Alex Barnett blog : Ashes

Is the fifth day of test really a good time to practice impressions of Lemmings?

alexbarnett — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:20:00 GMT

OK, so now I've had two Aussies ping me in the last 24 hours since the debacle of England losing the 2nd Test. Losing the first wasn't good enough for us.

How we lost this one, I'll never know. Well, I do - England lost nine wickets for 60 in 43 overs in the last innings. Our batsmen apparently decided that the fifth day of test would be a good time to practice their impressions of Lemmings. That, after scoring 551 in the first innings is, frankly, Un-Funking-Believable.

And thanks to Phil, I have come to realise that I may in fact not be the only one to be suffering mild depression given the Australians are now two up on the Ashes series. Save Our Souls...

And so the Ashes begins

alexbarnett — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 04:58:00 GMT

And so the Ashes begins. Watching it live over the web Redmond, WA on Willow.TV, I needed to get the right config to get it really working for me. Leaving it on 'Default' setting it gets choppy. As soon as I selected 'HTTP', it streamed nicely.

217 for 3 on the first day at tea, we need at least a couple of wickets in the last session to call it an even day. If we get Ponting's scalp by the end of the day I'd say the boys will be happy with the first day on a batter's track. Without him out, we could be looking at a big score tomorrow.

Pietersen's bodged slide was nasty. I've done that myself where the knee doesn't slide as it should and you come to a shuddering halt instead. Botham thought it had to do with the sand base of the ground and some aussie (it sounded like Tony ~~Gregg~~ Greig) responded by saying that cricketer's shouldn't try it - "it's for baseball fielders, not cricketers". What crap. But hey, he's an aussie.

A bit of turn for Giles. He looks like he's giving it more air than usual...getting good flight on the ball, nice to see.

Update:

Ponting's 32nd hundred of his test career and not out at the end of the first day does not bode well for tomorrow. With a test average of 100 in the last year, he looks set to cause us lots of trouble for the rest of the series.

The Ashes taunts begin

alexbarnett — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 17:56:00 GMT

The usual sledging between the old rivals has begun in ernest, and the battle songs have started to echo in the stadiums.

Not surprisingly, the Aussies are stooping low from the start:

"There's the song for injured captain Michael Vaughan, set to the tune of Daydream Believer:
Cheer up Michael Vaughan,
How bad must it be,
To a be a poor pommie whinger,
And you're watching on TV?
But Livingstone seemed proudest of his song for Monty Panesar - a player routinely called "Monty Python" here down under.
Set to the tune of My Old Man's a Dustman, it goes something like this:
Monty Panesar's useless,
A poor old English chap,
And when he's not spin bowling,
No fan will ever clap.
He's useless in the covers,
He's useless in the slips,
And when he straps the pads on,
He'll pass out with the yips. "

Weak.

He's my suggestion for the Barmy Army, sung to the chorus of Queen's 'We Are the Champions':

We have the Ashes, and you don’t
We have the Ashes, and you don’t
We have the Ashes
We have the Ashes
We have the Ashes
And we have the Ashes
And you don’t.