If I was still a betting man, my money would be on a 4 Test Tour ( No Perth) with the tour all over after the New Years Sydney Test. Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne then Sydney. It’s interesting here but apart from the Daily Telegraph and Michael ( 2005 Ashes Winning Captain ) barely any other media outlet or pundit has touched this yet. As I’ve previously commented, apparently there’s a final meeting on Friday where all be be revealed. If I was still back in Brisbane, I certainly wouldn’t be buying any tickets for any games just yet.

It’s not all bad news though for the Aussie batsman…Tom Curran will be his likely replacement.

I find this a shame because I thought Slater was an excellent commentator in his early days. As time went by though he seemed to be encouraged to play the clown which very quickly became tiresome. As Geoff Lemon wrote in that memorable Guardian article, the whole Channel 9 team lost the plot and it became all about them and had little to do with the cricket.
If someone else does give him a job, I hope the producer is strong enough to tell him to concentrate on the cricket and forget trying to be a stand up comedian.

We’re still getting 30,000+ new cases here every day Paul but people aren’t talking about it or aren’ too worried about it. This thing has dominated our lives for the past 18 months and everyone here basically said enough is enough, let’s live with it and get back to normal, which is what’s happening.

I have a mental picture of an old duffer running through the Long Room at Lords shouting ‘ Don’t Panic !!!!!!Don’t Panic!!!! ‘ Corporal Jones style the moment the Test squad is named.

I’ve been saying for years that England place far too much emphasis on the Ashes to the detriment of most of the other Test playing nations. Every Test match should be an occasion and a proud experience for those that take part, not just thought of as trials before the main event.

I would imagine the fact that the Barmy Army aren’t coming will be an incentive for many people to buy tickets. I did it a couple of times at the Gabba and after 7 hours of listening to that drunken rabble I was just about ready to renounce my British heritage.

Let’s not go off too early. There’s another, supposedly the final, meeting on Friday to clarify a few remaining issues. The Englshmen have to be careful here. We’ve all made sacrifices over the past 18 months and they’d want to make sure they don’t get greedy or too precious with their requests. I’m hoping Friday is iron out the itinerary, not to be asking for more concessions.

I used to love King Bonza! They don’t write them like that anymore…mores the pity.

I can see Tim Paine becoming the next Jason Akermanis of Australian sport. On a quiet news day, lets ask Tim for a comment, he’s bound to say something ridiculous. Dear old Neil Harvey used to be the go to man for stupid comments but I think Timothy might take his crown sooner rather than later.

Never mind the turkeys Paul, the latest media beat up here is that we’re going to run out of bacon due to a shortage of meat workers. A full English fry up without bacon…well shoot me now!
The media here are a disgrace.The endless hysterical, fear mongering beat ups are beyond belief and that includes Nasser (we’ll bowl at the Gabba) Hussein and Michael (2005 Ashes winning captain) Vaughan. I drove to my local servo this morning, filled up and didn’t see another car anywhere.
I wake up every morning eagerly waiting to see what massive shortage will cripple the country next. So far, I’ve been lucky. Beer supplies haven’t been affected….yet!

As I’ve said before on numerous occasions Jeff, Joe Root is the key in all this. If he decides not to tour, that’s it, game over. I find the Jos Butler situation quite ridiculous. If he declines to tour, Good!!! Maybe we’ll have a wicket keeper batsman who will average more than 32 with the bat and rarely shines with the gloves. Honestly, the level of worship given to him by the cricketing media in this country is quite simply unbelievable. He’s on the highest level central contract over here, well in excess of £1m a year but if he never played for England again in all forms of the game, would he seriously be missed?

In other words James, CA should be proactive, make some decisions, rather than be reactive and wait and see what will happen tomorrow or the next day.

As an English cricket supporter, I was absolutely delighted when Phil was dropped after the 2nd Test. I thought then and still think now that had the selectors left him alone he would have have scored a couple of hundreds in that series. But everyone seemed to work themselves into a frenzy about his ‘quirky’ technique and he had to go. The same ‘experts’ had a problem with Steve Smith’s ‘quirky’ technique early in his career as well.I can remember him playing a Test Match batting at no 8 and bowling some awful leg spin. He hasn’t changed much and hasn’t done so bad since then, has he?
That to me has been one of the most annoying aspects of Test cricket in the past decade.The number of useless coaches,analysts and bloated support staff sticking their 2 bob in to things that shouldn’t concern them.

I seem to remember that everyone thought a mistake had been made and Mark Taylor was supposed to have made his debut.When you consider that Greg Ritchie opened in that Test, you’d have to think that theory had a pair of decent legs! Anyway, good luck to Peter.He took his chance well and had a pretty decent international career.

What a mess all this is now.They, the ECB and CA, have had months to try to sort this situation out but instead seem to have been playing a high stakes game of poker with both holding 7 high. They haven’t been helped by a useless PM and gung ho Premiers seemingly obsessed with their moments in the sun but it’s been a pathetically poor show from the lot of them.
Let’s start with the ECB. It is absolutely laughable just how useless they are. For them to issue that press statement yesterday,mainly saying that if they can’t send a more or less full strength squad out,the Ashes are off. With Ed Smith calling the shots, they sent out weakened squads to both Sri Lanka and India last winter.India in particular was a shambles with some players coming, others going and no one apart from Mr Smith having any idea what’s was going on. They took and absolute kicking from Channel 4, who spent millions on FTA rights for the series, only for some of the games to barely last 3 days ( albeit on some dodgy wickets ) I can only imagine that the TV rights holders,BT Sports from memory, have had some heavy duty discussions with them, telling them that if they send out a 3rd or 4th team, we will want most of our money back, and don’t expect any favours from us when the next rights come up. Joe Root’s comments last week were for me the game breaker. If he say’s he’s not coming, it’s all over.
I don’t know where to start with CA. For a nation that’s played 4 home Tests in almost 2 years, it would probably have been a good idea not to point the finger at anyone else.Both boards seem to be sitting across a table waiting for the other side to blink first, meanwhile the Ashes is sailing down the river not to seen again for at least another 2 years. If anyone can do so, can they please explain why they’re letting their Test captain keep coming out with ridiculous comments.It’s hard to explain quite how much anger Paine’s comments caused here. Being lectured by a Richie Benaud, Ian Chappell, Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh or Ricky Ponting is one thing and most English cricket lovers will accept that but having Tim ( wait till we get you to the Gabba ) Paine telling the rest of the cricket world what they should or shouldn’t be doing is quite something else.
In the interests of fairness, we could have done without Nasser Hussein’s comments as well. I’ve commented many times before but one of the major irritants following cricket in the UK is the avalanche of opinions and comments we have to put up with from Ex England captains desperate to remain relevant.
Anyway, we’ll all know it a couple of days. I fear the worst, more so for Australian cricket. The ECB’s coffers are almost full after a mostly full summer of cricket here but what are the repercussions for the Australian game financially if the tour doesn’t go ahead? Absolutely disastrous I should sadly imagine.

I was listening to TalkSport on my car radio this morning, which always make me laugh as it’s 99% Talk EPL,when a breaking news item came on saying that the Ashes were in serious doubt.If Talksport can stop talking (mostly rubbish) about football and report on boring old cricket, then it must be serious!

Spain was a neutral country in WW1…no one wanted to alienate the USA by calling it the American Flu, so the Spanish flu it was ! It doesn’t matter what or who it was called after, it killed 20m poor souls.

Thanks Jeff…reading all the nonsense that’s being written over the past few weeks,the thing that stands out the most,is that the ECB have said they won’t send over a seriously weakened Test Squad to contest the Ashes.The day, last week, when Joe Root basically said he didn’t want to tour unless he and his team received certain quarantine concessions,sounded the death knell for the Ashes.
Apparently, yesterday,Sunday here, the entire England squad had a zoom meeting with the ECB about what restrictions they would be under if the Ashes were to proceed and the silence since has been deafening.This Monday morning the ECB for the first time issued a statement questioning whether the tour will go ahead.I’ve heard lots of social media rumours saying that the ECB have been warned that if they don’t send a full strength squad, the broadcasters, both here and there, will sue them from here to eternity for damages.
I really hope I’m wrong but unless there’s a minor miracle, the Ashes 2021 are gone.

Mate…I think it’s going to be all over 😢 …Stand by for a season of Sheffield Shield cricket.

I’m intrigued by Michael ( 2005 Ashes Winning Captain ) Vaughan comments here. This is the same Michael ( 2005 Ashes winning captain ) Vaughan who pulled out of his contract to cover the Australia v India series with Australian TV last year as he didn’t want to spend too much time in quarantine as he’d found it too tough to handle the previous English summer.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry!

That was the quickest way to climb the QCA ladder back then.Give everything not out.As was explained to me by an ex First Class umpire, if you give everything not out, you are at least consistent and that’s all anyone asks. I found that pathetic and wasn’t surprised that we, the umpires, were generally held in total contempt by far too many of the clubs.

Sadly in my experience, some umpires are really stupid.One of my first games umpiring in the QCA, I was allocated a 4th grade game with an old guy who’d been umpiring for 20+ seasons.He proudly announced to me that he hadn’t given a batsman ( Sorry Batter!!!! ) out LBW for the last 5 seasons as he hated to spoil their day.When I asked about him spoiling the bowlers day, he cracked the wotsits and didn’t speak to me for the rest of the game!
I found out that that was the attitude of far too many of the umpires back then.Keep a low profile and whatever you do, never give either captain out.

Gilchrist has always really annoyed me with his holier than thou attitude.Ok, he played the high moral card when he was batting but it didn’t stop him appealing like a banshee when he was keeping, even when it was clear the batsman wasn’t out.
The game would be far better off if everyone just respected the umpires decision.Once the finger goes up, get off the ground asap.
Colin Cowdrey was the worst offender in that regard.He was renowned as a walker but if it was a feather or a doubtful one, he’d would wait and the umpires would invariably give him the benefit of the doubt.It used to drive the opposition mad.

‘Lovely guy, just too old and a poor decision maker’ Thanks mate,if I’d known you felt that way I’d have fired you out LBW first ball!