- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
So England have won 3-1 after a routine victory in Sydney. It’s conceivable, I thought, that I might one day see those words written about a group stage match against Belgium during the first Antipodean-hosted football World Cup, but never about an Ashes tour in my lifetime.
And that margin of victory doesn’t quite do justice to the magnitude of the shellacking because, in reality, this was one of the most savage beatings doled out in Oz since, well, the last series of Oz.
Australia had only ever lost 40 Tests by an innings before, and now they’ve gone down to an unprecedented three in one series. That’s a battering of cod-like proportions, especially when you consider that, before they got turned over in Cape Town in early 2009, they hadn’t suffered an innings defeat for 11 years.
In fact, previous to that loss (which was a dead rubber after they’d already taken revenge and the series for their home defeat to the Proteas a few months earlier), the Baggy Greens had only lost by an innings on two occasions in the last 20 years.
Just to reel back the hubris a bit, it must be pointed out that England themselves have suffered 54 innings losses of which 18 have been in the last 14 years and 23 have been at the hands of Australia. But now it belongs to the Strauss/Flower axis of achievement and it’s difficult to see where salvation is going to come from. There’s no immediately obvious Border-like figure who, in the late 1980s, dragged the team up from the floor by sheer force of personality and performance.
In London over Christmas, I met a couple of Oz expats who said that Haddin was the man to take the team forward, and after his fizzy displays with bat and combustible engagements with England players, it’s hard to dispute he’d bring some fire to a side that so lamely surrendered the Ashes.
A return for Ponting must be favourite now, however, especially after his masterstroke of allowing Michael Clarke near a Test coin toss and, for all my unfamiliar pleasure at seeing England romp home in an away Ashes, I personally would like to see Punter have one last hurrah.
The main sentiment is though, of course, congratulations to an astounding England team. All sport is cyclical so this gloating tone will one day be schadenfreude fodder, but trying to keep a lid on the hyperbole after enduring 1989-2003 is impossible.
Build your own fantasy cricket team and put it to the test with Draftstars daily fantasy competitions. Pick your match, pick your team and watch the points roll in to take out cash prizes on each match. What are you really gambling with? Set a deposit limit.