Geoff Lemon's Blog, page 43
January 22, 2022
Australia’s third women’s Ashes T20 against England washed out – as it happened
Can’t see us getting any play today. We have an hour and a quarter left to spare, and this is the rain coming from south to north.
And here are some quite special reflections from bowler Megan Schutt on almost a year away from the Australian team as she and her partner brought their very premature daughter into the world.
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January 18, 2022
Test cricket’s next challenge: how to avoid another lopsided Ashes series | Geoff Lemon
Given the desert of competitiveness in recent times it is reasonable to ask what is the point of England visiting Australia
Player ratings for Australia’s ruthless rout of EnglandOn what was supposed to be the day after the Hobart Test, all was quiet. England had wrapped up an epochally anaemic Ashes defeat leaving enough spare days to squeeze in an embarrassing visit from police to the world’s meekest sunrise rager, telling off cricketers who had been drinking in their whites for longer than they had been required to play in them. The constabulary arrived to extinguish a cigar sparked by England staffer Graham Thorpe, who then decided to video the players present.
It ended up at a newspaper within a day. As batting coach of a team that had just been bowled out for 147, 192, 185, 68, 188 and 124, among other embarrassments, you for one thing might be short cigar-worthy moments, and for another might be inclined to keep your head down.
Continue reading...January 16, 2022
England collapse ends Ashes in fitting style – The Final Word podcast
Emma John, Adam Collins and Geoff Lemon discuss one final day of batting woes for England as Australia clinch a 4-0 series win
Emma John recaps day three in Hobart, where England collapsed to gift Australia another victory as they completed a 4-0 series win. Things started well as Rory Burns and Zak Crawley put on 68 for the first wicket chasing 271 for victory but they ended up being 124 all out.
Meanwhile Adam Collins and Geoff Lemon were in Hobart for all the action as the Australia’s bowlers took control against a brittle England batting lineup
Continue reading...Cameron Green rounds out Australia’s tale of Ashes-winning reserves | Geoff Lemon
Green took the key wickets in the fifth Test, Travis Head was player of the series and Scott Boland had unplayable bursts
Imagine if three witches in a forest glade had offered England this deal on a dark November night. Steve Smith, scorer of 11 Ashes hundreds in 20 outings, with an average of over 100 in his previous two Ashes series, would not add to those centuries and would average 30. David Warner, with an Ashes average in Australia of 60, would not make a hundred and would average 34. Marnus Labuschagne, on a streak of 13 Tests averaging 73, would make one small and lucky hundred and average 42. Fast-bowling leader Josh Hazlewood would miss four Tests, Pat Cummins would miss one, and Australia would call on three replacement quicks with two Tests between them.
The thing about witches in a forest glade, as Macbeth could attest, is that beneath the promises lies a catch. Not that England took many of those, but still. Despite all of the above going the touring team’s way, they experienced a series thrashing with few statistical peers. Those top-line players were the focus of supposed years of planning, yet it was Australia’s second rank that dominated whenever called upon.
Continue reading...January 15, 2022
England crumble again as wickets tumble on day two – The Final Word podcast
Emma John, Adam Collins and Geoff Lemon discuss another day of batting woe for England as Australia’s attack excels again
Emma John recaps day two in Hobart, where England failed miserably with the bat, reaching only 188 in reply to Australia’s first innings total of 303. There was a little joy for the tourists’ bowlers, though, who later took three wickets – including a second duck of the match for David Warner – but Australia closed 152 ahead.
Meanwhile Adam Collins and Geoff Lemon were in Hobart for all the action on day two and they discuss Nathan Lyon’s hearty late-order hitting and how England’s batters blew it again.
Continue reading...Nathan Lyon’s celestial six a joyous celebration of Australia’s lower order | Geoff Lemon
England’s specialist batters have struggled throughout while Australia’s bowlers have increased the pain in the form of runs
There was a moment in the trajectory where the impossible announced that it was, in fact, possible. Nathan Lyon had just played a pull shot, which was nothing unusual. His only shots in Test cricket are the pull shot and the sweep shot, which for Lyon is the pull shot he plays while kneeling down. He knows fast bowlers will bowl bouncers at him and he has devised one method of deflecting them.
So it is normal to see Lyon lean back and heave across the line. It is not unprecedented for him to hit one of those shots for six, which before this match he had done nine times in 2,335 balls faced. It was unprecedented for him to hit more than one of those in an innings, a stat bettered on the second day in Hobart by clearing the fence three times. The most astonishing thing was the timing on the second six, a ball that came so cleanly out of the middle of the bat, at such a perfect point of the swing, that it soared.
Continue reading...January 14, 2022
England fail to capitalise on early flurry in Hobart – The Final Word podcast
Emma John, Adam Collins and Geoff Lemon discuss an entertaining first day in Hobart as Travis Head’s century helped Australia rally to 241-6
Emma John relives the opening day in Hobart, where England’s bowlers made early inroads before Travis Head’s glorious century helped Australia to build a decent score of 241-6 on the rain-shortened day.
Then Adam Collins and Geoff Lemon were in Hobart for all the action as Tasmania played host to its first Ashes Test match. They discuss Head’s glittering century and the curious case of Ollie Robinson’s fitness.
Continue reading...Travis Head gets reward for attacking flair and rescues Hobart’s Ashes debut | Geoff Lemon
Batter’s quickfire century hauls Australia out of trouble and silences criticism of Bellerive Oval’s emerald green pitch
On the first afternoon of Hobart’s Ashes debut, the knives were out for Bellerive Oval. Australia had lost David Warner, Usman Khawaja and Steve Smith for a combined six runs, while Australia as a team had scored 12. The pitch looked like it belonged to the Emerald City. Accordingly, people online started getting stuck into the surface as no good, a lottery, a disgrace, or anything else they could think of, proclaiming that Hobart had blown its entree to big-league Test cricket and that the city should never get a Test again.
Except that over the next hour or so, Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne produced a passage that featured 71 runs in 69 balls, repeatedly taking on the bowling to great effect. Stuart Broad and Ollie Robinson had been difficult to face at the start of the innings with jagging seam movement, but as soon as Mark Wood came on, his extra pace disappeared to the fence with corresponding speed. Chris Woakes got battered in conditions that should have suited him. The life went out of the pink ball, and began to leak out of England too.
Continue reading...January 12, 2022
Mitchell Starc’s Ashes workload heads Australia posers for Hobart closer | Geoff Lemon
Paceman is the most prolific bowler in day-night Tests but his aggressive action has led to his effectiveness waning later in series
Four down, one to go. Ashes series have a special quality that can make them feel both endless and over in an instant. The rushed nature of the schedule this time around has exacerbated this. There have been more playing days than non-playing days listed since the series began in Brisbane and that’s before we get to the final match in Hobart, a city making its debut as an Ashes host on Friday.
The hecticness is reflected in how many players have fallen by the wayside or are walking wounded into Bellerive Oval. Scott Boland wants to play despite hurting his ribs while falling over in Sydney. Mitchell Starc wants to play despite a four-Test workload. Jonny Bairstow wants to play despite nearly losing a thumb to Pat Cummins. Ben Stokes wants to play despite a side strain that had him grimacing every time he hit the ball out of the SCG.
Continue reading...The Spin | ‘It’s about time’: proud Tasmania ready to host its first Ashes Test
Australia’s often overlooked smallest state feels it has long earned its chance to host England and wants to do so again
Most of the time, on the southern or eastern coast of Tasmania, you can feel how close you are to Antarctica. You feel it on the wind. Ten days by icebreaker across boilerplate seas, this is the last point of land between you and it. The gulf snaps back like elastic. Down the island’s flank, it flicks green fringes into the salt. Even when allegations of summer lie over its land, the water mutters of ice and cold. An edge to the weather. Tasmania, hunched with its head turned inward like a sleeping bird, in a futile attempt to deflect the white continent’s attention.
The capital city of Hobart sits on that southern coast, the wind in its face, rushing up the mouth of the River Derwent. The artist Jon Kudelka dreamed of that channel, then painted it, so full of whales that you could walk from shore to shore on their backs. It may even once have been true.
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