Ashes to ashes
Deliberately did not set the alarm early to hear, if by some miracle, our flaky cricet team had snatched a draw from the jaws of defeat. Of course they had not. So, a week before christmas, and a mere 15 months from the heady day in early September at the Oval, the little urn is already back in australian hands. There they will stay for another 16 years (the time they had them before we robbed them last time). The australian sporting machine is just too strong and rutheless for the fragile English. And not just cricket – look at what has happened to the rugby team, and the consistent under-achievements of the soccer team.
Losing is acceptable if you have prepared well, done your best, and accept defeat by a far superior opposition. For this traumatic Ashes tour – which continues for another two matches over the next three weeks – The England’s team report can be summarised as follows:
preparation – virtually none, with no time for out of form players (Harmeson for example) to become potent before the first test. Look at the first ball of the series in Brisbane…
Playing to full potential – er, no. A few individuals contributed – Pieterson, Collingwood – but not once (so far, and by now it is too late) have the team played as a unit, with all players making meaningful contributions. also, look at the shots many of our batsman played to give their wickets away when survival was the priority – adelaide 2nd innings.
accepting defeat – if all the above wasn’t bad enough, to hear the highly media-trained players interviewed, you could be forgiven for thinking they were describing another test series taking place on another planet. ‘There’s not much between the two sides’, says andrew strauss. Right, not much. ‘We gave it a good go in the (3) tests’, said Freddie Flintoff. No we didn’t. We tried hard at times, some individuals performed, as a team we failed, and when we needed to dig in and keep the series alive (adelaide, 2nd innings), we failed miserably. Why cannot the players put up their hands and admit appalling performances and the fact that we have been totally outclassed by a superb cricket team, failing to realise our own potential. An apology to the fanatical supporters and bleary-eyed listeners at home wouldn’t go amiss, either.
Happy days…
