Gabba Day Three: Forward to the future
Umar Akmal and Adrian Barath. Cricket's players of the week. Both scored centuries on their Test debut. Both in losing causes. And significantly, both at the age of 19.
Umar Akmal and Adrian Barath. Cricket's players of the week. Both scored centuries on their Test debut. Both in losing causes. And significantly, both at the age of 19.
One would have to wonder about the tactics of both captains in the half-hour or so before tea. Ponting gave a rather surprising declaration with the total at 480 as soon as Nathan Hauritz brought up his fifty. Such an odd total at which to declare...
Amid the dog's breakfast that is the international cricket schedule these days, I still get a thrill at the arrival of the Australian Test cricket season, heralded every year since 1974 by the opening day of the Test match at Woolloongabba, Queensland. It's an even greater thrill to see Australia facing the West Indies - or at least it used to be.
It's been a long time coming, but finally "Today In Cricket" is a book. That's right, the book of the website is out. To give its full title, Today In Cricket: Events on this day in cricket history
Now is not the time to put things in proper perspective. New South Wales are the champions of the world!!!
"What I have seen in India is Bollywood, whereas we are more Under Milk Wood. If you compare the match we played against the Deccan Chargers the spectator experience was like an Elvis Presley concert. I think back to Twenty20 finals day at Edgbaston and it was like watching Des O'Connor."
We're too reluctant to sell five-day cricket to a world which meanwhile cheerfully embraces four-day golf. Please explain.
(Update: See the first comment for a Postscript to this article.)
Ricky Ponting will play more Twenty20 cricket in 2010 than in 2009 despite his announcement on Monday of his retirement from the three-hour version of the game at international level.
As announced on Twitter last Monday morning following the conclusion of the Fifth Test, Graeme Swann made a late run to win the 2009 Midwinter-Midwinter by one point.
Quite simply, Performance dictates dismissal. Ponting's performance as Test captain in recent years dictates that. The only real argument against Ponting's removal as captain would be the TINA factor - There Is No Alternative. However, there is an alternative, an able, intelligent, mature one by the name of Michael Clarke.