The Ashes

I'm quite surprised by how long it has been since I've posted on cricket, but this incident is definitely worth noting: England have finally beaten Australia in Australia, retaining the Ashes. With this, Ricky Ponting has become the first Australian captain to lose three Ashes series (2005 and 2009 in England, and now 2010 in Australia) in the last fifty years, at least.

<CORRECTION>
I realize I miscalculated. England are up 2-1 in the series, which means there is no way they can lose the series. Thus, they are definitely going to retain the Ashes (since they won the last round). However, Australia could still win the final Test and draw the series 2-2. While they won't regain the Ashes, they will at least have the pleasure of denying England an outright series win in Australia. Similarly England will want to win (or at least draw) the fifth Test, in order to pull off a series win in Australia and to actively win the Ashes.

Given that rain is predicted in Sydney on all five days of the fifth Test, Australia are going to have to make a real effort to win this Test. 
</CORRECTION>

A lament for the halcyon days ...

... when it actually used to be an even contest between bat and ball. And now we have this article from Cricinfo to prove that batting in the fourth innings of a Test is no longer a test of anything other than the fielding side's endurance. I'm not in the mood to think deeply about this issue, but throughout my cricket viewing days I've seen the balance of the game tip inexorably towards the batsman and away from the bowler. Virtually any variable you can think of works in favor of the batsman: heavier bats, shortened boundaries, free hits, utterly lifeless pitches, harsh legside wide rules, restrictions on bouncers and intimidatory bowling, mandatory ball changes just as the ball starts reverse swinging / spinning, the throw-the-kitchen-sink-at-it approach driven by Twenty20 … the list is endless. Now some of these developments (I'm thinking particularly of new, innovative batting techniques) are the result of changes in the culture of the game, and are healthy because they force both batting and bowling sides to be more creative. But most of the other developments are idiotic, foolish changes mandated by cricket's governing bodies to encourage stupid inanities like hitting sixes (pardon me, DLF maximums (and shouldn't that be "maxima"?) ) that suit nobody other than the advertisers. 

I'm seething with rage and not entirely coherent right now, so I'm going to end this post, but I beseech the ICC to please, for the love of all that is good and holy, redress the balance between bat and ball and to give bowlers some ability to bite back. Oh what would I not give to watch Holding and Marshall splay Ponting's and Hussey's and Pietersen's stumps!

<UPDATE>

Looks like Cricinfo heard my cry of anguish and decided to offer Allan Donald a platform to argue that ball tampering should be made legal to try to redress the balance between bat and ball. I'm not yet certain how I feel about this, but one thing is for sure: if this is allowed, we're going to see a heck of a lot more batsmen hopping around the crease looking uncomfortable. I haven't had my morning cuppa yet and so all arguments below are automatically suspect, but (a) this is a piece of legislation which is hard to push through for political reasons, but which will have an immediate effect in strengthening the bowler's hand against the batsman; (b) this will quickly weed out the not-so-deserving batsmen who've entered Test cricket recently on the basis of heavy bats and bat speed in Twenty20 and nothing else; (c) this will eliminate one old source of Anglo-Australian whining whenever they've been done in by a superlative Pakistani bowling performance; (d) any change that will have the effect of showing Dravid's worth to the world is a good one.

</UPDATE>