Who ever is running the playing schedules for the Australian cricket team need to take a good hard look at them selves. what were they drinking/smoking/thinking when they decided Australia will tour India before the Ashes?
Going over there to toil in the humidity of an Inidan summer is not ideal preperation. Look what happened in 2005. Won in India for the first time in a long time then went to England and lost the ashes for the first time in a long time! So why aren't they learning from past experience. Is it that they are complactent? Well if they are they sholdn't be. England are humming along at the moment and the Australians are far from that and a tour of India, which is notoriously a tough tour, will not help matters.
It seems that Australia will do it the hard way if they are to succeed in the Ashes this year and may help to set up an intriguing series. but the ones with the more confidence will previal more on that soon.
In recent posts I have got stuck into England saying that they will be no match for Australia in the up coming Ashes tour. However, recent performances against Pakistan have shown that they are more than capable of beating Australia.
Pakistan who drew the two Test series with Australia 1-1 have been comprehensivly beaten by England. This is the best yeard stick to which you judge two rivals with out playing one another, for them to play the same opposition in a short space of time.
While I do think that England are now able to beat Australia I still come back to the fact that playing in Australia is totally different to playing in england. Conditions in England are more friendly to bowlers and in Australia it is alot harder to bowl teams out twice.
Although on current form and results you would have to say that England are by far the more threatening of the bowling attacks and their batsmen could all benfiet from friendly batting conditions in Australia. this will make for an interesting series one hopes but still I can only see one result. Australia winning
Australia were woeful during the two test match series against Pakistan in England. And they will be the first to admit it. But does this mean Australia's long regin at the top of world cricket is over? Well maybe.
This was the first Test match cricket some of them had played in a long time. With Johnson and Hillfenhaus coming back from injuries they were always going to be under done and they looked like it. The most imporant thing for Australia was not to lose this series and to warm up for the Ashes later this year.
It was shown once again in Australia's first innings in the second test that they have not learnt to play swing bowling well. Bowled out for 88 was very disappointing and many blame Ponting for sending his batsmen in on a deck like that. However, If they were able to negociate the swing for more than one and half sessions they would have enjoyed the batting conditions Pakistan had later in the day. So I don't blame Ponting, solely, I blame the batsmen.
Speaking of the batsmen Marcus north has surely played his last Test innings for Australia. He should not have been chosen for the second Test. Just because he took 6 wickets in the First game doesn't mean that his batting will improve as well. Usman Kuwaja would have been the better choice. Give the young guy some experience and blood youth into the team. After winning the first game Australia couldn't lose the series only draw it, which happened anyway but get Usman into the team to get to know other conditions than Australia.
This however, does not mean Australia can't come back from this. They now travel to India to play Test and one-day matches. A place they have enjoyed not much success, so again may not be a true test of thier main goal of winning the Ashes. The fact that Australia struggle against swing will not be of concern in Australia, It rarely swings and if it does, not a great deal. As well The Kookaburra balls don't swing as much as the Dukes the English are used to using. As well the Australian attack will have more yards under their belt and shold be hitting thier prime by the time November rolls around. And above all they love playing in their home conditions.
James McKeown
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