equatorEDIT: This is not a statement about how Australia is going to win the Ashes, this is a statement about how the so called experts on sky seem to know almost nothing about this new Australian team. This was my attempt at educating them.
Australia has not played cricket with Warne & McGrath for 2 years.
They DO have a leader of their attack, and he took 63 test wickets last year.
Phil Hughes has a wacky technique, but if you think watching footage of him make 19 in a one day game is the key to working him out you are on some crazy assed drugs.
This isn’t the first series Australia has played without Gilchrist, Warne, McGrath, Langer, and Hayden.
Australia beat South Africa in South Africa, England lost to the West Indies in the West Indies.
Peter Siddle has taken 20 wickets at 19 this year.
Australia don’t need to pick 5 bowlers to win the Ashes, they just beat a better team with 3 bowlers and Andrew McDonald.
Simon Katich, and not Phil Hughes or Ricky Ponting, is the wicket England need.
Beat Mitchell Johnson, win the ashes.
Lee may not even play.
Brad Haddin will make more runs than Gilly did in ’05, maybe quicker than Gilly did in that series.
2005 & 2006/07 mean almost nothing, this is two new teams. Australia are young, hungry, and more fragile . England are calm, well stocked and missing guns.
Forget anything that happened over 2 years ago, and start looking at the present.
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“Australia don’t need to pick 5 bowlers to win the Ashes, they just beat a better team with 3 bowlers and Andrew McDonald. ”
Thats an unnecessary low blow. Its bad enough that in his short test career Bonnie has tasted defeat in 25% of his matches, reducing that to 11% is ludicrous and embarrassing even for England. And you’re giving the poor guy high hopes, I’m betting on Symond’s nth comeback.
Couple of quibbles.
South Africa is not England – Deck Hitters are shit if they can’t get swing or reverse swing going…
Unlike Paul Harris, Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar do try to take wickets once in a while…
Still… my money is on a 2-1 win for Australia, 1 match will be drawn because of the rain, and another will be a high-scoring bore draw.
Alok, Monty doesn’t try to take wickets, he tries to “hit the right areas”, and Australia’s part-timers will probably take more than him.
“This was my attempt at educating them. ”
Why hammer your head on a steel gilted rock?
You certainly right, England’s not South Africa. England are rubbish. England lost the home series to SA 2-1 last year and I reckon England are gonna get ploughed by this young exciting Aussie team. Flintoff is overrated and Strauss is gonna crack under pressure as he will be coming up against a REAL world class side. Mind you Australia can be beaten like the way India and South Africa showed the cricketing world, but I don’t think England have the bottle to pull it off. The West Indies don’t count really, only if there were millions of $$$ offered then we’d see a completely different performance from the islanders.
My prediction: Australia 3 – 0 with rain winning the other two
I have heard some of the more outrageous stuff on Sky. It is obvious that they believe it is only McGrath and Warne that stopped them from winning every series against Australia since, well forever really and now it is theirs to lose.
Willis for one has been dismissive of the Oz team. He thinks Siddle is crap, well actually he seems to think everyone bar Punter and Johnson are crap. It sounds like he is speaking about Bangladesh the way he is going on. Nasser isn’t much better.
Botham is always incredibly optimistic anyway.
I’ve never heard them quite this bad and I am used to it as each May win against a lesser side at home usually makes them fairly bombastic.