RickInOz

Finally the punishment is over and our defeated cricket team can go home. For those who haven’t been following the Ashes or couldn’t bear the humiliation we lost 5 -0. This is quite an achievement for a team that won last year by 2 games to 1. There is a lot of soulsearching going on at the moment by the pundits and experts in a typical act of pointlessness.

From the first sloppy delivery on day one of the first test to the collapse of the tail on the 4th day in Sydney, it was a pathetic display by a team who clearly had no determination or will to win. To give credit where it is due there were some displays of the team’s potential like Paul Collingwood’s double century at Adelaide and Monty’s 5 wickets in the 1st innings at Perth. It was a pity that these fine perfomances were diluted by the general mediocrity of the series.

Many slurs were aimed at the Aussie team, mostly due to the (relatively) elderly squad. Damien Martyn retired midway through the series and Justin Langer, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath are due to hang up their Test spurs. Despite this they clearly still were enthusiastic and hungry to win. They spent months at a boot-camp in the outback preparing, whereas by comparison England only flew in 4 days before their first warm-up game. The Australians kept the momentum going and seemed to have a better team cohesion. One example of the lack of spirit in the England camp was the failure of the whole team to eat Christmas luch together. Apparently this has been a tradition for English teams on tour over the holiday season since year dot, but the breaking of that shows how little they had gelled.

The only consolation is that the Aussies shouldn’t be congratulating themselves too hard. By any standards this was an empty win. To have beaten a team in form so convincingly or to have won by a narrow margin would have been a worthy feat. But to thoroughly trounce what hardly passed for opposition can hardly be satisfying. The way the nation has been celebrating you would thought they had achieved something notable – sorry guys you didn’t.

Well it’s over now and can be safely forgotten. Speaking of which I became yet another of Tony’s wonderful statistics being the victim of crime. While parked at the gym some b*st*rd stole the number plates off my car. Of course I’ve reported it to the police, not because I think they will catch who did it, but because I don’t want the ticket when they use my plates to drive though a speed camera flat-out. As a sign of how things are in Leicestershire when I phoned at about 8pm yesterday, my call became the 622nd crime reported or logged that day. Makes you feel safe, eh! Sleep well tonight!