Yes it's that time again, when the populists and the ignoramuses (or in John Howard's case, both) call for the urn holding the original "Ashes" to be kept in Australia. At least until England wins again.
As Malcolm Fraser used to say: Let me be quite plain.
Yes it's that time again, when the populists and the ignoramuses (or in John Howard's case, both) call for the urn holding the original "Ashes" to be kept in Australia. At least until England wins again.
As Malcolm Fraser used to say: Let me be quite plain.
The Urn is a fragile antique. It is not a trophy. It is not something to be carted around the SCG on the players' lap of honour. Nor waved from the upper deck of open-top buses, nor to be brandished (and possibly dropped) in airport lounges. Nor to be used as a vodka glass after a few dressing-room verses of "Under the Southern Cross I stand".
Was this just another Pommy sledge, or a pagan ritual aimed at raising Sir Neville Cardus from the dead?
12.30am in Sydney, ten hours before the scheduled start of the Warne-McGrath-Langer-Buchanan grand finale. It has been raining fairly steadily for the last three or four hours here, about six kilometres west of the SCG.
Having said that, the forecast from the Bureau of Meteorology indicates that the showers will be restricted to morning and night.
(I started writing this post two years ago and never finished it. This is how far I got at the time - Rick, 24.12.08)
10. The expansion of ODI cricket
Your heart must be bleeding as much as mine for CVC Asia Pacific, the private equity company that recently bought a 50% stake in PBL, the owners of the Nine Network in Australia. Just think of all that lost advertising revenue because the Fourth Test finished two days early.
190: The approximate number of overs left unplayed when the Melbourne Test finished two and a bit days early.
244,351: The cumulative number of spectators at the MCG over the three days of the Test, an average of 81450 per day. The record cumulative crowd for a Test in Australia was 350,534 for the MCG Test against England in 1936-37, a six-day Test thus averaging a mere 58422 per day.
I'll write more about the Melbourne Test on what should have been either Day Four or Day Five, but for now here are my votes for Day Three of the Melbourne Test, ie, the day that Australia thwacked England by an innings.
Three points: Brett Lee; two points: Shane Warne; one point: Stuart Clark.
With one Test remaining, we have a clear leader. No prizes for guessing who...
Melbourne cricket fans denied two days' unbridled adulation of Shane Warne as Test finishes early. Film at 11.
