Pakistan 258 & 7/180 (50.4 ov, Imran Farhat 67, Azhar Ali 51, B Hilfenhaus 3/39, D Bollinger 3/51) def Australia 88 and 349 by 3 wickets. T2 D3 at Headingley, Leeds. Series tied 1 all.
A friend of mine (a Yorkshire and England supporter) was at Headingley for the last day of the Test. Here's his report:
Just back from Headingley after a 2 1/2 round trip to watch an hour's worth of cricket..... decent cricket, mind you, and well worth the trip.
Hilfenhaus and Bollinger were on fire and, whilst Mitchell Johnson bowled well in his one-and-a-bit overs, if I'd have been Ponting, I'd have kept Bollinger on until the result was known. There would have been plenty of time to have a rest in the changing rooms this afternoon, whatever the result. The Aussies didn't give up and placed an attacking field with three slips, gully, point, short midwicket, mid-on, mid off..... only the fine leg was outside the "circle".
Bollinger had two decent lbw appeals turned down, a catch to point that could have carried (advantage batsman) and a slip catch where everyone in the East Stand heard the snick but the umpire didn't.
Had any of those gone for for the Baggy Greens, the outcome might have been more interesting - and when was the last time a team scoring 88 runs first went on to win a Test match?!
I can assure you that Pakistan were hanging on for grim death at the end and the relief amongst the players and the scant but partisan crown was plain for all to see.
The Aussies can feel proud following today's performance but what a shame the batsmen let them down so badly on day one.
So there were are.......for me Bollinger looks a class act - where's he been all this time - whilst Hilfenhaus looked solid and bowled well, too. Ponting, as ever, the master-captain. I would not write off Australia for the Ashes just yet.
Scorecard
Cricinfo Bulletin
Fox Sports Report with link to video highlights.
Showing posts with label Headingley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Headingley. Show all posts
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Australia batting folds as Pakistan bowlers exploit conditions: T2 D1
Pakistan 3/148 (39 ov) lead Australia 88 (33.1 ov) by 60 runs on first innings: T2/ D1 Headingley, Leeds
If you'd predicted before play started that one team would, after the first day's play in T2, have a lead of 60 with seven first innings wickets in hand almost everyone would have thought you were very wide of the mark (and the form guide), but that if it, or anything like it, did happen it would be Australia, not the supposedly dysfunctional Pakistan, in that position. Wrong.
The atmosphere was, as for the first few days at Lord's, conducive to swing bowling. The Pakistan bowlers exploited itwell brilliantly. Simon Katich didn't reprise his Lord's anchorman role, nor did anyone else step into his shoes after he was first out at 20, what turned out to be the highest partnership of an Australian batting meltdown .
Mohammad Aamer 11-4 - 20 -3, Mohammad Amin 10.1 - 1- 30 -3 and Umar Gul 9-3-16-2 used the conditions most effectively ( and even part-timer Umar Amin chipped in with 1/7 from 2 overs) Their accuracy and movement troubled all the Australians, who looked collectively and individually out of sorts (and form).
There's no avoiding the unpalatable fact that the captain, vice-captain, Mr Cricket and the senior pro (Katich) were all out before lunch after contributing 19 between them.
6/73 at lunch was poor enough yet Mohammad Aamer snuffed out any hope of an Australian revival with the first two balls after the interval when he bowled Steve Smith and Mitchell Johnson (and wasn't far off claiming a hat trick with his third)
Pakistan didn't fall apart with the bat either, though the Australian bowling, apart from Shane Watson's two late wickets, lacked the accuracy and nip to keep them under pressure. While Pakistan has a reputation for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory it'll require a turnabout like the one six months ago at Sydney for Australia to win from here.
Scorecard
Cricinfo Bulletin
Fox Sports Report with link to video highlights.
Update 22 July (before start of D2 play)
Many commentators have made much of the fact that Ricky Ponting won the toss and chose to bat instead of putting Pakistan in. I haven't because, as far as I can tell from watching the highlights on Foxtel (confession: I went to bed soon after the Pakistan innings began), there wasn't much change in the conditions between the two innings, There may have been a liilte more sunshine but the fundamental truth is that the Pakistan bowlers bowled more accurately than did the Australians and reaped the rewards.
If you'd predicted before play started that one team would, after the first day's play in T2, have a lead of 60 with seven first innings wickets in hand almost everyone would have thought you were very wide of the mark (and the form guide), but that if it, or anything like it, did happen it would be Australia, not the supposedly dysfunctional Pakistan, in that position. Wrong.
The atmosphere was, as for the first few days at Lord's, conducive to swing bowling. The Pakistan bowlers exploited it
Mohammad Aamer 11-4 - 20 -3, Mohammad Amin 10.1 - 1- 30 -3 and Umar Gul 9-3-16-2 used the conditions most effectively ( and even part-timer Umar Amin chipped in with 1/7 from 2 overs) Their accuracy and movement troubled all the Australians, who looked collectively and individually out of sorts (and form).
There's no avoiding the unpalatable fact that the captain, vice-captain, Mr Cricket and the senior pro (Katich) were all out before lunch after contributing 19 between them.
6/73 at lunch was poor enough yet Mohammad Aamer snuffed out any hope of an Australian revival with the first two balls after the interval when he bowled Steve Smith and Mitchell Johnson (and wasn't far off claiming a hat trick with his third)
Pakistan didn't fall apart with the bat either, though the Australian bowling, apart from Shane Watson's two late wickets, lacked the accuracy and nip to keep them under pressure. While Pakistan has a reputation for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory it'll require a turnabout like the one six months ago at Sydney for Australia to win from here.
Scorecard
Cricinfo Bulletin
Fox Sports Report with link to video highlights.
Update 22 July (before start of D2 play)
Many commentators have made much of the fact that Ricky Ponting won the toss and chose to bat instead of putting Pakistan in. I haven't because, as far as I can tell from watching the highlights on Foxtel (confession: I went to bed soon after the Pakistan innings began), there wasn't much change in the conditions between the two innings, There may have been a liilte more sunshine but the fundamental truth is that the Pakistan bowlers bowled more accurately than did the Australians and reaped the rewards.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Close shave for Ponting, though not for Australia: T4 D3
Australia 445 defeated England 102 and 263 (61.3 ov, G Swann 62, S Broad 61, M Johnson 5/69, B Hilfenhaus 4/60) by an innings and 80 runs: Ashes 09 T4 D3 at Headingley, Leeds.
When Ricky Ponting led Australia onto the field at the start of play his clean shaven face (the first time I can recall seeing it thus so early in on a match day) indicated that he wanted, and probably expected the match, to be wrapped up quickly.
Well, some beer match hitting by Graeme Swann and Stuart Broad didn't postpone the inevitable for too long, even if it did show what might, just might, have been achieved had those higher in the order shown more application.
Mitchell Johnson accelerated his series improvement and Ben Hilfenhaus maintained his Ashes form, yet Stuart Clark and, to a lesser degree Peter Siddle, disappointed with the ball, and some of the Aust fielding was pretty lethargic too,
D3's biffing, which at least did give the crowd something for their overpriced ticket money, (and let the skinflint Yorkshire authorities off the hook of giving a refund) was fundamentally a coda to a monumental form reversal by each side.
Of course this isn't the first time this has happened in this series: remember Cardiff and Lord's?
Will it , can it, might it happen again? No comment....just now.
Scorecard
When Ricky Ponting led Australia onto the field at the start of play his clean shaven face (the first time I can recall seeing it thus so early in on a match day) indicated that he wanted, and probably expected the match, to be wrapped up quickly.
Well, some beer match hitting by Graeme Swann and Stuart Broad didn't postpone the inevitable for too long, even if it did show what might, just might, have been achieved had those higher in the order shown more application.
Mitchell Johnson accelerated his series improvement and Ben Hilfenhaus maintained his Ashes form, yet Stuart Clark and, to a lesser degree Peter Siddle, disappointed with the ball, and some of the Aust fielding was pretty lethargic too,
D3's biffing, which at least did give the crowd something for their overpriced ticket money, (and let the skinflint Yorkshire authorities off the hook of giving a refund) was fundamentally a coda to a monumental form reversal by each side.
Of course this isn't the first time this has happened in this series: remember Cardiff and Lord's?
Will it , can it, might it happen again? No comment....just now.
Scorecard
Saturday, August 08, 2009
Strengthened Australia outplay weakened England: T4 D1
England 102 (33.5 ov, P Siddle 5/21, S Clark 3/18) v Australia 4/196 (47 ov, R Ponting 78, S Watson 50): Ashes 09 T4 D1 at Headingley, Leeds
298 runs and 14 wickets from 80.5 overs.
Not a bad day's cricket, eh? Up to a point, depending on your allegiance.
It was a disastrous one for England, weakened by the withdrawal of Andrew Flintoff, whose batters crumbled in the face of an Australian bowling attack strengthened and refocused by the selection of Stuart Clark.
Andrew Strauss must have been discombobulated by all the last minute uncertainty about whether Matt Prior - yet another casualty of the modern warm up regime - was able to play. The keeper was, and top scored with 37* as all around him succumbed to the four Australian quick bowlers.
Strauss, having been reprieved by Umpire Bowden from an lbw verdict from the first ball of the match, started the procession when he was well caught in the gully off Peter Siddle. Ben Hilfenhaus and Mitchell Johnson picked up a wicket apiece but it was Clark's combination, not often seen so far this series, of movement and accuracy which ripped the heart out of the middle order and set the scene for Siddle to mop up the tail. He finished with 9.5-0-21-5, Clark 10-4-18-3.
With his characteristic lucidityGideon Haigh in The Times summed up the difference Clark made:
Australia have wanted all summer for a bowler who understands line as a cardinal virtue, who strives above all for consistency, who tries to make batsmen play but is averse to surrendering easy runs off the pads — now they had him. He bowled the day’s first maiden, didn’t concede a first run until his seventeenth delivery, claimed his first wicket with his 21st — and every bowler around him benefited ... The question inevitably will arise why Clark has been made to wait so long for his chance on this trip, when his experience, especially of Lord’s as a former Middlesex player, would have been invaluable.
When Australia batted Simon Katich failed but Shane Watson with yet another 50 (51/67b, 9x4) and Ricky Ponting despite (or maybe because of) the booing which greeted him overhauled the England first innings total before Graham Onions and Stuart Broad took three late wickets including Ponting's for a belligerent 78 (101b/12x4, 1 x6) to give England some small consolation for an other wise appalling day.
Disclosure: I thought that Siddle should make way for Clark, leaving Nathan Hauritz in the team to provide some front line spin. So far I've been proved wrong.
Scorecard
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