Thursday
It is good that Perry has supplied us Samizdatistas with a category called How very odd! to describe our oddest postings, because how else would you describe the calculation that England are now, still, the second best test match cricket side in the world?
On the other hand, England really are that bad at one day cricket.
Lucky for us that there are only two teams playing or we wouldn't even make second place.
Posted by Dave Petterson at January 11, 2007 06:36 PM
I doubt we even deserve second place in a field of just two teams. Perhaps the position of 'also played' is deserved of this team.
Posted by Julian Taylor at January 11, 2007 10:24 PM
"I doubt we even deserve second place in a field of just two teams"
It's quite bewildering when you remember how good they were in 2005
Posted by Tex at January 11, 2007 11:03 PM
The thing which must be realised when thinking about the recently completed Ashes series is that the average Englishman has just no idea how much Australians hate losing the Ashes. For some reason a lot of people over here seem to think that the 2003 Rugby World Cup victory was a bigger deal for taunting Australians than was the 2005 Ashes victory, and that is so far from the truth as to be ridiculous. On that occasion about a third of us where over it by bedtime, and the other two thirds of us were largely or entirely unaware that the event was on. The Ashes loss on the other hand completely destroyed any claim we might have had to any virility as a nation. You have to remember that Australia had a national cricket team 24 years before it had a national government. It is an exaggeration to say that federation of the Australian colonies occurred in order to provide support for the cricket team, but the national spirit that came from the victories of the cricket team is often mentioned in histories of federation.
So you just have no idea how much losing the Ashes hurt last year. (As an Australian who lives in London, I am glad of this). Therefore winning the Ashes back was seen as something of a religiously compelled holy duty, and Ponting and the Australian team would have had difficulty going twenty seconds without being reminded of this. This explains the whitewash as much as does the failings of the England team. I am sure England will play quite well against the West Indies and India in the summer.
Seriously, though, who else would you rank as number two? Inda are the only team besides England who have put up any challenge against Australia recently, and even they haven't beaten us since 2001. Their performances against other opposition are very inconsistent, so I don't think they have a strong claim to the number 2 place for now. So who else?
Posted by Michael Jennings at January 12, 2007 06:02 AM
