Geoff Lemon's Blog, page 39
May 18, 2022
Since I Left You: for one night only, the Avalanches perform their hit album in full
Delayed twice by the pandemic, the electronic group finally took to the stage with Adelaide Symphony Orchestra for a 20-year anniversary show that was worth the wait
Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email and listen to our podcastThe Avalanches are all about waiting. It was not long after the squashing of the Y2K bug that they released Since I Left You, that sprawling cavalcade of an album that ruled every house party in the 2000s. It was entirely its own: part danceable dreamscape, part electric luau, something new stitched together from the past, using samples old enough to prompt nostalgia and obscure enough to stoke amusement.
Since I Left You was a rare critical and commercial hit, and a record that stood up to closer scrutiny and repeated listening. You could flog it on rotation without killing its appeal. There was no filler in a cohesive vision. People wondered what a second album would bring, then waited 16 years for it. In the interim, band members dropped away. Various configurations of the Avalanches did play live, but not often. They were the most elusive of big-name bands.
Continue reading...
April 3, 2022
Alyssa Healy lights up World Cup final as Australia prove they are without equal | Geoff Lemon
Australia’s coronation may have felt inevitable but their manner of victory and strength in depth are still remarkable
If there was a sense of the inevitable to Australia’s coronation as Women’s World Cup champions, the manner in which they got there was still enough to make jaws drop. Alyssa Healy had form lighting up big stages, with her fast 75 at the MCG two years ago setting up a win in the T20 World Cup final. In this tournament the opening bat had 50 overs to play with, and ended up using 46 of them. The result was a monolith of 170 runs, a single innings that was bigger than some teams in the tournament managed with 11.
Granted, Natalie Sciver responded with her own special performance, a 148 not out that ended up as one of the great lone-hand innings and kept a glimmer of a chance alive for England until the 10th wicket fell. The difference was the support from other players that Healy got, carrying Australia to 356, and that Sciver didn’t, leaving England 72 runs short of their target. In the end, Sciver’s more important influence on the day may have been the catch she dropped at midwicket with Healy on 41.
Continue reading...April 1, 2022
Relentless Australia ready to prove gulf in class against England | Geoff Lemon
Australia are on an 11-match winning run, can score deep into the innings and have enviable strength in their bowling
On one side of Sunday’s upcoming World Cup final is the inevitable. In 50-over cricket, the Australians march on like Darth Vader: more machine now than human, twisted and evil. You could argue that’s overstated, but they do have an imposing relentlessness. After having their world record winning streak of 26 matches broken back in September, Australia immediately set about building the next one. It currently sits at 11, including an unblemished eight wins through this cup campaign. Their semi-final against West Indies was a thrashing.
On the other side of the coin is the unlikely. A few months ago the defending champions were expected to challenge for this prize, but England wobbled through the Ashes like a one-wheeled tricycle, lost their first three World Cup games, then stumbled backwards into two of the wins they needed to make the top four. Their semi-final was against South Africa, a team running hot whose only loss in the tournament was a competitive one against Australia. But when the South Africans dropped Danni Wyatt five times, England’s opener had almost no choice but to make a match-winning century.
Continue reading...March 29, 2022
Australia beat West Indies by 157 runs in ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2022 semi-final – as it happened
Stafanie Taylor says it was a no brainer for her, even though their three previous wins have come after batting first. Meg Lanning says: “We weren’t too fussed.”
Still no Perry so Australia are unchanged: Alyssa Healy (wk), Rachael Haynes, Meg Lanning (c), Beth Mooney, Tahlia McGrath, Annabel Sutherland, Ash Gardner, Jess Jonassen, Alana King, Megan Schutt, Darcie Brown.
Continue reading...March 25, 2022
Australia’s 15 days of pure Test cricket grind in Pakistan pay off with series win | Geoff Lemon
Led by Pat Cummins, whose contributions were substantial, the tourists secured a rare success
Of course, it had to end with Pat Cummins. Two stumps dazed and blinking on the ground like the survivors of a big night out. Two arms outspread to the world. One high-wattage smile. There is no great achievement in firing a ball past Naseem Shah, a teenage No 11 who by batting ability should be classed as a No 15. The achievement was everything that came before the end of the third and deciding Test match in Lahore, everything this moment capped off.
Even before the era when Australian teams did not visit Pakistan, Australian teams did not win in Pakistan. Sure, one series in 1959 against a fledgling side from a fledgling nation. Then the 1998 series against the grain, the last visit before the current tour. Those aside, Pakistan trips went a particular way: lose the first Test in Karachi on a spinning track, move to placid surfaces, be held to two draws. Lose the series 1-0. Rinse, repeat.
Continue reading...March 19, 2022
Australia beat India by six wickets: ICC Women’s World Cup – as it happened
Tournament favourites chase down a World Cup-record 278 for victory, their fifth out of five in this year’s event
4th over: India 15-1 (Yastika Bhatia 2, Shafali Verma 1)
Brown looks to make up for her ordinary first over and she does immediately, with the big wicket of Mandhana, bringing Yastika Bhatia to the crease. Bhatia uses the first ball to get her eye in, before a well run two off the next ball to get off the mark quickly. Brown gives away the first extra of the match with a wide, followed by a dot ball and then another wide. This has shades of Australia’s series against India late last year when they just couldn’t stop bowling wides. Hopefully Brown has got that out of her system now.
Continue reading...March 17, 2022
Pakistan did the impossible, now Australia must avoid repeat of history | Geoff Lemon
In all Mitchell Swepson did not have a good match but it was not down to him that chances were not realised
In the couple of weeks since his death, just as in the 30 years preceding it, people have loved talking about Shane Warne taking one for 150 on debut. The story is salutary, a moral of modesty preceding triumph, the numbers considered a chastening start to a career of statistical marvels. This week the torch was passed as another Australian leg-spinner endured a difficult debut. But if you had offered Mitchell Swepson one for 150 in the second innings of the Test in Karachi, he would have accepted with delight. Taking 1 for 150 would have won Australia the match.
In the end Swepson returned zero for 156, passing Warne’s run total in his second-last over as Pakistan held on for a draw in one of Test cricket’s most extraordinary escapes. The other number in the equation – the one wicket – he could and should have had. Twice in two balls he found the edge of Babar Azam’s bat, with difficult close catches missed on both sides of the wicket. The next over he was denied a stone-dead leg-before appeal by a slender technicality. Then, with three overs left, the most straightforward chance went down – a simple drop at cover.
The first reprieves came when Pakistan’s captain had already made 161, but he would bat another 29 overs before his dismissal, and Pakistan another 41 overs to reach safety. The lbw shout was against Mohammad Rizwan, the other linchpin who finished on 105 not out. Directly in line, keeping low and hitting the stumps: so agreed the human eye and the ball-tracking data. Not the umpire, though, because Rizwan had advanced, and an umpire’s call exception relies for impact more than three metres from the stumps. Two red lights and one orange saw Rizwan survive. Had either he or Babar fallen with so long to go, Australia surely would have forced the win.
The final drop may not have changed the result: Usman Khawaja shelled Rizwan with 18 balls remaining in the match. But that would have left Australia with three overs to dismiss two more of Pakistan’s bottom three batters, who would each have been intensely nervous. It would have given the visiting team a serious chance.
In total, Swepson did not have a good match. A vital run-out in Pakistan’s first innings prompted a collapse, which he finished off with his first two Test wickets. But the trajectory didn’t continue through a fourth innings set up for him off-spinner Nathan Lyon: a lead of 506, nearly six sessions to bowl, on a pitch whose moderate wear and tear was only evident late in the game. Swepson bowled four spells on the day before, bowling too often around leg stump and being worked for runs without great risk. His start on day five was terrible, a barrage of full tosses that cost plenty.
But his second spell on the final day showed what he can do, landing a good line around middle and off stump, turning sharply at times away from the bat, skidding through at others, and creating those three opportunities. With a lead that big, Australia could accommodate his bad spells in trade for the good, which would have been enough to turn the result. It wasn’t down to Swepson that the chances were not realised.
March 12, 2022
Cavalier Usman Khawaja relishes magic moment in Karachi | Geoff Lemon
When the opportunity to reach three figures rolled around again in Pakistan, it felt more special for the Australia opener
Chances to make Test centuries don’t come around very often. Excellent careers might include five or 10. Each innings starts from nothing and gradually climbs across hours, with every rung gained being the one that might break. However placid the pitch, however rich the vein of form, it only takes one good ball, one mistake, one lapse of concentration, piece of bad luck, umpiring error, fine piece of fielding, and the count collapses back to zero.
When Usman Khawaja gloved a catch at Pindi Stadium for 97 last week, the odds were against him getting another chance at a century in Pakistan. Best case the tour had two matches to come, and at the age of 35 he had no prospects of visiting again. If he had achieved the feat there would have been a simple and satisfying circularity to his story: born in Islamabad, where the first Test was played; growing up in Sydney, and became an Australian national cricketer; then at last a trip back to Pakistan to raise the bat in triumph in front of a crowd that would simultaneously be home and away. The joining of tides, the closing of the circle.
Continue reading...March 8, 2022
ICC Women’s World Cup: West Indies beat England by seven runs – as it happened
5th over: West Indies 22-0 (Dottin 16, Matthews 4) Brunt serves up a wide and then it’s double trouble as she knocks off the bails with her leg during her delivery stride - Dottin slaps the short ball away for four to the mid-wicket fence and and then scampers two from the resulting Free Hit. Brunt then gets out of the over well with three dots. England looking a bit flat after that first ball drop.
4th over: West Indies 14-0 (Dottin 9 , Matthews 4) Shrubsole bowls a tidy over, just the single off it. A bit all or nowt at the minute from West Indies.
Continue reading...Security and sound the abiding memories of docile Rawalpindi draw | Geoff Lemon
A flat pitch generated a run-fest but high security and incessant noise made the first Pakistan v Australia Test memorable
As far as the cricket goes, you can probably gather all you need to know from the fact that it was the first Test in history with a century opening partnership for three innings in a row. Or from the fact that Australia never got close to batting a second time. In the end Pakistan made 728 runs for the loss of four wickets in the match. Fold in the Australian innings and it read 1187 for 14. What else could be expected on a pitch the colour and character of a tranquilised labrador.
Those conditions were the home team’s choice. Usually the Rawalpindi surface is green with grass and helpful for pace, but after Pakistan’s fast bowlers were scythed down by illness and injury, they turned the mower as ruthlessly on to the pitch itself. Fear of Australia’s bowling supremacy saw Pakistan surrender the team’s own edge: Shaheen Shah Afridi and Naseem Shah showed pace and skill despite the lack of assistance, but were left a task too tall.
Continue reading...Geoff Lemon's Blog
- Geoff Lemon's profile
- 12 followers
