First Test – Day 3: Campaign teeters on brink if Cowan and Clarke fail

Australia was always going to get a reality check but perhaps they broke even on day three (two) yet their match, and summer, still teeters on the brink if the two current batsmen Cowan and Clarke are not able to re-establish their innings today. Even with a lost day and Duminy’s injury, in racing parlance they appear to be one out one back or then coming with respect to the end result with a thoroughbred looking to have the field covered.

Three for ‘Nelson’ would have left umpire ‘Dickie’ Bird, the human jumper rack, hopping uncomfortably on one leg overnight. But not only Dickie, Ponting must have rolled about in bed now realising his time has come even if the selectors are being driven by blind nostalgic loyalty and lack of creativity. He continues to scratch about like an old chook at the early quick stuff on or about off stump and his dismissal was pretty consistent with how he plays at the elite end of the scale these days.

All team brains trusts, except Australia of course, have worked Warner out. He can no longer be selected for his fielding; opening batsmen are expected to take the shine off the ball every now and again. Tonkers to Bondi Beach.

Quiney had a crack in his short stay but his temperament will have to be modified if he is to establish himself in the next few weeks. He can’t open by any chance? When ‘Whatto the wonder boy’ recovers from IPL(itis) he is a sure selection.

With an aging list and even if there are a few wannabes champing at the bit Australia’s immediate batting stocks must be a worry to those whose job it is to worry. I don’t anymore. I think I am over cricket at the moment.

The Australian bowlers continue to be working class. Honest enough but every now and again they get distracted and lose focus and concentration. When they got their length radar locked in the horses (Amla and Kallis) had well and truly bolted. Six for about two hundred was ok and again they bowled without luck; but that’s show biz baby.

To their credit they continued to put pressure on the highly rated South African middle and late order but there never appeared to any time when there was going to be a collapse. Two years away from being a really formidable attack is my belief.

I am not sure if I am just a poor loser who is up and about in the good times but drops the head when the hard stuff starts or it is just that the couch need re-springing but I am finding this series slightly uncomfortable and all a bit too much of a chore. Is it just the hangover from the recent Ashes debacle when fifth rate Poms made us look like one of the emerging countries and subsequently my garden look like one of Monet’s classic paintings, or am I really too old for the game and need to spend more time on the golf course with R T Ponting?

As the series continues one can only hope that our current players, and those who stand in waiting, gain experience from the quality of competition they currently compete against. Perhaps if I continue to work on the vitamin D development with sporadic periods of bare back gardening, give the couch springs a chance to recuperate and my mind a rest from the pressure watching cricket evokes I will be in the right frame of mind for this time next year when it is the upstarts from the ‘Old Dart’ out here. For that is our future.

Realistically we can have no great expectation for the rest of this test beyond arriving in Adelaide on even terms and fighting tenaciously as we did against the determined Boers as in days gone by.

Comments

  1. Phanto – I feel your pain. But for meits not the losing. I can easily cop that. I can’t cop the trashing of the game. Hit and giggle interpersed with Test cricket. Its like watching a great movie like Cool Hand Luke, then immediately switching over to Australia’s Got Talent and hoping you’ll enjoy it.

  2. Pamela Sherpa says

    Stress less . Cricket was invented to make us appreciate things like weeding, lying in a hammock and old cowboy movies .

  3. Phantom
    You have summed up cricket for me. I want a cricket season that comes after a footie season. Not a never ending travelling circus with clowns who care more about hair product than producing runs and being “accountable” for their wicket. Concur on Warner. We basically go in one down when he opens as he has no other game but hit and giggle. Cannot be selected. I find it interesting that we prepared a road in Brisbane. Where the baggy green a little worried about facing the Sth Africans on a green top. Certainly seems that way compared to the pitches presented when Warne and Mc Grath were playing
    cheers
    TR

  4. Andrew Fithall says

    Phantom – Thank-you for the report. One small point of order – it was umpire David Shepherd who would have been left uncomfortably hopping on one leg.

    On a separate matter – your Tasmanian representative at the Oaks Day carpark acquitted himself very well and was a wonderful ambassador for your State. Excellent food catering (Tasmanian produce purchased in Lygon St) and great company. There is a rumour going around he put on the white shorts on the Friday.

    AF

  5. Peter Flynn says

    Phant,

    I sat down with EJM Cowan a couple of weeks ago and advised him on innings construction.

    It’s worked.

  6. Andrew Starkie says

    Thank God for you, PFlynn. You have saved our summer. Alleluia. Thank God!

    We can win this. Set em 180 and throw the ball to the Rooboy from Moe.

    One question: why is our best batsman coming in at no.5?

  7. AS, because he scores his runs there. If it ain’t broke….

  8. I thought this test was being played in QLD not SA.

    Australia doesn’t lose a wicket all day to the bowlers ( the only one was a sad run out). Are they playing on the bitumen carpark?

    Well played M Clark and E Cowan and M Hussey. Dour stuff.

  9. Andrew Starkie says

    Cookie, at the expense of Khawaja, Marsh and maybe Quinney.

  10. Who is this big young ruckman the Mighty Yellow & Black Jungle Beasts are circling :D

  11. Cricket?????? Is that the choice now of Geelong supporters LOL

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