hopinet

Ashes to Ashes

15th July 2009

So as the second Ashes test starts on Thursday, I thought I would reflect on both the first test performance and the news that Flintoff is to retire from test cricket after the Ashes.

Firstly that news about Flintoff, not really a surprise I suppose, he’s had so many injuries that have just affected his ability to get back on the pitch and even when he has they have affected his performances. There is no doubt that Flintoff is a very talent cricket player, however I do feel that we expect more than he gives us and our constant pushing to put him in the team on reputation rather than current performances is slightly frustrating. I would have preferred him to get himself properly fit and get some match practice on several occasions before jumping straight back in to the England set up, I believe England may have got more out of Flintoff if they had used him properly rather than constantly pushing him. If we look over his test career I believe in time we will see he was never the player he could have been if only we’d been a little more patient and put less pressure on him.

Unfortunately I have to work and don’t have Sky so don’t see every ball of every test but here’s my summary of the Ashes so far, it’s quite concise….. We were simply out bowled, out batted and generally out played.

It’s OK to be celebrating that we managed to get a draw from the first test, believe me I was nothing better than seeing fed up arrogant Aussies! What we must not forget is how much of a difference there is between the two teams and if we play anything like that in the second test we will loose.

To be honest I didn’t feel their bowling attack had as much in it as we managed to make it look like. Pietersen got a lot of grief for getting out to a stupid delivery trying to be too clever and rightly so, he should know better, however at least he managed to score 69 before getting out, others didn’t do that well! I thought our bowlers looked thoughtless really, if plan A didn’t work (which it didn’t) we didn’t seem to have any other ideas. We need to have some more variety in our bowling, I wasn’t initially a fan of Sidebottom or Onions but I say give at least one of them a chance, personally I’d go for Onions, he gives us something different. I don’t care if he doesn’t score as many with the bat as the likes of Broad do but if we don’t bowl Australia out then it doesn’t matter how many runs we score we won’t win!

Fingers crossed for a better performance on Thursday with a little more imagination please.