Gone to ashes
Wow ... what a match it was !!!
I was really thrilled to watch a test match getting sooo close and being so well fought by both the teams, England and Australia. I really pity the Aussies, coming so close and loosing it ... boy, thats painful. This match was so exciting and interesting that i didnt even see the other one day match that was being played between India and West Indies.
Aussies chose to ball after winning the toss which many people were criticising. England were alll out for 408 on the first day [ quite a good run rate that is ] ... and then the Aussies were all out for 308. A very good fight back from England. And then a still better performance by the Aussie bowlers, especially Shane Warne and they restricted the lead to be just 280.
The only time that aussies had chased more than 270 against England was in 1949. So the odds were definately against them. Not many players played any long innings in their reply. Ponting got out for a duck, which didnt help the matters anyway. Australia had lost 6 wickets and still needed about 150 runs. Clarke played some sensible cricket and chased well. But he was out for a beauty at the fag end of the third day [ yeah right ... the whole match lasted only for 4 days !!! , infact it was 3 days and 100 minutes to be precise ]. By the end of the third day, after taking an extra 30 minutes to finish off the tail of Australia, the aussies needed about 100 more runs with Shane Warne and Brett Lee at the crease. There were only 2 wickets remaining.
Shane Warne played some really sensible cricket and scored the highest runs in that innings for Australia [ 42 ] and brought a glimmer of hope. Kasprowich was the last come to join Lee after Warne was out. Lee was a surprise to watch. Though he didnt face the ball well, especially the bouncers by Flintoff, he did play some lovely cover drives at times. Lee got the brunt of all the bouncers and was hit atleast 5 to 6 times on his left hand facing those deadly bouncers from Flintoff. Kasprowich played the best folly to Lee and with the England bowlers taking it easy and bowling all bad bowls, the runs were coming eaily to Australia. The moment Aussies needed less than 10 runs to win, you could the panic getting into the England players. They were really tensed. If it was not for that good surprising bouncer from Harmisson, and had Kasprowich played that delivery well, the Aussies would have had a great come back victory. Englad won this great epic match by just 2 runs !!!
I was really thrilled to watch a test match getting sooo close and being so well fought by both the teams, England and Australia. I really pity the Aussies, coming so close and loosing it ... boy, thats painful. This match was so exciting and interesting that i didnt even see the other one day match that was being played between India and West Indies.
Aussies chose to ball after winning the toss which many people were criticising. England were alll out for 408 on the first day [ quite a good run rate that is ] ... and then the Aussies were all out for 308. A very good fight back from England. And then a still better performance by the Aussie bowlers, especially Shane Warne and they restricted the lead to be just 280.
The only time that aussies had chased more than 270 against England was in 1949. So the odds were definately against them. Not many players played any long innings in their reply. Ponting got out for a duck, which didnt help the matters anyway. Australia had lost 6 wickets and still needed about 150 runs. Clarke played some sensible cricket and chased well. But he was out for a beauty at the fag end of the third day [ yeah right ... the whole match lasted only for 4 days !!! , infact it was 3 days and 100 minutes to be precise ]. By the end of the third day, after taking an extra 30 minutes to finish off the tail of Australia, the aussies needed about 100 more runs with Shane Warne and Brett Lee at the crease. There were only 2 wickets remaining.
Shane Warne played some really sensible cricket and scored the highest runs in that innings for Australia [ 42 ] and brought a glimmer of hope. Kasprowich was the last come to join Lee after Warne was out. Lee was a surprise to watch. Though he didnt face the ball well, especially the bouncers by Flintoff, he did play some lovely cover drives at times. Lee got the brunt of all the bouncers and was hit atleast 5 to 6 times on his left hand facing those deadly bouncers from Flintoff. Kasprowich played the best folly to Lee and with the England bowlers taking it easy and bowling all bad bowls, the runs were coming eaily to Australia. The moment Aussies needed less than 10 runs to win, you could the panic getting into the England players. They were really tensed. If it was not for that good surprising bouncer from Harmisson, and had Kasprowich played that delivery well, the Aussies would have had a great come back victory. Englad won this great epic match by just 2 runs !!!
I think Brett Lee was the highest scorer (43) , not Shane Warne :)
ReplyDeleteYup, you think right :)
ReplyDelete