, second there was Labuschagne springing back up in his place, a carbon copy combatant born from a metaphorical drop of blood.

In excelling as Smith’s substitute, Labuschagne laid claim to the spot in the order above him, the protege tasked with paving the way for the maestro. Immediately the sense of replication moved beyond timing to manner. With one player learning from the other, they formed a symphony of quirks on the field, and as Smith’s output of runs returned to a mortal level, Labuschagne’s climbed the other way. Three tons in three innings sparked a patch of four years in which at least one of the two was always making runs, if not both in concert. But in the last two years, while Smith has peaked again, Labuschagne has declined.

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Australia get too clever and pay the price for batting order jumble | Geoff Lemon

Failure of top three meant holders did not have enough runs when South Africa benefited from pitch flattening out

At a little before 1pm on a Saturday afternoon in London, a group of Australian cricketers stood around blinking in the sunlight, looking confused, like they had just popped up from a green tube in an unexpectedly bright part of the Koopa Kingdom. Less than a day earlier they had been right on top, happily on their way to a second consecutive World Test Championship title. In less than three sessions of stubbornness and brilliance, South Africa had taken that away.

Sport is about creating an arena for the unexpected and some get hung up on the idea that acknowledging differences between participants is a form of disrespect. But the resource disparity should have made this contest one-sided. It was a triumph over politics and economics as much as over a rival group of players.

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South Africa win World Test Championship after completing stunning comeback against Australia – as it happened

Aiden Markram scores 136 runs as South Africa defeat Australia by five wickets at Lord’s to lift the World Test Championship title

60th over: South Africa 218-3 (Markram 106, Stubbs 0) So it is Tristan Stubbs to the middle. Starts at the non-striker’s end, but immediately gets strike as Markram guides a single. Lots of pressure on Stubbs, more a white-ball player but one of huge talent, who Shukri Conrad has backed in this team. Small target, plenty of time, and in a short-form game he might knock off these last 64 runs in five overs. But this is different. Hit on the pad early, Hazlewood appealing but it’s going down leg. Two slips and a gully, but the second slip is Webster and the gully is Green, so effectively four slips and two gullies. Cover, mid off, mid on, midwicket up closer. Deep point and deep backward square saving boundaries. Stubbs defends his first five balls.

59th over: South Africa 217-3 (Markram 105) Oh, there it is! The first tremor? South Africa’s captain battled through the pain yesterday and has put his team in a winning position, but can’t see that win through. The over starts with another ball that stays low, Cummins this time getting it to burrow. Markram keeps it out, and remains confident enough to follow up by playing a quality straight drive for three. Positivity was the key to innings yesterday, so it’s good to see him starting the same way. But after the rotation of strike, from the last ball of the over, Cummins gets one seaming away, down the hill from the Nursery End, and it takes the edge of the defensive push, a little too wide to play. Straightforward for Carey.

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South Africa win World Test Championship after completing stunning comeback against Australia – live reaction

South Africa chasing a target of 282 to win at Lord’s

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60th over: South Africa 218-3 (Markram 106, Stubbs 0) So it is Tristan Stubbs to the middle. Starts at the non-striker’s end, but immediately gets strike as Markram guides a single. Lots of pressure on Stubbs, more a white-ball player but one of huge talent, who Shukri Conrad has backed in this team. Small target, plenty of time, and in a short-form game he might knock off these last 64 runs in five overs. But this is different. Hit on the pad early, Hazlewood appealing but it’s going down leg. Two slips and a gully, but the second slip is Webster and the gully is Green, so effectively four slips and two gullies. Cover, mid off, mid on, midwicket up closer. Deep point and deep backward square saving boundaries. Stubbs defends his first five balls.

59th over: South Africa 217-3 (Markram 105) Oh, there it is! The first tremor? South Africa’s captain battled through the pain yesterday and has put his team in a winning position, but can’t see that win through. The over starts with another ball that stays low, Cummins this time getting it to burrow. Markram keeps it out, and remains confident enough to follow up by playing a quality straight drive for three. Positivity was the key to innings yesterday, so it’s good to see him starting the same way. But after the rotation of strike, from the last ball of the over, Cummins gets one seaming away, down the hill from the Nursery End, and it takes the edge of the defensive push, a little too wide to play. Straightforward for Carey.

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Australia learn cricket’s oldest lesson as South Africa turn the tables in WTC

An Australian win looked inevitable after setting 282 to win, but Aiden Markram and Temba Bavuma defied the odds

Right from the start of the day, there was an inevitability that this match was Australia’s. They started 218 runs in front, in the third innings, walking back onto a Lord’s field where 28 wickets had fallen in the previous two days. They had the four-star bowling attack, their opponents had the shooting-star batting order, one that had flashed and vanished in its first sighting. Soon this would be compounded by Temba Bavuma’s hamstring injury. The lead as it stood looked a chance to be enough, and first would come the chance to increase it a smidgen more.

The sense of inevitability only grew as that smidgen broadened into a big dirty smudge. There is nothing more galling for a cricket team than a long tenth-wicket partnership. Every ball is more annoying than the one before. Things had started right, Kagiso Rabada in his second over of the day trapping Nathan Lyon with only four runs added to the score. On four wickets for the innings, nine for the match, Rabada was ready to complete twin milestones.

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South Africa v Australia: World Test Championship final cricket, day three – as it happened

South Africa finished on 213-2, needing 69 more to win, after a wonderful partnership between Aiden Markram and an injured Temba Bavuma

43rd over: Australia 148-9 (Starc 19, Hazlewood 0) The over started with Starc swinging hard at a drive, down the ground for two. Then another for one, then the Lyon wicket. Hazlewood blocks out a couple, swishes at another. Survives the over. Time for Starc to have a dip, one thinks. He has the third highest score in the innings.

Oh, yes! Nine for Rabada. Up the hill, seams in at Lyon a touch and nails him on the knee roll, front leg right in front. It’s not bouncing over on this wicket. A quick decision from the umpire, and the Australian review is in vain.

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South Africa v Australia: World Test Championship final cricket, day three – live

Updates from the third day of the WTC final at Lord’s

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43rd over: Australia 148-9 (Starc 19, Hazlewood 0) The over started with Starc swinging hard at a drive, down the ground for two. Then another for one, then the Lyon wicket. Hazlewood blocks out a couple, swishes at another. Survives the over. Time for Starc to have a dip, one thinks. He has the third highest score in the innings.

Oh, yes! Nine for Rabada. Up the hill, seams in at Lyon a touch and nails him on the knee roll, front leg right in front. It’s not bouncing over on this wicket. A quick decision from the umpire, and the Australian review is in vain.

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Cummins and Rabada lead from the front on a breathless second day at Lord’s | Geoff Lemon

Australia and South Africa had plenty of reasons to be grateful to their respective spearheads as the WTC final progressed at a rapid pace

You would have to call the combination incongruous. In one of the clips doing the digital rounds before the World Test Championship, there was Pat Cummins on Jeremy Clarkson’s farm programme, having apparently just raided the activewear section, the men around him wearing those vests that help rich people believe themselves to be rugged outdoor types. It’s hard to imagine much affinity between the two, sitting presumably at a wooden farmhouse table over Clarkson’s rustic bean soup and a heel of crusty bread, talking their way to a cordial entente about carbon emissions. But there was the Australian captain nonetheless, affably rolling an arm over while a farm type plonked a rubber ball on to a nearby shed, the bowler smiling in that way that suggests a shrug as Clarkson sledged him in a most British fashion.

By the second day of the World Test Championship final, affable Cummins was not in attendance. We’re used to that half smile, half shrug: even after some galling Test losses, Cummins has offered the perspective that the game is a game, that the players tried their best, and that losing is often the price of trying to win. He declines to be drawn into the hype that frames sport as everything. But this time was different, if only by a few degrees. It’s not that there was anger in the performance, but there was something uncharacteristically flinty.

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