Crio’s Q: Comebacks and Victories against the Odds

Wow! What a backlash.

The Aussies were ridiculously short odds in early markets (I laid them at $1.62 for the series) and it now seems the early Tests have generated shockwaves across all cricketing circles…so much so that, in my normal “counter-balancing” way, I now feel compelled to pump up their chances.

So let’s (overlooking evidence!) seek seeds of hope by recalling great sporting comebacks and victories against all odds. Chin Up!

Comments

  1. John Butler says

    1970 Grand Final

  2. Here’s the incredible scorecard from Hobart’s shield game just a few weeks ago.
    http://livescores.cricket.com.au/scoreboard_2582_12.html

  3. Cash v Pernfors was pretty stunning iirc. Won after being two sets down and on matchpoint in the final rubber of the David Cup final.

  4. Ian,
    Was it Man U in Madrid?

  5. Perhaps pertinent to current circumstance:

    1936/37 Ashes series- England won the first two tests by 322 runs & an innings and 22 runs.

    Australia won the last three tests after a bloke called Bradman came good with some runs.

    Is he still available for selection?

  6. Would it be an inopportune time to mention the Botham/Willis Test Match
    in the 1981 Ashes series?
    I am currently reading “Golden Boy”, so it is pretty fresh in the memory bank.

  7. Crio

    Liverpool came back from 3-0 down at half-time to beat Milan on penalties.

    Smokie — yes, the fixed match that wasn’t

  8. Phil Dimitriadis says

    India 2001. VVS Laxman and Harbajan Singh’s test.

    Same year: Essendon coming back from 69 points down against North. Incredible!

    Warnie capturing Liz after a few quiet years as a ‘family man’. Gives hope to middle-aged bogans.

  9. Also ManU came from 3-0 down to beat a Glen Hoddle-managed Spurs 5-3. All the goals were scored at one end. Hoddle made the hilarious after match comment that perhaps they’d have been better off going in 2-0 instead of 3-0 at half-time.

    In 1904 Sunderland beat Newcastle 9-1 after Newcastle had scored first (still the highest away victory in the top flight). BTW Newcastle went on to win the league!

  10. Phil Dimitriadis says

    Trust you to bring 1904 up again Syson! BTW, told you Pardew is a great manager.

  11. JB can’t avoid mentioning 1970, Ian goes back to 1904 (but has the good grace to mention which team triumphed for the season) and Smokie mentions Leeds 81. I am waiting for a Liberal supporter to mention 1961, 1980, 1998 and 2001, which were all elections in which Labor managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of almost certain victory.

    Although, unlike 1970 I have to admit I enjoyed watching Botham bat -so much so that I stayed up till stumps on a day that I had to be at work at 9.00 am. I didn’t enjoy anything about the second half of the 1970 Grand Final. Possibly the difference is that I am a lot more passionate about Collingwood than the Australian cricket team.

  12. Did I mention 1970?

  13. I heard on the radio a few weeks back about a young guy who was playing a sub-district 20/20 games in Melbourne. He had previously played in the National under 19s team in the World Cup a couple of year ago before developing a stomch problem that kept away from cricket. He decided to give it another shot and what a shot it was. Im a little sketchie on the exact numbers but Opening the batting he scored 245 in 20 overs. Team total was 275 with team mate Dale Thomas (yes the littlw blonde twat) contibruting 20. He stated that he only had about 50% of the strike but managed 23 sixes (5 off one over) and 18 fours. I think he wont be in sub-district cricket for long.

  14. Damo Balassone says

    I am stunned.

    No one has mentioned Australia’s thrilling come from behind win against Pakistan in Sydney earlier this year. How can we forget Hussey and Siddle’s partnership or Hauritz’s 5 wicket haul.

    Or am I missing something?

  15. October 2010

    Bomber Thompson’s miraculous and hasty recovery from the dreaded ‘footy burnout’.

    Mary McKillop again?

  16. Damo #14,

    or the catches mysteriously dropped. Curioser and curioser.

  17. Damian Watson says

    Australia v South Africa 1999 Cricket World Cup Super Six Match, Steve Waugh saving the day with a timely century after we were 3/48 chasing a substantial total.

    Hawthorn v St Kilda at Waverley 1999.

    Australia v Pakistan 1999 at Hobart, Gilly and Langer partnership.

  18. Albion v Braybrook 1987. In a B-turf one day match, we (Albion) were bundled out for 93 and they were cruising at 3/60 with heaps of overs in hand. Three overs later they were all out of 63.

    (I’m suprised no-one else has mentioned this one…)

  19. “Conan” Ayers’ 2nds half to beat Geelong at Princes Park.

  20. As much as it pains me to say it, Essendon v North Melbourne, 2001.

    Also Sydney v North in 2004, the Roos coming from 40 points down at 3/4 time to win by a goal.

  21. The phrase “up off the canvas” pertains to this…there must be some great boxing fightbacks?

  22. Mick Jeffrey says

    Would this year’s Semi Final against Sydney count? I mean, no-one picked us and half the side were either injured or on one leg.

    From the Rugby League files, State of Origin Game 2 1989. Queensland (who had won the last 6 official contests discounting the exhibition in Long Beach in 1987) were away from fortress Lang Park in front of 40000 Blues fans at the Sydney Football Stadium. During the game they lost Allan Langer (broken leg), Mal Meninga (fractured cheekbone), Paul “Fatty” Vautin (elbow) and Michael Hancock (shoulder) before Bob Lindner also broke his leg leaving Queensland (who were out of replacements by that stage) to finish the game with 12 men. They somehow won 16-12. After the match Maroons captain Wally Lewis (who scored a decisive try in the 2nd half) simply told his players to lap up the standing ovation that the Sydney fans gave to his side as he said it would never happen again (and to this day, I don’t think it has).

    Similarly was the story of the 1995 Queensland team. Decimated by Super League defections, coach Paul Vautin basically had a team of misfits, nomads, a couple of veterans and no-names thrown together (bench player Ben Ikin, a schoolboy from the Gold Coast who had played about 3 first grade games for the Seagulls as they were known then, was mistaken for an autograph hunter in the lift at the team hotel). After winning Game 1 in Sydney 2-0, the lowest scoring origin match ever, they clinched the series in Melbourne 20-12 in a match best remembered for an all-in at the first scrum. Then in Game 3 on home turf, with a couple of players lost during the game and captain Trevor Gillmeister literally getting off the sick bed on the day of the game, Queensland came from behind to clinch the most unlikely clean sweep of any series in sports history.

  23. following Phil Dimitriadis

    “Warnie capturing Liz after a few quiet years as a ‘family man’. Gives hope to middle-aged bogans.”

    Shane Warne – the irony is everyone in England has been staying up late to watch the cricket, and he’s been getting up hurley !

  24. Phil Dimitriadis says

    Love it Father Mulcaster. Have missed your wit since the Grandstand days. Crack up!

  25. Sorry to say it wasn’t an origibnal….when I read it on the screen a laughed out loud.
    As for Warnie and Ms Hurley…. It seems proof that God has a cruel sense of humour …. and he doesn’t like me

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