The Ashes 2013

[Alexander's Horse]

Did bloody Michael Clarke make another nice gracious bloody speech again?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

He's getting plenty of practice at those.

[Cort Haus]

Joe Root celebrating his first Lords Ashes wicket:

[C0ckney]

nice to see you cort. how are things?

[Cort Haus]

Hi C0ckney. Things are, well, up and down, and in the air. Bit disturbed about the prospect of Arsenal risking 45-55m on Suarez.

And you. Still in Brazil?

[C0ckney]

yeah not too bad, i'm still in rio, living the fairly quiet life of a married man. that whole suarez business is ridiculous, but that's football. speaking of which, i wangled some tickets to the first game at the new maracanã, england vs brazil. great game and some fat scouse lad scored a cracker.

[Alexander's Horse]

Good article on where Australia is at.

FOR some, the sight of Michael Hussey descending upon Sydney's ANZ Stadium dressed in the Martian green of his Big Bash League franchise on the day after the Australians had lost their sixth successive Test summed it all up.

For others, news that the under-19 squad had suffered a hiding almost as severe at the hands of an Indian collective was further indication 4-0 losses on the subcontinent and Ashes humiliation are an inheritance the next generation will not squander.

Where have all the batsmen gone? How could an Australian cricket side with more money, more coaches, more high-performance matrix managers than any before it perform so badly?

Breaking bowlers are one thing. Busted batsmen quite another.

Michael Clarke aside, no batsman in the Test side boasts an average above 40 and the only men who showed any form in last year's Sheffield Shield were in the twilight of their careers.

The baggy green and grafting an innings appears as fashionable to young sportsmen as letter-writing and cassette compilations. The AFL hoovers up nascent talent with a ruthless efficiency, its pathways, paydays and job prospects (18 teams with vast lists) a honey trap few can resist.

And that's not the only way to lose a potential Test player.

Former Australian under-19 player Sam Robson is the highest Australian run-scorer in Britain right now, but the 23-year-old apparently wants to play for England. His county scoring aggregate has almost been matched by Lancashire's Simon Katich, 37, a man who was averaging 50 as a Test opener when he was told he was supernumerary.

The gritty left-hander is infamous for his attack on the current captain in the Sydney dressing room -- an incident he believes has kept him on the outside as the new generation recalibrates the traditions.

And there, too, lies another problem. Team harmony is fragile, at best, and not just because nobody can remember the words to the victory song.

Shane Watson and Co are a "cancer", according to Clarke -- at least that's the story the sacked coach is telling in a legal dispute with Cricket Australia.

The coach's sacking is a sorry tale that dates back to the axing of four players ahead of the third Indian Test and is intrinsically related to the Clarke/Watson situation.

Mickey Arthur had apparently overreacted with the penalty he imposed on Watson and the three others for not doing their homework; he'd let discipline drift and come down too hard in an attempt to rectify the situation.

So, when there was one more incident, his employer decided things had drifted far enough and it came down even harder on him. It remains to be seen if irony is a defence open to Cricket Australia as it counters his charges in the Fair Work Commission.

The fact that his dismissal was so badly handled the two parties are now facing off in an ugly dispute suggests the problems in the travelling team are reflected at headquarters.

Focus has turned to chief executive James Sutherland and his stewardship. In 2001, he assumed the chief executive's role at a period when Australian cricket was on top of the world. The Test side was about to win its 16th consecutive Test match (it would do so again five years later) and was voted the World Team of the Year.

It was a golden age, and one that seemed it would continue forever. Every time a champion retired, it seemed another emerged from the production line. Hussey had to wait until he was 30 to get a game and then rocketed from the starting blocks with three centuries in his first five Tests.

As an executive, Sutherland has just overseen the largest broadcast deal in the game's history and established a lucrative stream with the Big Bash League. As a consequence, the players are the highest-paid in the history of the game, but should they lose the next match will equal the longest losing streak by Australians in Test match history.

More here

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/cricket/who-killed-australian-cricket/story-e6frg7rx-1226686589595

Reminds me of where England was about a decade ago, and West Indies before that.

[MikeH]

No, a decade ago was when years of hard work had started to pay off and we were becoming a good team, this is where we were like in the 80s. 2004 onwards we've been really successful, with the only major blip being the 06/07 series.

[Alexander's Horse]

yes whenever it was, I don't follow the English team that much, you had a horror period, like we are having now

[MikeH]

Ours lasted 25 years.

Much as I'm enjoying your present struggles I do fear for International Cricket without a strong Australia side to keep interest up.

[Alexander's Horse]

Agar's bowling in the series so far-

80.5 overs
16 maidens
239 runs
2 wickets

A strike rate of 119.5 over 80 overs.

Shane Warne's figures were similar in his first few tests. There was talk of dropping him.

[Alexander's Horse]

Ours lasted 25 years.

Much as I'm enjoying your present struggles I do fear for International Cricket without a strong Australia side to keep interest up.

The nadir was around the time Fletcher was coach?

[MikeH]

WTF?! he was responsible for the turnaround. 8 consecutive test wins, a record, and first ashes win for 18 years. He kickstarted us back into being a top test nation again. He struggled in his final 18 months or so but the first 6.5 years of his tenure were better than the 20 previous years and set the basis for current success IMO.

The nadir was between '86 and 2000 or so.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

England were still a strong team under Gooch's captaincy up until 1989 or so. The rot set in under Atherton/Stewart, and didn't turn around until Nasser Hussain took the captaincy.

[MikeH]

Yeah, ok true.