The Ashes 2025/6

A few pics from the Sydney 2000 cruise  ship.Thanks to Anne & Nick and Ray & Sue for making sure I got a decent spot on the viewing platform I didn't notice this at the time but I think thats meant to be the late Queen in the archway Always iconic and it takes my breath away every time I see it I think I lost my balance taking this  but I like how it turned out. One of the archways of the bridge. White lights for Bondi Fireworks over the SHB

The  weather was a bit off today so I spent the morning at the Sea Life Aquarium. Basically lots of fish to see, with the odd crustacean, reptile, and bird. I went with my old touring friend Martin Padfield, we had our photo taken as we went in and quite sensibly Martin has kept the publishing rights to the picture. So with that avenue of pleasure denied to my loyal reader,  I thought I'd start with a night time shot of the city from the rooftop bar (Blossoms) at the Pullman, just to prove that It was open occasionally View from Blossoms at night with the Hyatt in the background So back to the Aquarium visit a few videos follow Jellyfish Little fish Big fish Not a fish And so with that many of us are off to Sydney at some ungodly hour. Stay tuned.

A brief summary of a day on the River Yarra A view of the 'G' in the distance We hadn't noticed the  low bridge coming up Angel by Deborah Halpern (this deserved a better picture). So here is something off the interweb... We need a bigger boat Melbourne skyline from the river  (photo: Graham Brewster ) Seasons greetings The pillars on this bridge have no function,  they are purely decorative

 Given that today should have been Day 3 of the surreal Boxing Day Test it only seems right to post a picture of a cow in a tree. A cow in a tree There was good piece in the Sunday Times by Alistair Cook about the Test.  It was pretty much a written version of  some of what he said at the CATO breakfast at the start of Day 2. The article is behind a paywall, so I'll briefly repeat his main points here about the lack of preparation for the tour :- England only played one warm up game among themselves before the first Test, so by the time they got to the first Test in Perth, they weren't match hardened When it came to the day night game in Brisbane, England had players like Jamie Smith, who had never played in a in a pink-ball game of any kind, and yet it had been known for years there was going to be a pink-ball Test England haven't got a fielding coach, and were dropping catches in in the first 3 Tests while Australia were taking worldies (breathtaking catches - ed) There...

Well who would've thought it? Most of us thought that Australia would bat all day today and then bowl us out tomorrow. I know most folks have snapped pics of the Dennis Lillee and Shane Warne Statues outside the ground, but these are my snaps for what they're worth                                      Dennis Lillee                           Shane Warne At the pre-match CATO event downtown this morning both Alistair Cook and Ricky Ponting, both remarked that the grass on the pitch was too long at 10mm and so disrupted the balance between bat and ball. I thought that compere , said it could be 2-1 after todayDamien Fleming's sheep could maybe be put  to work to take off a top layer. The Ponting and Cook Gardening hour As an aside, I thought Cook was a much better raconteur/story teller, than he is comm...

A Bazball Another crazy day in the world of BazBall, to be fair the bowlers did a good job, Tongue deserved his 5-fer (and don't forget he's on a hat trick, when he bowls next). But the batting was a disaster. Duckett is fried, Bethell is not a #3 Test batsman,  When he plays for Warwickshire, which is not often these days and is part of the problem, he bats at 7 or 8. It was obvious that he was going to fail. It was also obvious since Brook has switched back his default setting (see his first ball), that he was going to get out before he got to 50. Surely someone  has to accept responsibility for this cluster-f*ck, and my vote is McCullum, sincehe is the responsible line manager. He should be jettisoned before he does permanent damage to England Test cricket. Of course some structural changes are required. If it was up to me I would mandate that centrally contracted players play a minimum of 5 red ball fixtures for their county per season, and that the ECB should arrange the ...

  The weather has been pretty cool today (that's the temperature, not the vibe). So much so that  the temperature with  the wind has been required the weather services to issue a warning (I hope Damien Fleming got it - see my blog of Day 1 of the Brisbane Test) A bit of weather I'm very grateful for the fleece that I bought from Adelaide airport on the way here, as we had been warned about the variation in the weather here. Never-the-less the Christmas lunch was very good. and the sun did come out in the end. I thought the riverside view added to the occasion. crackers for lunch Just a few snaps taken on the push back to the hotel. A bridge over the River Yarra Flinders Street station    St Paul's cathedral Let's hope for a good day at the Test tomorrow. Looks like it will be chilly, so I will get more use out of my fleece which I bought primarily for the return to the UK.

 A good day sampling wine in the Yarra Valley. The weather could've been better but we learned that the cooler temperatures in the Yarra valley contributes to lighter wines than from the rest of Australia. Wine weather We found time between wines for some good chit-chat about the upcoming Test. I think we've all seen the team announced today (Pope Dropped, Bethell in at 3, Archer out for the rest of the series injured, and Atkinson recalled). Its all too late of course, but the selection meeting would've made for an interesting fly-on-the-wall experience... The England Selection Committee hard at work Show some dog; briefly a candidate to replace Pope,  until Bethell was noticed in the corner of the room. England Team transport recently purchased There is no doubt that this will be an interesting Test and fun to be at. See you all at the Christmas Lunch tomorrow... Oh and there are only 12 countries where the sole vowel is A (if you allow Myanmar).

Well Christmas is coming. I only know this because my youngest daughter sent me a Christmas Card to my hotel (which is not the Hyatt - ed), which features her two lovely children ( my Grandchildren obvs). So please excuse the indulgence for choosing the card as the main feature picture today. I havent been doing much today as I spent the morning in a walk-in clinic getting my foot problems seen to. Zara (top) and Remy  looking cute for Christmas The only other thing I'll mention today is to recommend the Guardian podcast on the series so far. What I liked about this podcast, is that its not by former players, but by analytic journalists  (including Geoff Lemon, who some of us met on the group trip to Tangarooma on Dec 9, see the blog for that day) so you get a perspective a little different than from former players like Vaughan and Atherton. Once the cricket starts I hope the blogs become a bit more exciting! Lets see if England go radical and drop Pope, and Carse play Bethe...

Only a brief blog tonight readers A few of us spotted this warm welcome to Melbourne at the airport Welcome to Melbourne (photo: Jonathan Blake) As a few of us were waiting for our transfer this afternoon we picked a House XI (thanks to Alan Breckin, and the late (of this tour) Ian Dutton, & Steve Bramley for help with this. Alan and I also had a brief conversation with Graham Swann (who was in our hotel) about his opinion of the tour so far; He was scathing to say the least, and went as far as to say that the England player's don't really give a sh!t, and his offer to help coach spin bowling has been rebuffed by the ECB A House XI Rob Key (shouldn't really be in the team because he is part of the problem) Ian Bell David Steel(e) Olly Stone Freddy Flint(off) Mark Wood Bishen Bed(i) Ian Ward(robe) Matt Windows Colin Croft Michael Slate(r) Mervyn Kitchen

  I guess most of us have by now have read all the reports on the match today and commentary on what losing this series means. So I don't need to repeat that here, but here is the piece by Stephan Shemilt on the BBC interweb site which is worth a read if you're late catching up. The urn at Lord's I  had occasional thoughts that we might just pull this off when Jamie Smith and Will Jacks were going so well. Smith and Jacks doing their best In this series we have had three problems. 1) our batting isn't good enough, 2) our bowling isnt good enough, and 3) our fielding isn't good enough. But apart from that.. But in summary in this match if Duckett and Pope had done their job, we might well have won with a record run chase. There aren't many highlights, but Jofra Archer has had his name added to the honours board for his 5-fer. I posted previously about my tour of the Adelaide Oval earlier on the tour. The highlight for me, without getting my name on the honours ...

It was a good opportunity today to view proceedings from level 5. The appreciation for the game situation is so much moreenhanced if you can see the whole playing area at once Up in the Gods We just about got to the end of Day 4. which was better than I predicted yesterday. Here is a snapshot of some of the action from high up. I was quite pleased with this shot ( you may need to enlarge it) Boland (at the point of delivery) to Crawley Was it too much to ask for Crawley and Duckett to survive the 10 minutes they were required to bat before lunch? The answer to this academic question, in the absence of multiple choice options was 'yes'. Duckett having a swish outside off stump to Cummins which of course he should've left. But he couldn't (because the situation was serious, and his job is not performance related) Joe Root came in at No 3 (no need as usual to bother to count Pope's contribution). Pat Cummins contiinued through the afternoon session to see off Root play...

Just prior to the start of play I managed to grab a picture with the glass urn How to urn your keep (or how to keep the urn) To get play started Ian Botham (or Lord Botham if you absolutely insist) rung the bell to start the day's play, on condition  that he was not ringing for last orders... You can ring my bell... Well the day's play  panned out pretty much as expected, although our last couple of wickets hung on for a bit longer than I thought and it was great to see Jofra Archer get his maiden Test fifty. If we had any hope of saving this Test, our bowlers had to put in a shift at the office, but they bowled like they were WFH. It was basically cafeteria bowling. Joe Root couldn't bear to watch in between his turn to man the cafeteria, and he signed some bats for the kids. Joe Root signing bats (or maybe refund cheques?). At some point, After getting bored with Travis Head choosing the 'all you can eat' option at the cafeteria Jim Robison and I turned our attent...

I met my Perth friends here in Adelaide, having spent time with them in Perth previously (ssee my blog from the Perth Test With Margaret and Tom from Perth in Adelaide The temperature was intense today, and the St John's Ambulance guys were very busy treating folks. I was lucky to get my foot seen to, but my troubles weren't as serious as heatstroke For the cricketing point of view it was great that Jofra Archer picked up the last two overnight wickets to get his 5-fer. It was well deserved after Brisbane where dropped catches denied him better figures. More Snicko issues today, both involving Jamie Smith, who was earlier in the series given out controversially in Perth when he clearly hadn't hit the ball (I blogged about that on here at the time on that at the time (see my post of November 22). This time for the first Smith incident it seemed clear to me that the ball hadn't carried (I think To Khawaja?), so it didn't matter what the ball hit (gloves or helmet seem...