December 24, 1984: Australia loses a women's Test to England.
September 19, 1988: Australia follows on in a men's Test match against Pakistan.
Something I thought I would never see, well not in this decade anyway, appears to be unfolding at New Road, Worcester, today.
It's lunch on Day Three of the Second Women's Test between England and Australia. The visitors made 131 in their first innings. England, after being 227 for 9 at the close of the second day, advanced to 289 all out. Australia faced sixteen overs before lunch. They are currently 13 for 3.
When Tait begins to bowl the batsman trembles at the knees,
The ball comes humming down the pitch just like a hive of bees,
The other day the bails went flying right out to the gate,
The batsman smiled a sickly smile and whispered "Tait á Tait".- Jack Lumsdaine, "So This Is Cricket", 1932
(OK, so he was actually talking about Maurice Tate)
Nothing will stop me from cursing the England and Wales Cricket Board for their counterproductive policy of scheduling women's tours simultaneously with the men. There's an important, indeed, sudden-death women's Test match going on at New Road, Worcester which is being totally eclipsed for media attention by the most riveting men's Ashes series in almost a quarter of a century.
Thursday's Christian Science Monitor has a rather confused article by Mark Rice-Oxley titled Cricket makes a comeback in Britain.
Rice-Oxley talks about the increased interest in Test cricket as a result of the excitement of the Second and Third Tests between England and Australia, yet the sub-editors appear to be more interested in playing up the Twenty20 elements of the article. Possibly because they've noticed the word "baseball" used in close proximity to Twenty20 quite frequently.
The astounding cricket played by England and Australia has not only rejuvenated the 123 year old Ashes competition, it’s also demonstrated that the five Test series is one of the supreme forms of spectator sport available on earth today.
New column by Mike Marqusee in Wednesday's Guardian, and reproduced on his own blog, praising the current Ashes series.
It happens every time the Prince of Wales gets married. In 1981, within weeks of Charles’ wedding to Diana, a young tearaway called Ian Botham marked the occasion by leading England to a stunning set of victories over Australia at cricket.
- Matthew Engel, Financial Times, 19.8.05
Proof that even Matthew Engel can talk bollocks sometimes. Or does he?
I've done some research: Prince of Wales' weddings - impact on Ashes series 1882-1979:
The ever-diligent Rajneesh Gupta notes that Australia has now had more sixes struck against them in the current Test series than in any previous series. And that with two matches to play.
England has clobbered 26 sixes over the ropes thus far in the 2005 Ashes, beating the 23 struck by the South Africans of 1966-67 at higher altitudes.
Following the amazing conclusion to the Old Trafford Test, here are the progress points in the 2005 Midwinter-Midwinter, my answer to the Compton-Miller award to the best player of the Ashes series:
