Friday, August 2, 2013

The Ashes: Old Trafford Day 1


The Ashes continued last night at the newly refurbished Old Trafford, with England 2-0 up with 3 to play and one draw away from sealing a series win.

With Clarke electing to bat having won the toss, Rogers and Watson made a comparatively good start, reaching a modest 76 before losing a wicket, with previous opening partnerships of 19, 84, 42 and 24, the Rogers led partnership dealt heavily in boundaries, and Watson who looked to be settling in for a long grind of an innings. Rogers made a dominant start to the match, making a solid 84 which went a fair way to consolidating his position for the rest of the series.
Rogers driving through the off side


Having watched the highlights of the wickets, I'm more disappointed in the fact that:
1- Watson didn't leave that ball, he'd made a nice watchful start and got drawn forward for standard ball that wasn't doing much at all. Once again, he got impatient, trying to force the pace of the game in a Test match against a ball that didn't need to be defended against. Another dismissal that supports my theory that Watson needs to be dropped from the test side. He simply doesn't have the patience for this game.
2- Khawaja didn't drive that ball to the fence. Nice and full ball outside off stump, turning away, and instead of moving his feet properly and connecting with it, and sending it to the fence, he plonks his front foot almost straight down the wicket and has a swipe with his head nice and high. Didn't deserve to go out under the amount of controversy but the technique and terrible shot execution gave Swann the moral victory in this instance anyway.

DRS needs people a non-umpire to operate it, as it seems too many of the thirds are currently too scared of the political backlash to overturn wrong decisions. What exactly is the ICC match referee doing if not this?

Clarke celebrating his hard fought  century.
Having gone to bed quite early last night, it was nice to wake up to the news that Clarke and Smith had made a 174 run partnership. Hopefully tonight we will see Clarke go on and make it a double while Smith, Warner and Haddin push the score over 550 before bowling.


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