Tuesday, August 30, 2005
4th Test
Another roller coaster ride for English and Aussie cricket fans.

After being outplayed for the third time in three tests, despite narrowly loosing two of them and drawing the third, Australia find themselves in unfamiliar territory. Last time they were behind in an Ashes series, they had five more games to turn it round, and did so with a vengeance - blasting England out the way in three of the next four. Oh those heady days.....

This time, they only get one chance to make amends.

Hopefully it will not all come down to the toss of a coin. If England win it, they will bat out all five days on the flattest, driest and most benign pitch that the groundsman can muster. If Australian win it, there are enough batsmen whose career is riding on this innings to make a big score.

Either way, the Aussie batsman must all start to perform. They are not bad players all of a sudden, yet Warne is averaging above Katich and then both Lee and Warne are averaging well above Hayden, Martyn and Gilchrist. This is simply not good enough. Even Clarke and Ponting are scoring too far below their average for their form to be acceptable.

Is the time ready for Hussey over Hayden?

Much also rests on McGrath's shoulders (though hopefully not too much on his elbow). At Trent Bridge the Aussie attack was diminished to essentially just Lee and Warne (who also scored pretty well with the bat). Operating with just two bowlers does not bowl out teams like England twice. Even with McGrath back, Tait will need to contribute more.

Prediction: DRAW. England will win back the Ashes. There is no shame in this, nor injustice, for they have been outplayed so far. When a team has held a trophy for so long it is inevitable that it will loose it, eventually. But what a great series.

Apparently there are rumours that the English Premiership season had kicked-off, but these rumours have been unsubstantiated.

---