I know this might astound some commenters on this blog, but the ashes is played between Australia and England and not Australia and India.
I understand some Indians (and others) might like to weigh in and that is fine, but please keep this on mind, this wasn’t some karmic retribution for Sydney.
It was three umpiring errors, that happens.
I understand Australian’s are pissed off with three mistakes on one day, but Strauss probably thought he caught it.
The catch was probably out, it was less out than Hauritz catch, and they should have probably shared the same decision. I believe both were taken, and both should have been given.
The umpires made a mistake in not referring it. Ricky, bless his hirsute arms, had almost nothing to do with it.
Australia and England have made no pacts for this tour (Anil shouldn’t have done it either) and there is no reason why Hughes or Bopara should have walked.
Players will keep claiming these catches. The video will keep being inconclusive or worse making catches look grounded when they haven’t been.
Every team in world cricket, even the three loud ones, have players who claim these catches, so this isn’t an issue of race (we’re all cunts) it’s just something that happens.
Australian’s shouldn’t whinge (about Strauss), India shouldn’t gloat (they’re hands aren’t clean), and England shouldn’t feel guilty (the umpires made the mistake).
So let us not get into a bullshit Australia India war here, at least until they next play.
That’s right. Jrod, You tell ‘em.
You wouldn’t credit that they’d try to hijack the Ashes for their own bleat, specially since many Indians were mouthing off beforehand on Cricinfo blogs that the series is irrelevant to world cricket these days – because it doesn’t have India in it – so how could have any importance?
Doesn’t stop them, though, from trying, as always, to turn it into something all about themselves.
LOL!
Should Strauss have gone for the follow on or 600+ runs ahead?
Is Clarke doing a VVS?
Will KP and Freddie be put down? Might this be Fred’s last match?
And congrats on getting the Crikey gig.
I don’t like cricket…
Well said.
But while we’re dealing with the comments on the other post, can you teach everyone the meaning of bump ball.
For some reason, people calling dodgy catches bump balls annoys me more than all the controversy over umpires and Ponting…
Classic! I wonder what Damien Martyn was saying on SBS during all of this, being that he went through a string of roughies in this series 4 years ago that effectively ended his career.
If you think these decisions were bad, read about this one.
http://thecrickettier.com/2009/07/19/usacaecday3/
Well, thats a nice tactic. You know you cant face the heat so quote some rubbish reasons to bury the topic.
Let me put it this way – it is delicious to watch Ricky and Aussie bloggers whining, that’s all. I agree with you that the Strauss catch should not have been given out, and ideally, Strauss should have not claimed it. But then , thats exactly what Ricky did to India, and pardon us if we gloat now- well and truly deserved, I’d say.
Besides everything else, it is wonderful to watch that f**ked look on Ricky’s face – i know you might think(not you, jord, but his general supporters here) he might even be an angel in disguise nevertheless it is fun to watch him f**ked.
All the same, Australia are winning this test so fair play to them. If they dont lose another wickeet before winning today, they’d have won by 8 wickets, actually. That’s an astounding feat so hats off to their winning spirit. But dont expect us to back off on pointing their ugly minds. Yeah, I know you have a one word rejoinder – Harbhajan but I slagged him before on this blog and I will be happy if he faces his comeuppance(there, I said it right here right now), so dont throw him at me as your defence
And jrod, thinking further about this post, I wonder if someone has hacked into your account – I mean, why would you try to prevent Indian bloggers from posting their thoughts on Ashes, howsoever tangential you might consider those comments? I havent seen such a pattern of thinking from you before. I mean, you do a song and dance about IPL, dont you? For God’s sake, thats a domestic tournament in India. You post all sorts of thought bubbles on that, dont you? Yet, we cant comment on a tenuous link between Sydney 2008 and this? We can’t? I mean, it is one thing for you to refute our theories but to blanket say that we shouldnt comment like that? What happened, sir? Is the real jrod alive and incharge of this blog still?
The word count of Raj’s comments are more than the post themselves. Cool down boy.
Amen, jrod, Amen.
A good gloat is all fine, but Indian fans are too bloody anal, too bloody insecure, and too bloody persistent last word-freaks.
And I’m Indian, for the record, and a raving supporter of our team. And i was pissed after sydney. But sheesh. It’s a terrific match on. Watch it, people.
Ah Raj, so many words without actually saying anything.
Nobody is preventing you from having your say, but a little less bullshit would be nice.
Enjoy watching the only test series in world cricket that matters mate, and not a bomb in sight.
stoppppppppppppp. stop this now. sydney 2008 is long gone. over. forgotten. people made mistakes. people cheated. called each other names. and in general behaved like monkeys.
Its june 2009 and we are still in the neanderthal age.
grow up you bunch of apes.
Raj – too long, didn’t read. That sort of psycho waffle is exactly what the post was referring to…
From here on “verbosity” will be simply known as “raj”.
yeah, I know you guys never bother to read others’ thoughts or give respect to others’ opinions – it is just “I am saying this therefore this is true”. So, whats new?
raj, we do bother to read others’ thought. Which is why we are here reading some other person’s blog and commenting on it.
To take offence of one’s action is okay if the action is incorrect. This is the reason why many including Indians like me had a problem with Ponting after Sydney. However, a year and a half has passed. The world has moved on. To keep taking offence of such an old incident is not on. Move on.
neanderthal monkeys! cut out the chatter. sydney 2008 is over. gone. forgotten. and u guys think these are comments? they made me puke, you dastardly lot. you just made an old man physically sick.
if i see one more comment on this topic, not only on this blog but anywhere out there on the internet, i will………………………
sorry jrod. i had fun typing this.
Dhananjay, I wasnt talking about you at all. Anyway, if a past incident is relevant to current discussion, then we do talk about it. To take a particular incident out of scope for all future and current discussions is mere escapism or an attempt to prevent a comprehensive discussion on the issue at hand. I find it funny that Aussie bloggers/commenters try to take this route out of a discussion – “move on”. No way, if it is kosher to talk about Sunil Gavaskar’s dharna on the field in 1980′s when you discuss a comment made by him in 2007, then this is definitely on.
raj – make a blog. write posts. sit back and wait for the throng of commenters. till then, don’t use the comments space for psuedo-rants. and just because you give a million jrod disclaimers won’t mean we don’t know how you feel about him.
Raj, read what I have written again. Go on, I’ll wait. Do you see it, the bit where I tell Australians and Indians to stop with the bull shit. I’m not telling Indians not to comment, I am telling them to get a frame of reference. And I am not telling Australians not to whinge, I am telling them to whinge for the right reason. Just for one minute take your head out of the anus that is the sydney 08 test and look at what happened in this test. Look at the comments on the two blogs about the Strauss catch, 90% of it is Australia India bullshit, and I am so tired of it. It’s a massive load of blood soaked semen. Your head is so full of Sydney Faeces that you, an intelligent man (and i honestly think you are), can’t read this post for what it says. If you want to question my integrity again, you are more than welcome to, but make sure you read what I am saying properly first.
Raj, it’s a bit much for you to say “you guys never bother to read others’ thoughts” after your reply to Jrod saying he thought both catches should have been given is “I agree with you that the Strauss catch should not have been given out”.
For what it’s worth, I agree that the past can be relevant, but I don’t think Jrod is saying otherwise – he is simply pointing out that most of the comments made about Ponting at Lords c.f. Sydney are not based in any sort of reality.
Jonathan, I actually wanted to say that the two catches should have been dealt consistently – either both out or both referred(which inevitably means notout). I do admit I misread jrod there but not in the way you wrote – I thought he was talking about consistency but re-reading, he is talking about both being out in his opinion. Plead guily, and apologise for that – I do read through carefully , well, many indian bloggers can testify that I am probably the only one who reads through their posts carefully – this time, the ranting got the better of me nevertheless what I meant was close to what he wrote. What I actually wrote wasnt :-)
jrod, I am fine with Sydney – all I am saying is when Ricky faces the same situation – we gloat, yes we gloat – might not be decent to do that but excuse us for gloating is all I am saying. I already saw reports that Oz newspapers are calling for the sacking of Koertzen. While that is perfectly justified, where are the people who cried for Bucknor in 2008?
All I am saying is I am really happy Lords happened because for people who were gloating against India in 2008, if they had some intelligencee, this should give some perspective. Clearly, the situations are so similar – are you saying they arent?
A ‘neutral’ umpire with a history of bad decisions against the visiting team
A host capain, in the heat of the moment, claiming a catch which at the best he might not have been sure of beign clean, and at the worst knew that he had grassed it
Many decisions against the visiting team, only a few against the host team
The differences this time were:
Host captain didnt gloat about spirit of Cricket after actually coming close to breaking it
Host captain didnt start a fight with a vulnerable opposition player by inciting him
Visiting team made a fight of it despite the bad decisions
And last but not the least…
Ricky has reacted very graciously – and truth be told, this depleted Aussie team handled the decisions much better in cricketing terms than India in 2008 – I mean, they just had to surivive a over of Clarke, they didnt; this oz team actually made a fight of it for 1.5 days. I’ll definitely admit that.
Other than that, the boot is on the otehr foot, and the reactions arent any different from what Indians reacted in 2008 -”We wuz robbed” seems to eb the theme of Oz papers per reports I read, and you can see that in the blogs as well – Strauss has been branded a 24-carat Cheat already. So, yeah, all this verbosity only reaffirms jrod’s point that we are all the same. We all overlook faults in our idols and gloat when a hated figure from the opposition suffers
I suppose all that remains is for some English Cricketer to racially abuse Harbhajan, and Indian bloggers to get all sanctimonious about it – but then, Bhajji is not so popular among Indian bloggers either, so you may actually see people celebrating if that happens. The Indian newspapers and TV channels will paint the town red, though, with their patriotic nonsense, that is for sure.
Karachi, you sure dont know. I dont care – if jrod asks me to, I’ll stop commenting here. For your information, I dont own a blog, and I write occasionally on BCCI – my last post there was day before and made fun of England and insinuated that only Rudi can win it for England from there on
it was 3 umpiring decisions in sydney as well. actually add one decision by punter when he signalled a decision for the umpire.
Raj, Why it is different. There were no pacts. Rudi is not anti-Australian, he won us a test against Sri Lanka. Both teams took low down catches, the mistake wasn’t the players, it was the umpires. It was similar the way Stars and Blade runner are similar, in that they are both sci fi films with Harrison Ford and over the top soundtracks.
My point was that you hadn’t read the post correctly, you suggested that I was trying to ban Indians talking about the Ashes, when I clearly hadn’t.
Raj, for what it’s worth, I don’t think it was just comments from the Indian point of view which had lost perspective… the big difference was the monkey business, and that tends to make comparisons difficult, or at least unusual in the world of blog comments where careful consideration is too rarely employed.
As for the similarities, doesn’t that just back up what was said in 2008? These things happen… as you say, it would be nice to have a bit more consistency, though.