Ashes 2010 live blog - First test

Follow us below for live updates on Sefton Park Cricket Club's take on the first test of the Ashes 2010.

Sky's shit advert for the 2010 Ashes

If I were relying on Botham's limp speech - as wooden as a ash stump - to inspire me before battle, I think I would be in trouble.

Similarly, Andrew Strauss is a fine cricketer, but he looks much more like the Atherton/Brearley style of captaincy - all ironed creases and traditional lemonades and Anna Karenina that someone who might cleave someone in two with a broadsword.

Of the others, Swann, Broad or even Colly, with his Northern dourness, are not men I'd choose to watch my back in a streetfight.

Cricket can certainly be played hard, verbally and physically, and it's no sport at the highest levels for weak characters.

However, to suggest that facing Doug Bollinger, Marcus North or Nathan Hauritz is akin to facing a hungry lion or crazed Roman gladiator in battle is a bit much.

It's typical of Sky's gaudy excess, about which I've already complained at lenght on this blog. Suffice it t say that it's shit.

Compare it to the BBC's effort, advertising its coverage of the Ashes on TMS and it seems particularly overblown, which is as apt a comparison between the two as I can imagine.

At the bottom is Sky's advert for its commentary team, showing a disbelieving Shane Warne seeing Australia taken over by the English, including a surfing, commentating David Lloyd shouting his idiotic catchphrase.

It's fairly daft stuff, but Nasser Hussain's sneering 'What do you think about that, Shane?' is quite amusing. Indeed, it's only Hussain, along with Michael Atherton, who offer any deviation from the standard whingeathon or chummy bromides that the Sky commentary team thrive on.

Anyway, here's to the Ashes of 2010. Book the week off, stock the fridge up, tune in, mute the volume and get TMS on the radio, my dear old things.

Bring Ashes cricket back to Old Trafford

For the rest of my life I'll remember being at the last day of the Old Trafford Test during the Ashes 05. This was the day when an estimated 10,000 people were locked out of a thrilling day's play that saw one of the great escapes from Australia who escaped with a draw after England got them 9 wickets down.

I have never experienced an atmosphere like it at any sporting event and it showed what a passion the people of the north west have for the game. Liverpool, were I live is traditionally seen as a football obsessed city but I know many, many people who make the pilgrimage over to Manchester every year for international cricket and Lancashire's fitful visits to play in Aigburth are similarly regular sell outs.

From a cricketing point of view Old Trafford is viewed as a 'result' pitch too, with England having a pretty good record there down the years.

It was a great shame then that the ECB decided to take the Ashes away from Old Trafford and investigate instead, new upstarts like Cardiff and Durham. This year the ground did not host an Ashes Test for only the third time in 150 years.

On the face of it you can see why they made the decision: Old Trafford is not a particuarly pleasant place, tricky to get to and in desperate need of a lick of paint or two.

However, thankfully plans are afoot to rehabilitate the ground and bring it up to the ECB's tough new standards.

The Old Trafford Partnership comprising Lancashire County Cricket Club, Tesco and Ask Developments has submitted a planning application to Trafford Council to redevelop Old Trafford cricket ground and the surrounding area.

The £47m development would see Old Trafford hopefully become one of the best grounds in the country and more importantly for us Ashes starved northerners, secure the future of International Cricket in the North West.

There's a very good website to promote the proposals where you can pledge your support for the bid - http://www.oldtraffordashes.co.uk/index.html

Why was the Ashes 2009 so mediocre?

I've been meaning to write an article about the Ashes – bad luck, you Aussies, bad luck! – for a couple of weeks now, but I haven't been able to find the enthusiasm to sit down and bash it off, as it were.

I suppose in itself it's symptomatic of a fairly boring and somehow anti-climactic Ashes battle that was played out between two fairly poor teams, certainly in comparison to the two teams that battled it out four years ago.

2005 was all about England having to pull out every stop to (barely) get the better of one of the best teams of all time. Barring the injuries to McGrath in that series it seems unlikely England would have prevailed, despite Freddie's heroics, KP's emergence, Vaughan brilliant tactics, Tresco's bludgeoning at the top of the order, Strauss' catch, Harmy's vicious fast bowling and the quietly effective bowling of Hoggy and, in particular, Simon Jones.




This time around both teams played their hearts out, but it seemed to be inferior by several leagues to the cricket played four years ago.

Clearly the two teams are not the forces they once were. England had two match-winners in the shape of Freddie and KP. The latter failed, and the former only flickered, albeit brilliantly.

Looking at the Aussies there was only the threat of significant runs from Punter and Pup (the worst nickname ever?) and the occasional threat from a mainly-shot Johnson. Siddle wasn't as dangerous as I expected and Hilfenhaus was nagging, but no-one threatened to precipitate a collapse in the same way that Freddie, Jimmy, Swannny or (God help us) Broad(y) did.

So, the cricket wasn't great, and no-one seemed as up for it as they did in 2005. Only Flintoff, Swann and, latterly, Broad had Ashes moments that will stick in the mind.

The whole country seemed rather less bothered about everything this time around. I witnessed the last wicket with a kind of faint smile and shrug, whereas last time I whooped, jumped, drank and openly wept like a girl.

Could it be, I wonder, because cricket simply did not have the profile it did last time around? Certainly Sky's coverage is only a few rungs above abject, but at least those having to suffer Botham, Ward, Warne, Colville and Willis can actually see cricket.

I'm guessing there are 2–3m cricket fans who can't these days – most of my family among them – and wonder whether an Ashes series can ever be as over-archingly significant again as they did in 2005, when a nation watched with baited breath.

There is currently zero live cricket on free-to-air stations in the UK by my reckoning. There are highlights of England internationals and nothing more. No foreign tests, one dayers or 20/20. No country cricket of any flavour. Certainly no foreign domestic cricket.

I happen to think that this is an absolute disgrace, for reasons ideological, sporting, quaint and selfish. But, most of all, I think it's bad for cricket. Was 2009 the proof of the public's fading awareness of, and affection, cricket? Perhaps, perhaps not.

But at the very least there would have been several million more viewers, and more public awareness. Perhaps then there would have been more coverage, more buzz and more excitement.

Either way there would have been less Bob Willis

• Image by mailliw via Creative Commons

My secret leaked dossier on the Australian squad

Reading Justin Langer's secret dossier on the England team, I'm struck by a few things. Firstly is that Langer – certainly one of the 'decent' Aussies – is spot on about a few England players, and some of the supposed aura around the team. Secondly is that it's equally as revealing about the Australian psyche as England's.

I think the current England team is one of the least likeable in recent years. The problematic Pietersen and Flintoff are very much their own men in that team; Broad is a mouthy git for a guy with a test bowling average of 40; and there's still a powerful lingering impression that there's something of a clique surrounding the team and management.

I don't believe in the impression that Team England is supposedly a solid unit – I think it's riven with factions and people intent on furthering their own interests.

Having said that I believe England, with Flintoff and Pietersen, is a superior team to Australia at the moment. And this is where Langer is wrong.

Langer lets his personal pride and hubris get in the way of his analysis so instead of being a sober, objective analysis, his dossier veers into the personal and biased. Many of his judgements on certain players amount to attempts to psychoanalyse the players, to what end I'm uncertain.

Among the pearls of wisdom are the observations that Anderson can be 'bit of a pussy if he is worn down'; Swann and Prior have 'massive' egos (and?); and Bopara is a 'strutter'.

It smacks of the mental disintegration Australia are so fond of, and is reminiscent of Warne's commentary, where the former leggie is unable to hide his personal feelings about certain England players.

Langer's folly is revealed in the phrase about the supposed psyche of England players, suggesting that they're psychologically fragile because they're built that way.

“English players rarely believe in themselves. Many of them stare a lot and chat a lot but this is very shallow. They will retreat very quickly.

"Aggressive batting, running and body language will soon have them staring at their bootlaces rather (than) in the eyes of their opponent - it is just how they are built.

"They [English cricketers] like being friendly and 'matey’ because it makes them feel comfortable.”

“In essence this is maybe the key to the whole English psyche — they love being comfortable. Take them out of their comfort zone and they don’t like it for one second.”

This is all about the Aussie fantasy that they're inherently more manly, resolute and tough than any other team – a kind of smug cultural superiority complex of the kind that Aussies like to level at the English.

Michael Vaughan has suggested that Langer's dossier should come as something of a wake-up call – and it should. To ignore England's obvious problems and not learn from the valuable information would be a mistake.

But I'd suggest that it should also come as a it of a lesson to Australia – their belief in a form of natural superiority in attitude and resolve has been exposed as a nonsense in this series, when Punter and his men have seemed as clueless and bereft of ideas and guts as England often have in the past.

To this end I've compiled my own dossier on the Australian Ashes team, in the same skewed and rather far-fetched manner as Langer.

My secret leaked dossier on the Australian squad:

Ricky Ponting - Stripped of the best team for a generation, his captaincy is exposed as flat and unimaginative. Proves unable to rouse his team when under pressure, and prone to hypocritical outbursts about playing in the spirit of the game. Recent hair transplant operation indicates deep lack of self-confidence.

Michael Clarke - Nickname is 'Pup'. Therefore a pussy.

Peter Siddle - An ugly cricketer in more ways than one. Head goes when put under pressure.

Simon Katich - An able batsman with no guts for a scrap.

Michael Hussey - Deeply lacking in confidence for a man named Mr Cricket

Shane Watson - A decent one-day slogger one tour away from being a forgotten man.

Ben Hilfenhaus - Tim Munton in a baggy green

Mitchell Johnson - A fast erratic bowler who has been afforded far too much respect with bat and ball. Get after him and he falls apart.

Nathan Hauritz - Simply not a test bowler. Probably a nice guy.

Brad Haddin - Chip away at him for his poor keeping.

Michael Hughes - Doesn't like the short stuff, and no guts for a scrap.

Marcus North - Probably a decent grade cricket player one tour away from being an Australian Mark Lathwell.