Geoff Lemon's Blog, page 7
January 3, 2025
Super stand-in Scott Boland steps up again as Australia turn screw on India
By now, anyone who watches Test cricket has an idea what kind of person Scott Boland is. Quiet, self-effacing, at home with his work but never with the attention that accompanies it. While Australian crowds have enjoyed the teenage flashiness of Sam Konstas since his all-dancing debut, there is a deeper swell of appreciation, even love, for the fast bowler who gets cheered back to the fence every time he changes fielding position, and responds with a flicker of a smile or a raised hand that is half acknowledgement, half apology.
Choosing an unlikely hero was less a surprise during his three Melbourne Tests, as a hometown Victorian, but the same has now been the case in Sydney on both of his forays to the SCG. On day one of the fifth Test against India on Friday, it was Boland as crowd favourite again, nearly finding himself on a hat-trick in the first session, nearly completing a hat-trick in the third, and finishing the best of the bowlers with four for 31 while knocking over India for 185.
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January 2, 2025
The end comes quickly for India’s fading champions ahead of Test series finale | Geoff Lemon
The tourists must pick the best possible XI as decline of Virat Kohli and captain Rohit Sharma is laid clear against Australia
Australian tours have a habit of making or breaking Test careers. VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid destroyed Australia’s world-record winning streak at Kolkata in 2001, overcoming one of the greatest teams and its champion bowlers Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath. By 2012, Australia’s home grounds ended Laxman and Dravid, four Tests across the country returning a pair of half-centuries and bringing two fine careers to a deflating close against the more modest threat of Ben Hilfenhaus and Nathan Lyon.
Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag were two more declining champions who creaked through that tour and were managed out of the side by the following year. The only player who fell into the make rather than break category was a young Virat Kohli, who scored his first century in Adelaide of a tally that he has now taken on to 30. Now, as the wheel turns, he and captain Rohit Sharma form another pair of champions whose decline is being laid clear by the harsh light of the southern sun.
Continue reading...December 29, 2024
Australia gamble pays off as India collapse late in all-time classic Boxing Day Test
In the end, the dice landed the right way up for the shooter. Had India managed to bat for another hour, another 14 overs, Australia’s tactics would have been sliced up: too conservative in batting into the final day. But Australia’s gamble was about laying off risk on the other half of the equation, all but eliminating India’s chance of a win at the cost of reducing their own. In the end, this time, it worked, when Nathan Lyon snagged the 10th wicket just before half past five Melbourne time; Australia winning the fourth Test and leading 2-1 before the series ends in Sydney.
It was, in the end, a close-run thing, a reminder that you’re often only vindicated in the sporting business if you happen to guess right. Lyon’s 10th-wicket partnership with Scott Boland in the third innings ended up being 61, adding only six of those after resuming on the fifth morning, and costing Australia four overs to do it. That final extension may not have worked out, but the previous evening’s runs made a major psychological difference, taking India’s target from a high 200s score, one that would have felt possible, to 340, that didn’t.
Continue reading...Australia v India: fourth men’s cricket Test, day five – as it happened
Australia take 2-1 lead in Border-Gavaskar series with tense 184-run win on day five of record-breaking Boxing Day Test
There have been 17 bigger chases to win a Test, and this is match number 2571.
Or 92 overs to survive. Including the change of innings, Australia have cost themselves four overs to make six runs. Don’t think that was worth it. But they have a hampered bowler in Starc with his rib problem, and a fifth bowler who doesn’t bowl in Marsh.
Continue reading...Australia’s tail defies India after Bumrah fireworks to set up thrilling MCG finish
It’s not as though this series wasn’t already about Jasprit Bumrah. Since the very first evening of the first Test, when he tore up Australia’s top order in the fading light of Perth, he has been both the threat and the act of making good on it. Eight wickets there, nine in Brisbane, still a chance of nine in Melbourne, even managing four in Adelaide when his team’s batting failures effectively kept him to one bowling innings.
But watching a sequence of the best at their best, the marvels don’t become less marvellous. Bumrah’s fourth day in Melbourne, where for a few hours he turned the Test match India’s way from seemingly nowhere, was seeing someone at the very top of their game. Perhaps that’s what watching Brian Lara bat in 1994 might have felt like.
Continue reading...December 28, 2024
Australia v India: fourth men’s cricket Test, day four – as it happened
John Starbuck, our most maritime-coded correspondent, writes in. “‘Morning, Geoff. Oh how I miss Richie saying ‘Morning everyone’. I’m currently drinking golden rum to help me sleep later (he says) and carrying on with re-reading Jasper Fforde’s The Woman Who Died a Lot, which I recommend, even though the dominant sport is not cricket, but croquet. More power to your typing fingers as I’m set to enjoy the OBO, so long as the rain holds off. What’s the weather forecast for the MCG?”
I once confused some very pleasant Icelanders who thought I was talking about croquet. Weather is set fair, cool on the walk in this morning, but on the way to the mid 20s and no rain for the rest of the Test.
Continue reading...Nitish Kumar Reddy blossoms to give India hope as century stalls Australia
As India’s tour of Australia has worn on, the coverage has become preoccupied with fading veterans - Steve Smith, Usman Khawaja, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli – and speculation about whether somebody’s decent score is a last hurrah, or if a lack of one is a terminal sign. A preoccupation with whether body language or temper tantrums or patterns of dismissal mean one thing or another, whether any of these interpretations can tell us how much longer they can push on, or how close to the end they might be.
Sport obsesses about retirements, about endings. Will a player will finish on their terms or carry on too long? God forbid they are forced out too soon. Perhaps these are symbolic little deaths, a way to come to grips with the idea in life. The sporting version of kids getting a rabbit or a budgie. But the tendency strays into the ghoulish, hanging noses over the fence to stare at great players and waiting for them to drop. The enjoyment of what a player does can be lost in wondering what they might do next.
Continue reading...December 27, 2024
Australia v India: fourth men’s cricket Test, day three – as it happened
52nd over: India 180-5 (Pant 22, Jadeja 4) Smokes a pull shot! Pant moves along to the 20s by clattering Boland, then takes a single. Jadeja keeps blocking.
Guy Hornsby winds up the crank handle on the email machine. “Morning/evening Geoff. I’m somehow still up in darkest Sale in Manchester, full of port and cheese and wondering if Pant and Jadeja can actually save anything here. Their records suggest there’s a chance, but Pant is Cummins’ bunny of late and India must have felt an absolute gut punch after getting to 153-2 before the calamitous run-out. I’m not going to even attempt to apportion individual blame, just say it was a proper horlicks that took the wind out of India’s sails. Now it’s down to these two and a longish but bullish tail to see how much of a dent they can put into this huge Australian total. Perhaps Bumrah has made clear just how much of a rest he’d like after a mammoth series so far. We’ll find out soon enough!”
Continue reading...Nitish Kumar Reddy century leads India fightback to frustrate Australia on day three
52nd over: India 180-5 (Pant 22, Jadeja 4) Smokes a pull shot! Pant moves along to the 20s by clattering Boland, then takes a single. Jadeja keeps blocking.
Guy Hornsby winds up the crank handle on the email machine. “Morning/evening Geoff. I’m somehow still up in darkest Sale in Manchester, full of port and cheese and wondering if Pant and Jadeja can actually save anything here. Their records suggest there’s a chance, but Pant is Cummins’ bunny of late and India must have felt an absolute gut punch after getting to 153-2 before the calamitous run-out. I’m not going to even attempt to apportion individual blame, just say it was a proper horlicks that took the wind out of India’s sails. Now it’s down to these two and a longish but bullish tail to see how much of a dent they can put into this huge Australian total. Perhaps Bumrah has made clear just how much of a rest he’d like after a mammoth series so far. We’ll find out soon enough!”
Continue reading...Pat Cummins conjures special delivery as Australia heap pressure on India
Batters have signature shots. That’s a given. Certain shapes or sequences of shapes that you associate with that player for ever. The Ricky Ponting pull, the Brian Lara follow-through over the shoulder, fill your own list. It is much rarer for bowlers to have signature dismissals. There are so many ways to get players out, so many variations. A Nathan Lyon off-break may have a shape you can trace in your sleep, but what happens after reaching the bat has its unique character.
Pat Cummins has the Pat Cummins Ball. The Pat Cummins Dismissal. The one that KL Rahul received on the second day of the fourth Australia-India Test in Melbourne. Somehow, even on a pitch that is not dangerous or during an innings that is flowing the other team’s way, there are times when Cummins can make that delivery appear. It doesn’t bring every wicket that he takes, of course – it is still precious. But it has happened often enough that you know it on sight: part of a rare collection rather than a gem on its own.
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