Thorpster is back, fuming with England, Trevor Baseless and fraternising with Australians at his Christmas do...this is worth a chuckle or three.
Baseless |
Last week I got an interesting insight into an Aussie view
of this non-event branded as the greatest contest in the world. I was sharing a
room with a normally bombastic, fair dinkum Aussie who usually enjoys nothing
more than getting stuck into the auld enemy. Before you ask I wasn’t paying for
services other than a room for the night after the annual work shindig.
As we headed to the hotel to dump our gear and get changed I
asked my mate what he thought England’s chances were to which he responded
“it’s the WACA mate and the way your blokes are going it’s going to get ugly
pretty quickly.” He seemed surprised when I told him that England were 300-4 at
the end of day one. Very predictably, a bit like England, we were completely
shredded by the end of the night after stumbling around the dance floor hopping
about like Stuart Broad facing Pat Cummins from around the wicket. The site of
two balding middle aged men “busting the moves” to Christmas anthems, was I
imagine a bit like watching Brian Close and John Edrich facing the chin music
of the West Indies at Old Trafford in 1976. I love the video they show on sky
when Andy Roberts, the Antiguan express, says it was the only time he didn’t
enjoy bowling as it felt like beating up two old age pensioners.
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Thorpster after his Xmas bash... |
After the party finished we made our way to the kebab shop
and then back to the hotel, fighting against the inevitable head spinning, the
like of which has affected many an English batsman this series. As I awoke my
Aussie roommate made his way gingerly to the toilet with as much enthusiasm as
Jimmy Anderson heading out to face Pat Cummins at the WACA. “Tell Weribee to
open both pumps”, was the cry from the bog as my mate “dropped the kids off”
and I turned on my phone to see what was happening in Western Australia. I am
reliably informed that Weribee is a famous Australian sewage works, so I’ll
leave the rest to your imagination. Anyway back to cricket and neither of us
were surprised that England had collapsed to 400 all out from 268-4 and the
Aussies were well on the way to surpassing that mediocre total.
My mate was surprisingly uninterested which was down to a
combination of the inevitability of it all alongside the fact that we had to
get to work. First though we headed to breakfast where the sight and smell of
his fry up did me as many favours as the opening chasms on the WACA deck did
for James Vince, so I decided to go for the plum tomatoes and hash browns to
soak up the alcohol; a bit like the Perth curator trying to soak up the wet
patches, pre the inevitable conclusion to affairs.
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Plunkett...absent |
My mate’s attitude basically summed up affairs in Australia.
The whole thing was and is a no contest. On those tracks with the Kookaburra
ball why do we insist on playing four Tommy Rundlers (T.Rundlers) at the 80-85 mile an hour
mark? Surely someone like Liam Plunkett should have gone on the tour and been
told to steam in. What I also found interesting and puzzling was some analysis
on BT sport which showed that Josh Hazelwood’s average speed had gone up 5 mph
since he got into the Australian test side. Meanwhile the likes of Jake Ball
and Craig Overton have lost a good few mph during the time that they have been
around the England squad. This must say something about their mentality, coaching or
both.
On the batting front why take Ballance as the reserve bat
when he is a sitting duck against full and short which is what the Aussie pace
trio serve up relentlessly? There are some positives in that Malan looks a
player and Vince has shown some nice cameos, while Rocky Stoneman has shown
some guts at the top of the order. Obviously the crab like Cook and skipper
Root, whose conversion rate is not exactly Dusty Hare, are the major
disappointments, while Mo Ali has had a shocker with both bat and ball. It was
also in hindsight a major error to leave 'Butting Bairstow' with the tail in the
first two tests as his fine hundred in the third demonstrated. I can’t see it
going any other way than a 'Glenn McGrath' now with another positive meaning that
futile attempts to stay awake during the night can be avoided.
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Werribee...like England's performance |
In conversation between Dan and I, Bayliss has been renamed
Baseless and Listless but England have a decision to make. Do we want to
continue pulverising opponents in home conditions with the ball swerving around
corners and nipping about like old gits on a dancefloor while continuing to be
on the receiving end of Ben Stokes style beating whenever we venture overseas?
As ever we need to find a way to keep quicks bowling quick and not turning into
Martin Bicknell and James Kirtley and also to find youngsters who actually turn
the ball.
If we don’t change the status quo I fear during every
challenging overseas tour, rather than rocking all over the world, we will keep
asking Weribee to open both pumps, as we stink the place out.
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