Welcome to Cherwell’s summer cricket coverage! After the engrossing vulgarity of the World T20 tournament, the real business of summer, the Ashes is upon us. I’ll be posting my thoughts on what’s going on periodically over the series, and you are all welcome to agree, castigate, and anything else in
the comments section below.
I, like most people, was absolutely thrilled with the result of the First test, although it wasn’t a case of “I’d have taken that at the start.” How to be less toothless when we bowl? First, as I think everyone says, drop Panesar. He is worse than Swann at everything right now, despite his comedy antics. Harmison needs to be brought back pronto. A harder decision is whether to keep Broad
or put in Onions. Of course, if Flintoff doesn’t recover, Broad will have to play, as a quasi-all-rounder, but also because nobody trusts Bresnan against Hughes or Ponting, or Clarke or North. I’d pick Onions. As much as I love Broad for his apparently Sobers-esque batting, and his uncanny resemblance to Robert Chase on the TV show House, he needs to learn to take wickets regularly. Not to guarantee that Onions will be a wicket machine, but he does what he does better than Broad does. Harmsion and hopefully Flintoff can provide raw pace, and Anderson swing. I’d rather have Onions than Broad as the decidedly fourth seamer.
I sympathise a little with Pieterson for that dodgy shot in the first innings. Yes the sweep gets him runs, and the amount of times I’ve got out insisting I can cover drive a leg stump half-volley makes us brothers of a sort. But it’s not like he doesn’t have the reactions or talent to pull out of an obviously wrong shot. Eoin Morgan can do it, and even players as limited as Nick Knight have pulled off that trick. Otherwise, Haurtiz will just bowl really wide of off stump with a short fine leg, a fine leg, a deep backward point for the reverse sweep, and a deep cover for the inside out, and choke the life out of Pieterson.
What of the Aussies? I don’t think there’s any reason to change the side. This was my first time watching Phil Hughes properly. Even if he only got 36, the sight of him cutting the ball like the love child of Lara and Jayasuriya is seared onto my memory. I’ve never seen anyone in test cricket cut the ball like that. It was pretty terrifying, and I don’t care if the Press think he’s weak against the short ball. He’s only twenty. One day, he’ll learn to hook and pull properly, and then he’s going to get thousands of runs. Tuck him up while you can with straight seamers. Its Ashes 2010-2011 where he’ll eat us alive. Brett Lee isn’t fit, and I was impressed by Australia’s unfancied duo of Siddle and Hilfenhaus. Siddle is a keen man, in the mould of Merv hughes, and Hilfenhaus is one of the most English of Australian bowlers. Hauritz bowled ballsily, and even if he’ll struggle on other pitches, I’m happy for him that he showed himself he could operate at the top level. Johnson bowled poorly, but laugh quietly. When he’s on, he can do as much damage to us as Hughes, Clarke, and Ponting. And that, friends, is a lot.
