Its on ... again

Well, four years after what I still believe is the best Test series of all time, we are very close to it all beginning again.

In preparation, I re-read my final match report on the previous blog. It really brought it all back to me. It got me thinking about changes to our lives, the teams and to cricket itself

Four years ago, I seemed to have the time to write 20,000 word essays every other night ! I can't really remember how I got it all done but think most of it was done on the train to and from work. Four years on and I am a father with another on the way. My son James owns a Lion and cricket bat from Lord, courtesy of Dave, and knows that the answer to "Who was a batsman ?" is of course "Don Bradman", something he took great pains to tell Dave on the phone this morning. We also regularly watch cricket on Youtube and James is particularly taken with Kevin Pieterson and his innovative shot making, as you can see from his one handed sweep in the kitchen. In between explaining the benefit of a straight bat and sound defence, I will be posting articles but fear I won't be able to replicate the volume. Let's see !

In terms of the team, well quite a bit has changed. I have so many memories of the 2005 series. For me, this series was Warne and Flintoff with support staff. Sure, there were so memorable performances outside of these two, notably Pieterson, but Shane and Andrew were the stars.

Warne single-handedly kept us in the series with mesmerising bowling, runs at crucial times and captaining the team on many occasions; I remain convinced it was 3-1 or 4-1 without him. This series made me realise what a wonderful, once in a lifetime player he was. I understood why so many forgave all his idiocy for so long and I too found myself saying "Yes, but what a player" whenever his latest Text message based mess appeared on the front pages of the newspaper

Whereas Warne kept Australia in it, Flintoff won it for England. He was the difference in all the important moments. I maintain that he was the best bowler in the world in this series, as I still believe England were the best team in the world for that short period, and on top of that he made runs and took vital catches. I will never forget him luring Hayden further and further to the off which three late away swingers in a row to the left hander only to knock over his leg stump with one that moved into the Big Flat Track Bully (BFTB); genius

The 2005 series also had some sad moments: Who can forget watching Ponting struggle to captain the side with three or four senior players around him at all times "helping" him make the decisions ? Who can forget the destruction of Gillespie ? The poor bloke simply stopped being an international cricketer all of a sudden and it was embarrassing and painful to watch. What about Katich tapping the ball ? Tapping, tapping, forever tapping, never having the confidence to play a forceful shot. He looked out of place and ridiculous and his career was over at that point

Fast forward to 2009 and things are quite different. Both teams have done some very silly things in the interim. Let's pick out a key stupid act for each: England's is the captaincy.

For some reason, the English selectors believe in Ayn Rand's concept of the super human that brings the rest of civilisation along with him. I call it the SuperMan complex. Thus it was with Botham's appointment as captain and thus it was again with the twin disasters of Flintoff and Pieterson. Why do the English selectors continue to believe that the best player in the team is

a) going to remain the best player when given the responsibility of captaincy; and

b) is any sort of a captain ?

Flintoff was awful on the last tour to Australia. Unfit, under performing and clearly with a fractured dressing room, he lead / escorted the team to a 5-0 humiliation. What to do after that ? Of all the options, I thought giving the added pressure of the captaincy to the guy who had the biggest ego in cricket and was also the most exciting batsman in the world, was probably the craziest. "It will all end in tears" read my text message to Dave and so it did. A crazy end to a crazy business saw Pieterson bring himself and coach Peter Moores down in a ball of flames that was as quick as it was sad

Australia didn't fare much better. We are now no longer the best team in the world. I think we are probably equal with India and South Africa with each team being able to beat the others on a given day. Out of all the interesting bits and pieces that got us to that point, our search for a replacement for Warne was bar far the worst.

We were in a great position, with world beating Stuart McGill waiting in the wings but when his 2 pie an over diet started looking more like 5 or 6 we really fell to bits. Beau Casson, with a first class average of over 40 was tried and discarded after one test and Beau currently can't get a state game. Brad Hogg was shocked to find you were allowed to bowl more than 1o overs a game and quickly retired after a short go. We sent Cameron White to India as our specialist spinner, much to Cameron's surprise as he doesn't really bowl himself in State cricket and considers himself a batsman. Then we gave Jason Krejza a go, whereupon he took about 14 wickets against the best players of spin in their own conditions and then got one wicket in his second test against guys that don't like spin much and so we sent him packing back to State cricket.

Next, we sent an injured Bryce McGain (who I actually think is an excellent bowler) out to face the South Africans and cringed as he was smeared all over Cape Town to the tune of 0/149 from 18 overs. Finally, after Nathan Hauritz moved to NSW to get a game and struggled to do so, we pulled him out of grade cricket and made him our Test spinner. After our recent history, how can that decision go wrong ?

Cricket itself has moved on also. 20 20 has seem the introduction of the oddest group of characters since the Addam's family made it's television debut. India now rules the roost, David Warner is an international cricketer (which I refuse to ever acknowledge) and we all got to know a man named Allen; Allen Stanford that is.

I made my feelings know on Sir Allen elsewhere but let's at least celebrate the fact that he gave us the name of the Blog: Stanford's Lap. Thanks Allen, without you the blog may have been called "Ashes 2009". By the way, is Giles Clarke still head of the ECB ? If Iranians can march in the streets under threat of death then people of England, get your marching boots on for Giles must go. Getting into bed with Allen is totally unforgiveable. I am happy to organise a good old fashioned lynching if it helps.

Sir Allen explains the finer points of Cricket to Mrs Matt Prior

I think 20 20 is the death of cricket and has opened the doors of hell from which dodgy con men like Allen spewed forth, bringing with them corruption and general befouling, the likes of which cricket has never seen. It will take a long time to recover from this and there will be great angst in between. 20 20 will be overplayed and underwhelming. Players will learn to play it and it will become formulaic. The public will get sick of it and Test cricket will have been underinvested in so won't be as strong to fall back on. Cricket is at risk people, it is at risk. Support Test cricket before it is too late

So, with that as an introduction, let's all get excited about the upcoming series. Let's follow our team hard but let's be fair and applaud when the other group plays well. We need to remember that no matter what happens this year, we are ultimately all sitting in someone's lap. Hopefully, not all the laps are facing 250 years jail time though.