Good Areas, Work Hard, Keep It Simple

Move over 2005 Ashes, we have a new "best series ever".

Three wins apiece. Each won two away Tests and one home Test. The scoreline sums it up brilliantly, but at the same time it doesn't even scratch the surface.

First let's look at what made this better than the 2005 Ashes.

1) It was a home and away series. Both teams had the home advantage at some point. And even better was the touring team won both series.

2) Careers were made, realised and ended. The likes of Duminy, Hughes and North were given an opportunity to transfer their domestic form onto the international stage, and they did so with aplomb. Duminy played so well he kept the vice captain out of the side. Hughes became the youngest man to score twin hundreds. North the first to score a debut century for Australia since Clarkey did it four years ago. At the same time, Johnson, Siddle, Steyn and AB de Villiers dramatically increased their stocks. Johnson evolved into the strike bowler he threatened to be. Siddle showed why he was picked for Australia on the back of 12 first class games over three or four seasons. Steyn proved he could do it against the number one ranked team. And AB just made centuries for fun, showing his value to the team was more than as an electric fielder and back-up keeper. And last of all, we said goodbye to Hayden, and the same could possibly be said of McKenzie. Both openers who struggled, and both made way for the young guns.

3) Six results and still no winner. That is one of the truly astounding things about this series. Each match produced a result, and all but the final Test went to the 5th day. It would have been a TV broadcaster's wet dream.

4) There will be no MBE's and open-top bus rides. Each time knows the magnitude of the their achievements, but they also know it won't help them win their next series.

I'd like to look back at some of the big moments, so keep your eye out for that in the next couple of days/weeks.

Labels: australia, safrica

The third and final Test starts tomorrow.

It has been such a long Test series, spanning from December till March. My goodness, now that is how long a Test series should be. Ok, there was a lot of cricket in between, but it has been gripping viewing.

Five Tests, a number of fantastic performances, both individual and team, and now it has to come to an end. This is how a series should be. It should be long, hard fought, memorable, and most importantly, contain high class cricket. Test "series" of two or three Tests are not enough. The reason they're that short is because the boards or the ICC don't believe any more matches will sustain the public's interest. Instead, we get 7 match ODI series, because they are clearly more interesting.

So bring back proper Test series! Actually, I quite like the idea of return Test series, as Safrica and Australia do. It makes it much more likely that the home and away series will be played between the same times, with minimal personel changes. Compare this to the 05 and 06/07 Ashes, where England came to Australia a battered and broken team after tough tours to the subcontinent and general rubbish cricket.

I want to do a wrap up of this South Africa series, as it now takes over as my favourite Test series, pinching the top spot from the 2005 Ashes.

Remember when I gave Phillip Hughes a massive plug a year ago? I sure as hell do. Many of my predictions were wrong, but I got kinda closish.

I was correct in saying he'll take over Hayden's spot, although I was very wrong about the timeline. However I believe no one could have predicted how well he started.

To enter Test cricket at 20 years old, facing the team 90% of the world expected to take the number 1 spot in their own backyard, there wasn't a lot riding for him. To make a duck first up, it was an anti-climax of epic proportions. To follow up that duck with scores of 75, 115 and 160 is... ridonkey-kong. On his way, he became the answer to a number of trivia questions, namely one of the few men to score their first ton younger than the Don and the youngest to score two centuries in a match.

However with all that, he still can't get into a one day team lacking an opener. IT MAKES NO SENSE! The most in-form player of the team, someone who has already been in the country for almost a month, gets sent home and some baby slogger takes his place? It seems the selectors cannot help but make the Australian public hate them.

Labels: phillip hughes