What's wrong with Mitchell?

Mitchell in a moment of reflection

 

I have a confession, I've never rated Mitchell Johnson.  Before the tattoo's and the tash I really couldn't see what all the fuss was about.  I'm no real expert but when I first saw his action I thought pretty much every kid in our back lane had better actions at the age of seven and none of them had been anywhere near a coach never mind a cricket club.  In fact, one of my first memories of a game of cricket at school was around that age.  We had a relief teacher at the time who decided we should play cricket.  We used a bin as a wicket as our school didn't really have much and the rule was you had to bowl overarm.  Now the new teacher didn't know this.  One of my oldest friends the autumn flame haired Steven Elliott grabbed the tennis ball after we lost the toss.  Steaming in he caused great controversy by unleashing the over arm delivery.  Inspired by watching footage of Willis and Botham he produced a side on action with a nice high arm.  DONG! as the ball hit the bin, it was like a church bell chiming as the wickets fell.  I think he finished with something like:


1-0-21-15 


In reply I batted first and against the underarm bowling of Christine Imlah I proceeded to smash the 22 required to win the match before the teacher shouted 'Come on Thompson, let someone else have a bat now'.

Steven Elliott, demon bowler at eight years old

 

You know what as Steven matured through childhood you could throw him a ball and he'd run in and bowl side on with the seam coming out.  What became of this working class bowling hero?  We'll he never played club cricket and probably hasn't played any cricket in the last twenty years.  But you know what?   I reckon if I tossed him the ball now he'd run and his action would be better than Mitchell Johnson's.  You see, its repeatable.


When your action is crap, the seam doesn't come out straight, you've got a low arm then there is little margin for error.  Add to that a fragile almost Harmison like heart its a heady mix.  Mitchell is now Australia's biggest bowling headache. 


Dennis Lillee on seeing Mitchell Johnson bowl declared him as ‘once-in-a-generation bowler’, even Ricky Ponting was publicly gushing about the abilities of Johnson and had said that he could not wait to have him in his team. Armed with the support of such greats he made his debut for Australia again New Zealand in 2005. Though it was an unremarkable debut he impressed the observers with the speed and the bounce he generated.


Once in a generation?  Come on Dennis, you're kidding right.  As for this pace I've yet to see it.  When he came to England I was really expecting something of the pace of Brett Lee or Shaun Tait.  The clue here was the unremarkable debut.  What Australia have got here is their very own version of Steve Harmison.  On his day on the right track he was unplayable, hostile and fast.  On an off day and there were more of these he was poor, misdirected and sullen.  We learned our lesson and Harmison is nowhere near the test team now.  Australia must learn from us.  Technical flaws and a fragile mind cannot be fixed easily.  Australia must move on and leave him behind.

Who are the obvious contenders for his spot?   Dug the Rug has had a fine year but come on, he wears a wig.  Is Strand for Strand hair technology not good enough for him?  Ryan Harris?  Really?


How old is Glenn McGrath?  Seriously get him in for the next test and he'll get more wickets than the current bunch.


On the flip side one bonus in this test was the bowling of Jimmy Anderson.  Haddin described the opening spell of him and Broad as one of the best he'd faced.  The English press has questioned his chances long before the tour began because of the mysterious Kookaburra ball.  It goes soft they exclaimed!  Loses its shine early, feels like an orange after 3 overs.  What will Anderson do?

England's bowling coach David Saker summed up the strategy such:

'He's bowling the ball in an area where he's always putting the pressure on a batsman to make a good decision, and if he can do that, he's always going to be an asset whether it's swinging or not.'
Glenn McGrath built his career on bowling in the right area and I can't ever remember him swinging the ball. 

A Grim day in 1989

During the fifth test at Trent Bridge in 1989 Marsh and Taylor batted all day and departed the field with Australia 329-0.  The worst part of that day was having to tell my Dad after a long day at work.  Working in an environment without a radio and in the day before saturated sports coverage my Dad would eagerly cycle home intent on an update.  Had time allowed he would have cycled to my Grandad's at lunchtime to catch a half an hour of TV coverage.  As he wheeled his bike into the garage I could see his earnest stare looking for some sort of reassurance regarding the score.  There was no easy way to butter it up.  I gave him it straight.


'Australia are 329-0'


'What?'


'Australia are 329-0'  


My writing talents can't really convey the complexities of emotion etched on his face as he unpacked his bike bag on his faithful Raleigh Gentleman

How refreshing it was that at last we have exacted some kind of revenge for this awful day in our ashes history and as Cook and Trott swatted away the Australian bowlers with almost disdain I thought of the harding working Australian men making their way home knowing what was going on.  The terse words for the wife, the impatience with the children and the maelstrom of confused thoughts. 

This is not what happens to Australians. 

The mauling of November 2010

Well, we have been mauled. England finally gave us a breather by declaring on 1/517. We took one wicket in about 2 full days of cricket. One. Not two, not three, not four or more, but one. Taken by a part time bowler who I have already said won't play the full series. England's top 3 all got very good hundreds with Cook, who I really now need to admit is decent at this level, making a big double. If not for the ever nice Andrew Strauss sending us in to have a nice little net before the second Test, I fear Cook and Trott would still be batting now; in the dark and continuing to grind us down.

The reason I never rated Cook is that as my wife pointed out, when I was forcing her to watch late night international Test cricket on cable television, he always looked absolutely terrified between balls. He would block one, walk over towards square leg with an expression that was pure "I want my Mummy". After pausing long enough to regain a tiny bit of courage, he would slowly, very slowly, walk back to the stumps, shiver as he tapped his bat for what seems like an age, before lifting his face towards the bowler rushing towards him, squint and drop his head in fear, shake a little more before finally fishing outside off stump to the groans of the keeper and slips. He may well have been full of self belief but he sure never looked like it.

Worryingly for Australia, Cook didn't seem scared at all in this Test. Mind you, 302 runs for once out should do one or two positive things for your confidence. Ian Chappell also pointed out that he seems to have stopped trying to crash 4s through the covers off the front foot and getting himself caught behind. He now seems content to ease it into the gap for 2. We might see a bit more of Cook in the next few Tests. I hope not, but we might.

In retrospect, the wonderful Hussey / Haddin partnership and Siddle's hat trick probably papered over the cracks a little. Take those two feats out and we may have struggled not to lose. Adding a little bit of wallpaper onto the paper was Ponting's excellent batting in the second innings. If he can play like that for 6 hours or so in the next Test, he might just win it for us by himself (which he may in fact have to do).

Everyone has turned against us. Jamie Pandaram thinks we are choking. My hero, Peter Roebuck, has already called the series for England. Times must be tough because I get the impression that Peter doesn't always have the best relationship with the country of his birth.

Even the bowling machines have turned against us with one bowling Ricky a completely unexpected bouncer and almost killing him. At least former Michael Clarke co-conversationalist Lara Bingle was supporting us, in her own unique and very, very modern way.

Understanding that if he didn't laugh he would cry, Ricky Ponting probably went a little overboard in the manic cackle department in the middle of the 5th day

*********************

Most long term sports followers understand that it is very important at times like these to blame someone. Luckily, we don't have to search long for the reason for this well below par display: Mitchell Johnson.

As a bearded fisherman said to me the other day, Mitch needs to feel the cut of the selector's axe and show us that he has what it takes to bounce back. In other words, he needs to grow a pair and show us that he really wants it. We have put up with streams of tripe for the occasional flash of all too short brilliance for far too long and I for one am sick of it. A Ponting man crush can't save him this time. Let this be the beginning of the "Ditch Mitch" campaign.

Opinion of The Ditchable One is varied but all focused on a common theme: he is bloody awful.

Mike Atherton sees no real issue with Mitch's form, aside from three minor things: "he can't bat, bowl or field”.

"at the moment, Johnson is Australia's greatest problem", writes the ever eloquent Atherton. No argument here Athers nor will there ever be. The fact is, once you begin an article with "I am an alcoholic. At least I had to sign a form saying I was. Twice, actually", as Athers did in 2009, you are pretty much guaranteed my attention at all times.

Former Australian swing bowler Damien Fleming goes a step further in simply saying that Mitch should be dropped to work on his action.

"Mitch has some technical issues and it can't be changed from Test to Test. I think he needs a good couple of months of remedial work and making sure he gets into a position to release the ball with a stable seam. Where he is now, I think that's miles away", says the man that would have taken two Test hat tricks where it not for Shane Warne deliberately sabotaging the second one.

Semi professional cricket analyst and swing bowler himself, Bryce Thompson, would remind everyone that he has been saying exactly the same thing for 4 years. Why does it take a former Test player to say it for everyone to listen?

Jesse Hogan in today's Sydney Morning Herald has three simple words to describe The Ditchable one: slow and wicketless. Difficult to argue with really.

Phil Lutton, also in the Sydney Morning Herald, saw all this coming a few days ago and summarised his thoughts with the think piece entitled "Johnson all talk, no substance". My former indoor cricket captain Colin would have called a similar same issue "All duck or no dinner". Well, actually that probably means something slightly different but I wanted to work that in somewhere, somehow as I always liked it.

"England fans and media – and most likely the players – don’t think he can bowl", screeches Phil. English fans, media and players appear to be right.

Some random bloke with a blog got into the act (suspend your scepticism about random blokes with blogs for a second) with a withering attack on the body art of the Ditchable.

"Johnson has hitch hiked the bogan bandwagon all the way to tattooville by covering himself in more ink than the Sydney Morning Herald". A pretty neat turn of phrase really.

The Daily Mail gets right to the heart of Ditchable's talk not living up to his actions.

"I'll make Strauss crumble, says Mitchell Johnson (the bloke with the pussycat tattoo)"

Anyone wishing to understand the gulf between modern players and those of yesteryear should click on that link and have a look at the picture. No wonder Andrew Symonds turned to drink. The Don would be rolling over in his grave and you just know Ian Chappell is organising a posse as we speak.

Whilst all of these are great, they are probably all striving a little bit hard to bash Mitch the most. Therefore, I thought it best if the Johnson character assassination was completed by someone who isn't perhaps as prone to hyperbole as myself or any of the other merchants of hate that I have referred to above: my Father.

I was pretty impressed with Dad's work when he outlined the reason why Mitch originally began his ever escalating decline: too many tattoos. Paraphrasing isn't going to do it justice so it is best repeated verbatim.

"My theory on why Johnson is, generally, performing very poorly is based on an accepted, and therefore proven, medical fact. He has too many tattoos. Now don't get me wrong. I'm all for a relatively small tattoo, or maybe two, for obvious reasons [STANFORD'S LAP: HE HAS TATTOOS HIMSELF]. However, Johnson has far too many.

Ordinarily, it wouldn't matter to me but, in the case in question they are, simply, too heavy for him to carry around with the result that his bowling arm is not moving quickly enough, nor is his arm "pliable" enough to effect those subtle changes needed to be put on the ball at the time of release, his batting stance and his backlift together with the downwards movement he puts on the bat are all badly off balance because he has more tattoos on one side of his body compared to the other, and his fielding resembles that of an very elderly person due to the weight of his tattoos slowing him down considerably and detrimentally affecting his agility and dexterity."

Pretty convincing stuff. However, nothing prepared me for the depth of out of the box thinking that went into uncovering the final straw that broke the Johnson camel's back: the moustache. I leave you for today with my Father's three part facial hair based theory on Johnson's woeful performance this Test. Again, it is produced un-edited.

"Okay! Okay! I said that my Moustache theory on Mitchell Johnson was for another day but, although not yet that other day, I think I should share it with you now. The moustache contributes to Johnson's bad form because of three things.

The first one is the Reverse-Samson Syndrome. You would be familiar with the biblical character, Samson, whose enormous strength was contributed to his long hair and that strength was purported to desert him when the baddies cut his hair. I have no doubt that Johnson suffers from Reverse-Samson Syndrome when the extra hair he has, in the form of the moustache, saps his strength. I'm sure those health professionals amongst us would not deny that Reverse-Samson Syndrome can be acutely severe.

The second one goes to the fact that Johnson's moustache puts a hell of a lot of extra weight onto his top lip. The result is that, during his run-up and at the time he releases the ball, he can't keep his top lip (and, therefore his head, including his eyes) at the same level as he used to be able to. Obviously, he then focuses well short of a good length which is precisely where he pitches the ball. Far too many short deliveries.

The third one gets down to a lack of concentration. A moustache harbours tastes and smells for a very long time. Johnson's concentration suffers greatly when he's out in the middle due to the fact that, from his moustache he tastes or smells things that distract him completely. You see him. He looks to the crowd, or up in the air, or anywhere he shouldn't be looking. He's looking to try to find where that taste or smell is coming from. He's saying things to himself like, "Is that last nights curry I can smell/taste" - or something along those lines. His concentration level is shot completely.

I do have a lot of other things I should be doing instead of sharing my theories with you. However, sometimes it's good therapy for oneself and for those whom you inform, to share such knowledge."

Heaven only knows where he gets it from. It's not from me, must be from his mother's side. Wherever it's from, it sure is good !

Mitchell Johnson wasn't sure why, but he had been convinced that he could either taste or smell curry for most of the last 3 days

Onto Adelaide next. I see we have included Ryan Harris and Doug the Rug in the squad which can only be good news for "Ditch Mitch" campaigners everywhere. Doug has just taken 3/32 off 20 overs in the Shield game. He is cranky and ready to Ditch Mitch.

Technology Saves the Day

So, as the North of England grinds to halt due to early snow storms my Wife decides that we should drive to the North to visit her parents.  Three problems here:

1. Snow storms in the North
2. No Sky, no live cricket at the in-laws
3. A seventies style heating system that blows hot air out with the force of a gold fish's fart

Its my Father in laws birthday soon so I was in no position to launch any objections.

Sure enough as we ploughed up the A19 we were hit by a snow storm and we crawled into Teeside.

The whole Hussey-Haddin partnership has quickly penetrated the gloss surrounding the England fans new world of optimism and the demons of old quickly returned.  I could imagine two of my more pessimistic mates were actually enjoying it and preparing their '...I told you so sermons'.  Seriously England cricket fans are that scarred by the last two decades.  One dropped catch, one good Australian session and we're back to the doom that is total Australian domination.

Having gone to bed just before the start of play I invoked Plan B.  Out came the Netbook, I enabled the WIFI hotspot on my HTC Desire then launched the excellent SkyPlayer


Almost straight away the action burst into life before me.  If ever there was a justification for the world of modern gadgetry and mobile phones that have far more functionality than we'll ever need then this is it.

Strauss and Cook looked very comfortable and once you saw that Watson gets a bowl before Johnson then you do a relax a little bit.  As I drifted off to sleep I wrestle with the demons of the Ashes of the last 20 years.  I dare not dream to think we can actually bat through the day.  Even the English press are beginning to suggest this is an uphill challenge. 

I have a fitful night sleep in an unfamiliar bed as the cold bites through the bed clothing.  Waking frequently I resist the temptation to touch my mobile for fear of cursing some potential progress.  Images of Steve Waugh with his bat raise and Ian Healy leaping all over Warne haunt me.


Morning comes with a slight thaw in the room and I scramble around trying to grab my phone without exposing any flesh to the elements.  I skill I honed as a student some years ago living in a house where we had no heating at all.  Blinking bleary eyed at the BBC website I couldn't quite believe what I was reading.  They had batted all day, two centurions, ordinary bowling.  I feel bad for doubting the boys but then I realise the rejuvenation of England cricket doesn't just depend on this match it will be a long process.  We have twenty years of being battered to overcome.

On Hussey, Haddin, English openers and chest hair

It's great to see that the mad, mad week of the English side of the Stanford's Lap partnership has come to an end and that Dave has launched his first 2010 post. A good one it is too.

Its interesting speaking to Dave about the cricket when I am in shorts with the air conditioning on whilst he is navigating thick snow. Many elements of the world circa 2010 not only confuse me but downright worry me. However, being able to discuss cricket happenings in real time with your mate on the other side of the world for very little expense is clearly a good thing. For this, I will put up with the human race updating their Facebook status every 12 seconds and Ashton Kutcher sending me pictures of his wife on Twitter.

Anyway, what about the cricket hey? The past 2 days should have reminded us all that this will indeed be a very close series. Each team has already demonstrated that they are capable of both brilliance and mediocrity in equal measure.

The batting of Hussey and Haddin on Day 3 was simply excellent. Both were in vintage form with Haddin driving crisply down the ground like he does in top nick and Hussey unleashing pull shot after pull shot for 4 as he did in his first two years in the top flight. I admit that I was starting to wonder whether we should stick with Tim Paine after he played the previous 4 Tests while Haddin was getting his elbow right but this innings has reminded me why we should pursue Brad for a little longer (however his missed catch off Siddle in the first innings reminded me why I was considering Paine for a longer stay in the first place. So be warned Brad, Stanford's Lap's selection axe is still hanging over your head !).

England's bowling again varied a little. Anderson's bowling on the third morning was spectacular, exactly the sort of stuff I expect from him after watching England play quite a bit via cable TV. Many Australian supporters only remember his pretty poor work from the last tour so I have no doubt people will take him a little more seriously after this Test. Finn got the big haul but I remain unconvinced. I not exactly sure why but I just don't see a long term success with his action. The radio experts spoke about hip thrust quite a bit and whilst I originally thought they were discussing the pole dancing from the previous night's after dinner entertainment, they were in fact talking about how Finn gets all his speed from his upper body and doesn't use his hips. I am presuming this is a more knowledgeable way of me saying that I think his action looks a bit funny. Anyway, hip thrusting: important in bowling.

As I write, Strauss and Cook have both completed excellent hundreds and got England firmly back in the game. I keep thinking Cook is a young fella that needs to break through at Test level but a quick check of his stats shows that at only 25 years of age, he has played 60 Tests, made over 4000 runs at an average of 42 with now 14 hundreds. I need to adjust my thinking on Cook as they are clearly good figures. He and his skipper have got England in a great position. Everyone should take note that the old England would have capitulated after the Hussey / Haddin partnership and lost the Test by now. In contrast, this England side turned on a big partnership of their own and fought back. They have the ability to win the series here and judging by this, they might also just have the mental strength to do it as well.

Speaking of capitulation, our batting is still suspect and there is the chance that if we need to chase 180 on the 5th day that we could fall apart. Gee, I hope not but these days it is very much possible.

The Bowler Formerly Known As Xavier is bobbing along so far, looking decent rather than a match winner. In line with our policy on spinner management, we should have turfed him out before the end of this series. If we take the Beau Casson approach, then X will never play again after this match and be struggling for his very life in around 18 months or so. Speaking of never playing again, why don't we discard Mitchell Johnson. I think he needs to be taught a lesson. Quick, gun barrel straight full tosses outside off stump just don't seem to be getting the wickets they used to.

************************

The patron saint of Stanford's Lap, Sir Allen Stanford, has been in the news lately. For those that don't remember, Sir Allen was the Texas real estate and finance billionaire who lived in, appeared to own most of, and was knighted by, Antigua who bought English Cricket for a little while there for a 20 20 tournament in his own image. The low point of the event was Sir Allen spending some time with the English wives and girlfriends whilst their gentlemen were on the field playing. The pregnant wife of English Wicketkeeper Matt Prior was even encouraged to sit on Allen's lap ... and thus the blog was named. The true horror of this event cannot be converyed in enough detail, there are just so many terrible bits to it. If this is the modern game then, two years later, I still want nothing to do with it.

Anyway, it all unravelled for Allen fairly quickly after that with him now in jail awaiting trial for a vast number of charges of serious skulduggery and general dodginess. He popped up in the news again recently having been beaten within an inch of finding his way to the great Sir Allen Memorial Oval in the sky. No word on whether the hit was put out by the ECB, Matt Prior, or both or someone completely different. I suspect there would be no shortage of people looking to discuss the finer points of event management with Sir Allen.

The perpetrators of this dastardly deed are as yet unknown but it suffices to say that Stanford’s Lap are yet to receive any more letters from Sir Allen’s lawyers regarding the use of his name in the title of this blog

On a side topic, much to my surprise chest hair has been a fairly hot topic around this Test.

First, I was speaking to someone at work when I mentioned that as I am a person of relatively solid body hair I was a strong supporter of the ever hirsute Simon Katich. He took this a little differently than I had intended and began telling people that I liked hairy men; not the outcome I was after, though upon reflection I am slightly unsure as to exactly what outcome I was after. Anyway, even if Katich wasn't hairy I would still think he was excellent, based solely on the fact that he is prepared to give the ever annoying and fair too image focused Michael Clarke a thump in full view of his team mates, captain and no doubt media representatives.

Secondly, my wife piped up this morning, completely out of the blue, with

"What is it with all the tattoos the Australian cricket team have now? Why don't any of them just have medallions hanging over thick chest hair like in the 70s?"

No wonder I proposed (albeit the evening after we visited the Bradman museum. Hey, at least it wasn't in the museum itself). For an English lady, she is acclimatising nicely.

My wife, understandably, longed for the 70s and their almost mandatory chest hair / medallion combination

England 60 ahead with 9 wickets in hand. I am getting slightly nervous now.

Late breaking news: the 4th day is complete with England 88 ahead and still with 9 wickets in hand. I am now worried. Come on Siddle, bustle a few out !

Has it started? The Ashes?

Has it started? The Ashes?

I've had a particularly mad week and before I knew it I was sat in bed watching the first over of the test. For no other reason than there was a lot on I'd managed to not saturate myself with mass media Ashes coverage and suddenly before I knew it I was tuning into the toss. The nightmare that was 2002 and Nasser Hussain's '...we're going to field' were still very prominent in my mind.

'We'll bat' said Strauss. Get in I thought. 140-0 at lunch and we're off.

The preparation has been excellent. We didn't get stuffed by the Queensland Ministers Invitation XI like we normally do and nor did some retired former test player swot us all over the park. What could possible go wrong? Strauss's third ball for a start. Damn, damn, damn. He'd fallen in to the Australian trap. Had he not realised that they were '...going to target Strauss'? How could he be so naive?

As he trudged off Twitter went into meltdown. Searching on #ashes there were about 70 tweets per second coming in.

Then something happened in the next over that gave me hope. Alistair Cook played a forward defensive where his left foot actually came down the pitch towards the ball and his front leg bent appropriately at the knee. I quickly grappled with my mobile phone and texted Stewart in Australia with the message 'Cook to get a ton'.

As I drifted off into sleep Trott and Cook seemed to have weathered the storm and the Australians made the mistake of releasing the pressure by bringing Mitchell Johnson on to bowl.

I'm sure that at some point in the early hours I checked my phone and the score, but then I dreamt about checking my phone and the score and they were both quite different. When I woke up in my mind England were on fire with hundreds from Cook and Collingwood. For some odd reason Sky Sports were showing some old clips of Siddle taking a hat trick. Hold on? Is that Australia batting. Ah crap. Damn that fine line between dreams and reality. As I trudged despondently to the shower I could hear my daughter asking her Mum '...have we won the Ashes yet' [muffled response] 'Oh, can I watch my tele now?' At which point the Ashes was replaced with Little Einstein's.

Another hectic day followed and my staying power was waning as Katich and Watson dug in early doors. I really can't believe how Watson has resurrected his career as an opener and he really does look a good player. Good feet movement combined with a really straight blade. I though Hussain was going to blow a blood vessel on Sky as he repeatedly showed in their 'Third Man' section how both Katich and Watson were vulnerable to the straight fuller delivery. No one had told the England bowlers though.

This morning I awoke to the highlights running and watched Swann getting clubbed by Hussey. Sir Geoff said in today's Telegraph that this was the worst he'd seen Swann bowl in test cricket to date. This worried me as most of the English press seem to think all our hopes are pinned on the cheeky chappy. Is the pressure too much?

England bowled well though in the session between lunch and tea before Haddin and Hussey pinched the last session.

England are poised with the new ball tomorrow...........

Thank goodness for Peter Siddle

Well, gee wizz if Stanford's Lap's very own Peter Siddle hasn't proved why we were pushing his case for Test selection so heavily. It was always obvious to this humble correspondent that Siddle should play instead of Doug the Rug (even if Doug is from NSW) and we are just glad he proved us right. Well done Peter on the hat trick, we always knew you had it in you. What a champion.

No blog posting until the end of the second day for reasons which will become clear but all in all it was a day of intense learning. For instance, I learnt that a truly remarkable number of plays on the name "Peter Siddle" are possible. We have had

Hat trick hero (solid and straight to the point)

Peter Siddle you bloody beauty (earthy but possibly a bit long)

Birthday boy (factually correct but maybe a bit obvious)

Super Siddle (starting to get there)

Sizzling Siddle (now we are onto something)

Siddle sizzles (probably a copy of the previous one)

Peter Skittle (we are humming with tabloid satisfaction now)

and by far the silliest, smartest, best and worst of them all

Peter Siddle, Pom disposal expert

Tabloid journalism: you just never know whether to laugh or cry.

I also learnt that Peter's mother often spends the entire day in her pyjamas. She sounds like my kind of girl ! Hang on, her son is also a wood chopping champion (well, Victoria’s West Gippsland junior champion). Never a good idea to make smutty comments about mothers of men with axes so lets just forget all about it.

Peter Siddle was that shocked to learn that his tattooist didn't actually know how many wickets there were in a hat trick after all

If I didn't already know it, I also learnt that if you go to a very large pub straight after work with a large group of current and ex-colleagues and watch cricket on a large screen, have a large amount of hot chips, nothing else, and combine that with a, some would say, almost irresponsibly large amount of beer and stay there for a large amount of time then the next day you feel largely poor for an inordinately large amount of the day. It was a large amount of fun though.

I only stayed for one, but felt remarkably average throughout most of the next day

****************

Well the second day was just as tense and see sawing as the first. Some good batting from Katich and Watson and what looks to be shaping up as a real classic from Hussey. He has probably lifted the pressure on himself for the rest of the series with this knock. It wasn't so much how many he got but the fact that he looked so confident and aggressive. It was the Hussey of old.

What wasn't so good was our middle order; again. Ponting was out cheaply but at least not to a pull shot. Clarke mad only 9 or so and generally scratched around like a chicken who knows his feet about about to be lopped off and marinated (a small tip of the hat to my childhood neighbours, the Ahyongs and a big thanks for all the marinated chicken's feet in my formative years).

Unfortunately, Marcus North did nothing to prove to me that he shouldn't be immediately replaced by a bloke that I am certain will be a long term star, Usman Khawaja. Honestly, if you are a Test cricketer and you appear to simply have no idea why you keep getting loads of low scores, I think the battle is already lost.

"There have been a lot of times when I have been getting out really quickly" North said.

"All batters have worked out that the first 30 or 40 balls in an innings are the most important. I am starting to work some good theories out"

Oh well, bloody brilliant fella. Tops that you are finally, 19 Tests down and in the middle of an Ashes series, starting to conjure up one or two vague bloody thoughts on the matter but not good enough I am afraid. I said that Uzzi would be playing in the 4th Test of the series. I am now moving my prediction up to Test number 3.

Bowling wise, England were a bit like our batting: inconsistent. Some really good stuff with lots of quite average stuff. Swann in particular was fairly innocuous today.

*******************

Finally, there was a great deal of talk over the past couple of days about the Parkinson like interview show that Shane Warne debuted this week. Whilst, he appears to have somewhat charmed the critics, at least the ones trying to cuddle up with his PR company, the feedback from actually viewers was a little more mixed.

"embarrassing"

were the thoughts of one intelligent, bearded gentleman that spoke to me about it.

"unwatchable"

opined another.

Whilst it does sound bad, I am secure in the knowledge that it can't have been the worst ex-cricketer hosted TV show of all time. That record goes to Matthew Hayden for the "Matthew Hayden's Home Ground" bile that the Lifestyle channel vomited up a few months ago. Unlike Matthew's 380, this is a record that will never be beaten. It was truly woeful.

At least both Shane's interview setting and style seemed to put his guests at ease

In late breaking news, the full front page of our local paper (not a Sydney paper but a free one just for a couple of suburbs around here) is today taken up with the engrossing story "Dog pinched kebab". Not really cricket related but interesting none the less. Apparently the dog was caught. No word on the kebab.