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After a brief break for Christmas, the Ashes action resumes on the Boxing Day with Australia and England going head to head in the fourth Test match of the series. Join us for live scores and commentary from 10.30am AEDT.
All the talk leading up to this Test match have either been centred around Australia’s chances of a 5-0 whitewash and the retirement of English off-spinner Graeme Swann.
In fact, Swann’s decision to retire from international cricket has polarised opinion around the world, with his fans defending him for walking out at the right time while critics panning him for what is equivalent of deserting a sinking ship.
There’s also a buzz that Swann may have been dropped from this Test match anyway after his poor showing in the first three – he has picked up seven wickets at 80 – which pushed him into taking the call, which means that either way, a replacement spinner would have played at the MCG.
Till about a couple of days ago, Monty Panesar was the sole other tweaker left in the squad but he will now have competition from Durham leggie Scott Borthwick for this game.
Panesar should still win the nod, but Borthwick’s presence will increase the pressure on the left-arm slow bowler.
Returning to the Swann retirement, while that raised a few eyebrows around the cricketing fraternity, what followed was equally surprising, if not more.
In a column for a daily tabloid, Swann accused few of the players as “up their own backsides” and stated he hoped they looked back at their careers with embarrassment.
Later he clarified that his cryptic farewell speech wasn’t pointing fingers at any English cricketer.
Again, there’s a sense of belief that at the receiving end of Swann’s attack was Kevin Pietersen, a cricketer he’s supposed to have not exactly got along with during their playing days.
Pietersen, when asked for his opinion about Swann’s backlash, could have easily pointed to Swann’s clarification that it wasn’t an English cricketer he was aiming at.
Instead Pietersen ‘hooked’ away the question with his traditional “I have heard worse”.
Whether this entire episode, to go with the 3-0 defeat, leaves England on the brink of implosion in this series remains to be seen, but it’s fair to say they need to turn things around in a big way going into the Boxing Day Test.
They would do well to win the toss. Three tosses, all of them lost and having had to bat second means that England have always remained behind the eight-ball.
Fourth innings targets have been huge and on pitches which have deteriorated enough to assist the bowling side – Australia.
Again, this is not to say that winning the toss would tantamount to clinching the game but it would give the tourists some kind of an even keel going into the game.
One other probable change in the reckoning is the selection of Jonny Bairstow in place of the under-fire Matt Prior, while Stuart Broad’s much-improved fitness following the hit on his foot would could allow him to take field tomorrow.
Australia will go into the game unchanged apart from any last-minute injuries.
And while almost everyone has chipped in one or the other time during the series so far, Chris Rogers knows he needs to get himself a big one if he wants to retain his place in the side.
The 36-year-old has averaged around 25 in the series so far with a couple of fifties and would hope to get going at the top.
On the other hand, Shane Watson’s second innings ton in Perth should have instilled some confidence going into this Test, with his record in Melbourne being one of the better ones from the Australian batsmen.
The pitch at the MCG will be a drop-in surface with some grass on it but it may not have as pace as the one at the WACA.
There will be bounce that, along with the unevenness as the game progresses, has been the reason behind the number of results this ground has seen.
There has been no draw at the MCG since 1997 and even that was a weather-affected game. Expect this match to have a result as well.
Join us for the fourth Ashes 2013-14 Test from Thursday and you can follow the live score of this game from 10.30 am AEDT and post your comments below.
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