Julia Gillard: “Will we ever win a Cricket Match again?”

I’ve learnt two important lessons about writing a blog in the last couple of hours:  The first one is that 24 hours is a very long time in blogging.  I’d written about Australia’s twenty20 fixture against Sri Lanka at the weekend but it needed some tweaking and work commitments meant it wasn’t quite ready.   When I turned on the radio today Sri Lanka were 107-8 chasing 238 in the first One Day International between the sides.    It looked like what I’d written would be completely irrelevant as the Aussie’s strolled to a likely 100+ run victory.  The second important lesson was One hour is an equally long time!  Angelo Williams and Lasith Malinga put on 132 for the 9^th Wicket and the Aussies snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.  Luckily most of what I’d written was still bang on and it went a lot like this:

I had hoped to provide positive passages on The Ashes past and present.  I didn’t want to simply dwell on our unfortunate opponents but they are just making it too easy for me!  This week’s defeat against Sri Lanka means the Floppy Greens have only won once in any form of Cricket since we let them win a dead rubber in our One Day Series back on July 3^rd. That solitary win came against Pakistan and, knowing what we do now, perhaps they weren’t even trying to win?  It speaks volumes when the only other high point for Ponting & Co. in the last 5 months was a draw against Derbyshire.

Twenty20 skipper Michael Clarke was a sorry sight as he spoke to Mark Nicholas after the game.  I found his reasoning for Australia’s poor performance at The WACA most curious: “The pitches are a bit different from the ones we’ve been used to on the Indian Sub Continent”.  Exactly where does he think the Sri Lankans play most of their Cricket”?  Probably not in Perth Michael.

Jayawardene, Sangakkara and Dilhsan took it to an ‘experimental’ Australian XI made up exclusively of New South Welshmen and Victorians and earlier on Randiv had claimed 3-24 including the two key wickets of Smith and Hussey, who might have otherwise cut loose in the closing stages.

With the ball, Peter Siddle’s figures of 1-34 weren’t pretty but his pace and general performance means he throws his hat back into the ring for a Test spot.  He’ll likely compete with Hilfenhaus, ‘Slugger’ Johnson, Bollinger and Hauritz.  Nothing too special amongst any of them and I don’t think anyone knows which combination is best.  On the contrary, I think we knew England’s bowling attack even before Steven Finn stepped out of strength and conditioning training to claim 13 wickets against Pakistan at an average 22.  Assuming they remain injury free Jimmy, Broardy and Swanny will line up alongside Finn.

Today’s defeat in Melbourne must rank amongst the most worrying in recent history for the men in Budgerigar Yellow.  Not being able to finish off a dying opponent is the not a characteristic associated with any Aussie sports team.  They are renowned for their ruthlessness.  The breaking news is that the Welsh Prime Minister of Australia has called a crisis meeting in Canberra to ask the question, “Will we ever win a Cricket Match again?”