Phil Hughes, who sees all innings as auditions for the IPL incase he gets bad press again, was at his attacking best. In two overs he inspired 23 runs off New Zealand’s most trusted bowlers. This included a smack over mid on for six from Vettori and his normal ugly effectiveness against the quicks. Hughes bludgeoned 86 off 75 balls.

At the other end, Katich protested the whole 20 over concept, his strike rate of 27 was a personal statement on what form of cricket he likes best. Katich was in his complete krab like mode and refused to even pretend to score runs. In the past this would have lead to a fantastic collapse from Australia, but Hughes youthful excitement made the 20 over chase a possibility at times.

While Australia did miss out on winning in 20 overs, they won the moral victory by winning the test. Doug Bollinger kissed his underwear after the match and Ryan Harris’ chest swelled so much that no one could fit in the change room.

New Zealand’s two cricketers, Prince Brendon and Dictator Dan, must be a little disappointed that their side made 564 in total, being that they made 42% of them (I think that is right) between the two of them. Vettori is thinking of changing the batting order for the next match with Tuffey to go in at 3 and for Ingram to bowl medium pace when the other bowlers are tired.

Only the carrot of the IPL can keep the smiles on the faces of the New Zealand middle order marvels.

This game might seem like just another test, but it could be the last time Australia ever enforces the follow on. Even though they won by 10 wickets with their dicks in the air, it must have made them nervous once the chase went over 100. Their nerves must be shot.

It should also be mentioned that Phil Hughes now averages 51.25 in test cricket. It doesn’t mean much, but it makes me smile a little.

Dear Mark Waugh,

Please stop all this Steve Smith dribble.

Yes, the boy has some ability.

Yes, he has cleared the boundary in a few big bash and One day games.

Yes, he turns his leg break and warney reckons he ok.

Yes, he looks like the retarded 12 year old love child of a seminal mix from Cameron “downsyndrome” White and his fat NSW team mate with the same surname.

Yes, he has only taken 11 wickets at 75 and made 1 hundred in first class cricket… oh, whoops… not sure if you knew that one. You tool.

But I do see some reasoning behind your push to see this pubescent Sydney-sider in a baggy green. There is after all only 6 blue-baggers in the current Australian test side, 7 if you count Ponting, which you should because his wife refuses to grant him permission to visit the Apple isle for anything paying less than a test match.

This number of players from New South Wales is clearly nowhere near enough, is it, Mark. As we all know the blues have been the benchmark of the competition for the last few years. Get some more of them in there please Andrew Hilditch. Oh… that’s right, you’ve tried to. Lets revisit a few of these:

Phil Hughes – Fair enough the kid can play, but it is a statistical fact that he has never scored a run on the leg side. EVER! Its true. Look it up. He also still has stains in his dacks form the last bloke who decided to bump him at more than 140km/h.

Phil Jaques – Scored a few runs at test level, and probably deserves another crack, but no one wants to watch the fucker bat. He is uglier than Kim Clijsters. And he throws like a 60-year-old woman.

Beau Casson – good tour of the west indies but seems to have forgotten how to bowl. Did do himself the honour of no-balling himself out of the game by bowling too many full bungers on one occasion though.

Burt Cockley – Please… even Big burt was offended with his call-up. Bowls a mean half-volley.

So Junior, please do us a favour and stop pumping up yet another NSW player. In-fact, you could go one step further, and after brushing, rinse your mouth out with undiluted Sulfuric acid. This will help to endear you to the thousands of viewers that have had the displeasure of hearing your dribble.

You are in fact a cunt.

Even your butt-ugly 65 year-old missus dumped you.

Yours truly

The Omitted

In his fifth test he was worked out with the short ball that didn’t get him out.

He was dropped because he was being bullied.

Then he was ignored when Australia came home.

He made very little runs early in the season.

At the moment two former test openers have made more than him, and so did 11 other shield cricketers (including smooth eddie).

His only first class century for the year came against an attack being lead by Andrew McDonald and according to cricinfo he gave three chances.

Now he is back.

Why?

If he had gone back to shield cricket and lit it up, I’d understand, but he has just been ok.

I’m not sure making runs against a Victorian attack with its top 5 quick bowlers injured really counts.

And no one has pimped Phil Hughes like I have.

I’m pretty much his biggest fan, other than, no, it is me.

Remember the days when Ponting was injured or rested and Brad Hodge came in.

That was a simpler time.

There is more than a passing reference to P Hughes in this book.

A few names have been chucked around.

George Bailey. Smiles alot, finally having his break out season.

Shaun Marsh. Used to drink alot, finally making regular runs this season.

Michael Klinger. Makes alot of runs, usually by putting attacks to sleep.

Phil Hughes. Made a hundred recently, against an attack with Andrew McDonald opening the bowling.

Any random NSWales player. Due a cap, Usman to debut against Pakistanis could be tough.

Mark Cosgrove. Is making lots of runs, is eating lots of pizzas.

Mitchell Marsh. Is the talk of the town, has made no FC hundreds.

Adam Voges.  Has no weddings planned, is missing a few runs.

David Hussey. Imagine that, no I can’t.

I am sure all of these players will get someone tooting their horn if Ponting’s arm doesn’t come good.

But fuck them all (sorry FPM).

I think Australia should go in a completely different direction altogether.

They need a cricketer who doesn’t take himself too seriously, one who has made over 500 runs in 6 games this year, one without corporate ambitions, and one who likes You Am I.

The choice is simple.

Smooth Eddie Cowan.

He is now officially sanctioned by cricket with balls.

Mr Hilditch, you may select him, smooth Eddie for Boxing day.

And he isn’t even Victorian.

The ashes book.

Shane Watson has gone out LBW 6 out of his last 7 test innings, and has also gone out after a break 4 times during that period.

Who has the weakness?

Watson has a vastly superior looking technique than Hughes’ technique of looking like he is a glass doll being dropped from the second floor.

But Watson’s test average can’t even look up at Hughes’ average.

Watson has no test century, since coming in as opener he is yet to take a wicket in three tests, and keeps going out the same way.

Phil Hughes must be beside himself, and beside himself there must be Chris Rogers and Phil Jacques who are beside him who is… you know.

The Australian batting line up makes no sense. A middle order batsman and a number three open the batting, and an opening batsman at number four.

The one resource that Australia seems to have in reserve is opening batsmen, yet both their openers are manufactured. It just doesn’t make sense.

Hilditch may like to think of himself as some wacky experimental scientist mixing up random potions and hoping for a good outcome.

There are simple ways around this, swap Hussey for Watson, and see how that goes.

Or drop Hussey, bring back in a proper opener, move Clarke to 4 and Watson to 5. Watson doesn’t have to change the way he plays then.

Or drop Watson until there is a spot in the middle order where his bowling can actually be used, and bring in an opening batsman, there is a pile of them at the door.

What I expect Hilditch to do is bring in a second keeper in the place of North, open the batting with Mitchell Johnson, move Hussey to number 8 and wait for the magic to happen.

I just want to know what Phil Hughes thinks of all this, oh for the glory days when he was tweeting the inner workings of his mind.

Check out our newest book ‘ashes 2009: when freddie became jesus‘.

Full

Short

Short

Length

Clearly there is a pattern, just not the one that keeps being mentioned.

Other keynotes:

Hughes out scored both English openers.
He looked ugly, he always looks ugly.
How many times has Cook gone out with his bat away from his body?
Broad & Anderson don’t quite get the bounce of Harmy.
The way Hughes went out reminds me of something.

Look he went out to it today.

That is the secret*.

*new mastabory fetish

Not a lot, but from time to time, he doesn’t make a hundred.

And this is a good thing for every chin stroking English cricket  fan.

It gives them a chance to work Phil out, because the one time they have seen him go out is enough for them to deconstruct him more than the shield cricketers who bowled to him for 2 years or the South Africans who saw him for 3 tests.

“He got bowled playing an audacious drive, interesting, my theory is that if we bowl full and straight he will eventually miss one”.

Eventually being the key word, and he is yet to be bowled in 6 test innings.

“You just have to pin him down. A few good overs on off stump, not outside, and then wait for him to make a mistake”.

Is that not the plan for pretty much every batsman in history?

“You need to bounce him, he jumps around everywhere, and he slashes at the ball”.

The Steve Waugh rule.

“Quality spinners will do him in, he hasn’t faced one yet. That Paul Harris is a donkey”.

Well he faced Bryce McGain a lot in state cricket, and Bryce is really good there.

“He can’t handle the swinging ball, everyone knows this”.

Seemed to do ok in May for Middlesex.

So here it is English fans, this is the secret, spread it, Phillip Hughes is like Shivnarine Chanderpaul, the more you treat him as a different animal, the more runs he makes.

Yes you have to change your line, nothing outside off, but that is all.

I have seen him bat more than most, and I have seen him go out to spin, quicks, seamers, swingers, tall guys, short guys, left arm, right arm.

There is no secret formula to get him out, just good line and length.

Revolutionary.

Eventually people might find a way to get him out more often than other ways, like teams do with lots of batsmen.

There is no magic pill he can’t swallow, the more you look for it, the more he will make runs.

Let’s start at the top. Ponting runs the risk of becoming the first captain to lose the Ashes twice, and it is a very real risk of that happening. History shows that Ponting’s Aussies do not take defeat likely – witness their thrashings of both England and South Africa after losing to them – but this also shows that they are intent on learning things the hard way. If you can only outsmart Graeme Smith by losing to him, there’s something wrong somewhere in your brain.

There’s no doubt that Ponting the Batsman has improved over the last four years, but Ponting the Captain does not seem to have moved on at all. He’s up against a leader more cerebral than either Smith* or Michael Vaughan and this time he doesn’t have a side full of experienced lieutenants to help him out. Moreover, he’s the only member of the Aussie top order who can be relied upon to make runs during this series; even for a scrapper like Ponting, that’s a heavy weight to bear on top of everything else.

Michael Clarke

Australia’s worst nightmare has to be that Ponting gets injured and Clarke takes over the captaincy. If ever a player failed to live up to his early promise, it’s this guy. The ‘Pup’ nickname hangs around his neck like a leaden dog tag and, no matter how many runs he scores, he never seems to be truly comfortable at the crease. His increasingly anodyne left arm spin means that he cannot truly be regarded as a bowling option in Test cricket. As the changing hairstyles show, he seems to be a man still trying to find his role within the side.

Phillip Hughes

Burst onto the scene against a South African side who had hardly seen any footage of him and scored plenty of runs against an attack somewhat lacking in either brains or guile. Even so, he showed some weakness against the rising ball bowled from around the wicket and moving into him. England’s attack might not be as pacy as the South Africans’, but Broad and Anderson certainly have more wit about their bowling than Steyn, Nel and Ntini and Flintoff specialises in the sort of ball Hughes has trouble with.

Moreover, whilst he has been scoring a truckload of runs whilst playing for Middlesex, he will find an English Test attack in English conditions a very different proposition to a popgun Division Two one, especially as he will have provided hours of footage for England to analyse. Indeed, a conspiracy theorist might suggest that county attacks had been told to keep him at the crease for as long as possible.

Simon Katich

The most surprising survivor of the 2005 side, Katich reinvented himself as an attacking opening bat to win back his place in the side. The suspicion remains that the technical defects exploited by England four years ago remain and will be even more exposed against the new ball than the old one. The fact that his famously volcanic temper seems to have worsened over the intervening four years won’t have helped and the stress of an Ashes series is likely to provoke at least one flashpoint during the summer. That his left arm wrist spin is now an even more effective weapon could actually act against the Aussies, as the lack of other spin bowling options could force them to retain him even if he does hit a bad run of form.

Mike Hussey

Mr Cricket is in the worst run of form of his career. Whilst he could conceivably come out of it before the Ashes begin, it is hard to see how five months with no first class cricket at all will assist. His performances against South Africa this winter suggest that he may have lost his nerve against quality fast bowling.

Marcus North

As well as having to deal with the tensions of a first Ashes series, North now has to prove that he is worthy of the number six spot over and above the missing Andrew Symonds. Has plenty of experience of English conditions, but again has only played in the second division here. Another who will probably rely upon his bowling to retain his place.

Andrew McDonald

Probably the luckiest man to be on this tour. Has yet to convince anyone other than the Aussie selectors that he is Test class. As a rule, gingers aren’t.

Shane Watson

Has shown occasional flashes of being able to play at this level. Problem is that, any time he hits a good vein of form, he gets injured. It is as if there is some kind of horrendous curse on the man. When asked why he had been selected, Andrew Hilditch didn’t seem to know. Which doesn’t exactly bode well.

Brad Haddin

Iron gloves, dubious morals and has only had one decent run of scores at Test level. Basically, not Adam Gilchrist on so many levels. Even allowing for the fact that he had a hard act to follow, is not likely to frighten any international attack and batsmen will always feel comfortable with him standing up to the stumps.

Graham Manou

Not even Brad Haddin.

Mitchell Johnson

Frustratingly inconsistent, he has the ability to damage any batting order with the ball and demoralise bowling attacks with his late order hitting. However, still seems equally likely to get carted around the park with the ball and to be dismissed cheaply. The latter calls into question his credentials as a Test match number eight. Basically, until he learns some self control, he’s not going to be the threat he should be.

Brett Lee

Will the real Brett Lee please stand up. He seemed to be rising to the challenge of leading the attack in place of McGrath, even during the 2005 Ashes. But once Pigeon was gone for good, he lost form, got injured and the cycle just seemed to repeat itself. His overall statistics haven’t altered much, but it is hard to see how he is going to be the same player that he was four years ago after so much time away from the game.

Peter Siddle

His record against South Africa cannot be ignored, but neither the fact that the bulk of his Test wickets have come in hot, dry conditions. Will only be a serious contender on this tour if the summer is unusually warm, especially as he has never played in England before.

Stuart Clark

Like Lee, coming back from a serious injury. Hard, therefore, to see him starting in the Cardiff Test, which will then deprive Australia of their most potent bowling threat in English conditions.

Nathan Hauritz

HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa

In short. The Aussies aren’t going to win the Ashes, England are going to have to lose them.

If you feel the need, you can put puns in the comments.

Mr Onions was so excited by the news, he went forth and took 6 for 30 on an actual road at Taunton.

Durham had managed over 500.

After Onions had finished with Somerset they were all out for 69, with a bitter help from ex aussie Callum Thorp, and very little from Harmy.

It was a tremendous effort from Onions, I saw a fair bit of it, and he is a skiddy bowler at around 135 with a bit of movement, and every time I have seen him bowl he has impressed me.

I should be worried, here is a fresh talent from England who can obviously bowl and is about to get a warm up before the Ashes.

I’m not worried though.

Not even a little bit.

Why?

While Somerset got bowled out for 69, there was one batsman came in at first drop, and never went out.

He made 32* and looked tougher and better than any of his team mates.

His name, Justin Langer.

And while the Somerset batsmen, including ol’ blue eyes Marcus Trescothick, looked like shit, Justin just nuggeted it out.

In unrelated news, Phil Hughes made another hundred today.