Ahead of Perth
Despite the 3rd Test, hell, the rest of the series being moreorless a foregone conclusion, all England fans*, myself included, will be watching avidly to see if England could actually get any worse than at Adelaide. Or Brisbane. Doesn’t matter which. The point is they must get better, and they must win this match. (A draw would be OK, but a task of 2 from 2 would be impossible.)
So, in the build up to the crucial encounter at the WACA, have England opted to keep it simple, keep their heads down, and just quietly get about their duty. Hahaha. Of course not. First of all there was a game between a 50 over Cricket Australia’s Chairman’s XI which for some unknown reason featured Alec Stewart, Robin Smith and Adam Hollioake, three former England cricketers who haven’t played in the national side in years. Call me cynical, but what the hell were they doing in the side? I know the plan was to rest the mainstream England players, but given recent performances, the players could do with all the practice they could get. But it still doesn’t explain those guys in the side. The mind really boggles. Especially as England managed to lose that one quite spectacularly.
Then, England put out a semi-regular squad to face Western Australia in a 2-day game, which ground to horrifically dull draw. England had to bowl the best part of 100 overs before WA decided to cut them a little slack and declared on 322, after a hundred from Ashes-hopeful Pomersbach. England then managed 356 for 5 before they realised that all the spectators had died of boredom and decided to call it quits. Alastair Cook managed a hundred and Andrew Strauss, the England openers starring in a 180-odd opening partnership, their most substantive partnership to date. Geraint Jones, batting at number 3 pissed all over Duncan Fletcher’s bonfire by getting a first ball duck, and Chris Read just went ahead and literally crapped on said bonfire by scoring an unbeaten 59. How Read can’t be picked now for Perth is an unanswerable question. (Except if the answer is to pick Read.) Ed Joyce, drafted in when Marcus Trescothick went home early scored a 70, but since no spot has opened up in the batting lineup, it was merely a bit of practice for him, especially with Strauss and Cook finally scoring.
The bowling question was also raised again, not to mention the Panesar will-they won’t-he conundrum again. Giles was ineffective, whereas Monty took wickets. It could only have been more pro-Monty had he scored a quickfire 30 and literally thrown Giles on to the bonfire. Anderson managed three wickets but Mahmood also bagged a couple. They’ll both be vying for a spot in the side to face Australia on Thursday, but I don’t think Mahmood has to see Anderson given the boot. Harmison got a solitary wicket. I think that doubles his total for the series.
But the weirdness doesn’t end there. Not only did Michael Vaughan play in the match, but didn’t bat (the former England captain had been demoted to outfielder) so there’s still the outside possibility he might yet feature in this series, there’s been the constant speculation over Fletcher’s ability to do his job and injuries and so on and so forth. All this does is descend this series even further in to farce, as the cricket is ever-shrouded in a veil of controversy and rubbishness, for England fans at least. All Australia have to do is attempt to keep a lid on the smug when they do their “England played some good cricket, we’re just working hard” politically correct press releases. The “Dad’s army” stuff has been quashed, and even McGrath and Warne are performing better than anyone imagined / not injured yet.
Well, what else should we expect from this series? The next biggest question is the side that Fletcher announces. Will he wimp out and name unchanged, or grab his balls and try something different? Either way it’s a massive gamble. I just hope the team doesn’t involve Vaughan, Stewart, Hollioake and Robin Smith. Though, they couldn’t do much worse than the current team.
* Real fans, that is.
