England CANNOT win Ashes without Kevin & Flintoff
England coach Andy Flower believes that his team CAN win the Ashes even if two star performer of his team Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen are ruled of the remaining Ashes series due to injury. Freddy is suffering from a knee injury while on the other hand KP has been struggling with an Achilles injury that he is carrying for past 3 months.
Well, we are not a fortune teller but in this case we can certainly predict that England CANNOT win Ashes without fully fit Pietersen and Flintoff.
England have just won an Ashes test match at Lords after 75 years; they are extremely high on confidence, they would be looking forward to capitalize this to a greater extent but having said that, a FACT remains a FACT. These two star performers are backbone of the England cricket team. To compete with a No. 1 team in the world, you got to have pool of talented individuals crushed with aggressiveness, and then only you can just think about challenging Australia, forget about beating them. That’s exactly what we have seen in 2005 Ashes, right?
At Lords, Ponting’s men lost because of 2 major reasons. First is what Ponting himself pointed out quite rightly – “fundamental skill errors” and the second factor is their chief tormentor, Andrew Flintoff.
Andrew Flintoff
As a batsman, when you see a bowler whose one knee is heavily strapped, bruised and swelled up, in spite of that he is bowling as fast as he could and making the ball climb onto you frequently, that means, you can’t withstand this hostility for too long. Sooner or later, the patience of a batsman will break down and he will give away his wicket to a bowler whose only intent is to tear apart the opposition batsmen. This is Flintoff’s charisma which he always carries along with him. And when this charismatic Flintoff gets a chance to play alongside with another captivating character Pietersen, MAN!, England team becomes a strong force that exhibits the courage and desire to bring down any team in the world. You simply cannot expect players like Collingwood, Anderson or Bopara for that matter, to win games for your country. They can just lend a supportive hand to proven match winners like Flintoff, Pietersen or Strauss.
England might have won the second test comprehensively but going by Australia’s previous track records, they will come hard on England in all the remaining tests henceforth. Australia will try to rectify those “fundamental skill errors” and will surely bounce back stronger and hungrier than before. Players like Hussey, Clarke, Ponting and Johnson have to take some extra responsibilities if Australia wants to retain the Ashes trophy.
Keeping in mind England’s injury woes, we here at CricFire predict 2-1 victory of Australia in the Ashes 2009.
Ashes 2009, England v Australia, 2nd Test, Day 2 Report
Australia still behind 70 runs to avoid the follow-on and might be facing a 75-year unbeaten at Lord’s record defeat from England who have absolutely turned things around in this 2nd nPower Test. England have exhaustively dominated the first two days and yet looks even more promising for the next few days to come. Yesterday was all about Andrew Strauss, today it was James Anderson who led from the front, first by frustrating Australia’s bowlers and then with four important wickets. Andrew Flintoff bowled a fast and fiery spell and apart from Katich and Hussey, the Australians haven’t looked effective at the crease. England have put themselves in a position of supremacy which can lead to their victory this weekend.
Morning session: England made a fortunate start to their 2nd day’s play when Andrew Strauss gave his wicket away to the second ball of the morning to Hilfenhaus on 161 and then they lost Graeme Swann and Stuart Broad in short-order. Apart from that England finished off their 1st innings in style when James Anderson and Graham Onions made a devastated last wicket stand of 47 and ended their 1st innings at 425. First Anderson completely frustrated Australia’s bowlers when he scored 29 from 25 balls, his highest score against Australia. Anderson wasn’t quite done yet, bowled a magnificent spell to Australia’s first innings where he took two important wickets in the morning session just before lunch and put Australia in a very uncomfortable position on 22/2.
Lunch: Australia – 22/2 in 12.0 overs (SM Katich 8, MEK Hussey 4) trail England by 403 runs
After lunch, heavens opened and left players with seventeen overs in the session. Simon Katich and Mike Hussey were the batsmen who opened the lunch session and played some good cricket. As from the bowling department, Anderson bowled without any reward while Flintoff didn’t feature at all. Then there was yet another rain interruptions. In the final part of this session, Strauss puts Stuart Broad and Graham Onions. Broad continued his trend from Cardiff where he bowled too many boundary-balls while Onions was more accurate but couldn’t break 2nd pair of Australia’s batting attack. Australia added 65 runs on no wicket, a sign of return for the Australians.
Tea: Australia – 87/2 in 29.0 overs (SM Katich 40, MEK Hussey 37) trail England by 338 runs
What a Catch! A stunner from Broad. A very successful breakthrough for the England when Onions broke the 93 runs partnership of this 3rd wicket pair on 103/3 when Katich top-edged and Broad ran 10 yards to his right before diving, taking it low. After Hussey reached his fifty, he received a 95.1mph delivery from Flintoff which took away his off stump which held its line and smashed the top of off 111/4. This was the second spell of Flintoff in this session where he cross minded Hussey and made him pay for it. The destruction wasn’t completely done yet. Anderson returned alongside with Broad where they took 4 wickets to almost end the Australian innings. Anderson returned to nip out Michael Clarke and Marcus North. Broad finally found some bouncers which helped England to remove the dangerous duo of Brad Haddin and Mitchell Johnson. Just before England wanted to finish off Australia, bad light stopped play and that was the end of this 2nd day’s play. A very different end to a day when Australia were at 87/2 and they could have actually get in the game but after seeing tremendous blow from the England seamers this match have completely changed his destiny. A big disappointment for Australia who lost 6 wickets in 94 balls.
End Of Day: Australia – 156/8 in 49.0 overs (NM Hauritz 3, PM Siddle 3) trail England by 269 runs
Ashes 2009, England v Australia, 2nd Test, Day 1 Report
Day 1 pretty much belonged to England but Australia came back strongly in the third session. While we saw excellent batting from the openers, the middle order played irresponsibly yet again.
Australia started the day off with very poor bowling. Mitchell Johnson’s line was all over the place and he got hit in all directions of the ground. Ben Hilfenhaus bowled a decent spell but not good enough to pick a wicket. Alistair Cook and Andrew Strauss looked in great form and were playing their shots freely. Peter Siddle came on as the first change and he was the first bowler to looked to pick a wicket. Ricky Ponting insisted on continuing with Mitchell Johnson but Johnson was clearly struggling to bowl against the left-handers. I believe Johnson is a much better bowler against right-handed batsmen. England finished the first session at 126 runs for the loss of no wickets.
After a great batting display, Alistair Cook lost his wicket for 95 runs, unfortunately missing out on a hundred. Ravi Bopara walked in and he played aggressively before Hilfenhaus got him LBW off an in-swinging delivery. I felt Bopara batted in a very irresponsible way, given the best possible start by the openers. Rather than capitalizing on the great start, he gave his wicket cheaply. After this it was a middle order collapse – Pietersen, Collingwood, Prior and Flintoff all losing their wickets cheaply. All of them failed to build on the start and this could turn out as the turning point of the match. England could have posted a score of well over 550 runs but chances for that look very skim now.
End Of Day: England – 364/6 in 90.0 overs (Andrew Strauss 161, Stuart Broad 7)
