Test matches and OBEs and Engerland. And South Africa.

The third Test starts tomorrow.

I know. I too am struggling to contain my excitement.

To mark this occasion, here is a post written by my esteemed friend Angus on his most excellent blog, which he has kindly let me re-post here.

It's about an incident back in 2005. Something happened back then, now what was it... oh yes, that's right.

We lost the Ashes.

OBEs for EVERYBODY!!!!!

I think I speak for all of us when I say that beating South Africa in sporting contests is one of Australia's three most solemn duties (the other two are beating New Zealand at Rugby Union, and preserving the memory of Gallipoli).

Beating England is not solemn - it's a raucous affair. But beating South Africa is important, it is crucial, and it is satisfying.

I was speaking to Miss Field a while ago - who has been keeping another blog hidden in plain sight - about why losing to South Africa in Australia was less painful than losing to England in 2005 (in England).

Here are my top reasons why losing to England in 2005 was so hard to take:

1) The series of coincidences that went England's way

2) Australia could not have played ANY worse, we were lacking our best fast bowler (we dominated the one Test he played), and we still only lost the series by two runs.

3) England's team was full of crap players who played much better than they ever had or ever would again to fluke wickets and runs.

4) They treated a marginal 2-1 series victory as if THEY HAD RE-WON WORLD WAR II.

5) The English players went back to being crap within 24 hours of the final Test.

But one of the hardest things to take was something Miss Field pointed out: that any time an Australian mentioned that perhaps the English were over-reacting by giving their players OBEs for winning two Test matches, we were accused of being sore losers.

Ashley Giles. Useless cricketer. OBE.

It was not a great time to be an Australian cricket fan. Just like this past summer against South Africa. However, here are the key reasons why losing to South Africa is not as painful as that horrible 2005:

1) South Africa were the better team. Australia played badly again, but we had our chances to win it and we bottled it. We can acknowledge better teams.

2) The Proteas' performances were not flukes, and their players were not in some kind of never-to-be-repeated Indian summer. They had built their form up over the past few years.

3) They didn't carry on like flamin' galahs after they won two Test matches. Whatever the equivalent of the South African OBE is, they didn't give it to a bunch of blokes who did the job they're paid large amounts of money just to get done.

4) We recognise that our team is in transition and we're willing to cut them some more slack.

5) We've just gone and handed them a defeat on their home soil with three of our blokes playing their first Test.

The Ashes in 2005 will always be a bad memory, but hopefully, one day, Flintoff and Vaughan and co will come out and say "you know what, I probably didn't deserve to be made a member of the Order of the British Empire for barely winning two cricket matches." And I'd like to think that I will be around to say "EXACTLY!"

Matthew Hayden: overstaying his welcome, one run-out at a time

I'm off on holidays for a few weeks tomorrow.

Before I go I just thought I'd share some parting wisdom in the form of... *drum roll*

My Solution to Australian Cricket Failure

1. Dump Shane Watson (been done, and not before time)
2. Dump Matthew Hayden (Ricky Ponting said today that Hayden has a place on the side for as long as he wishes to - bollocks to that I say)
3. Dump Ricky Ponting. I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. But it's just not working out anymore. And well, we have bigger fish to fry than New Zealand. And if we lose the Ashes because he's being kind to Matthew Hayden, he will have a power greater than me to answer to.

Finally, seeing as we played in a terribly shitty fashion and still managed to beat the crap out of New Zealand, I recommend that New Zealand dump ALL their players, and pick up Watson, Hayden, Ponting... it would be a start.

For anyone interested in the 3 Mobile 'Men of Cricket' calendar, it's on sale now.

I also got to be on Hair of the Blog in Darwin last weekend, I will post the link up upon my return. I may or may have defined manliness as how good one looks in a cricket uniform.

Don't pretend to be surprised, that's called denial

When I first saw a picture of a teary Michael Vaughan my first thought was that he'd realised how stupid his hair looked and was making an apology to the world. Then I realised what a foolish notion that was - as if he'd think his hair looked stupid.

So I see he's resigned. How shocking. Are you shocked? You shouldn't be. Denial is not just a river in Egypt (hilarious, I know). And now that I've been able to stop laughing at the resignation and apparent surprise, I can write about how Kevin Pietersen should be England's next captain.

If they want the Ashes back, he's their only hope.

So, they will pick Andrew Strauss.

When England won the Ashes in 2005, the good Poms went crazy for cricket. It was great to see.

But the soccer mob was not happy about it. They threatened the ECB, told them if they ever won an Ashes series again they would take their firstborn grandchild (because all the ECB are old) and spin the kid into gold for Australia's one day uniforms. And then hobble the entire cricket team.

The ECB did not want this to happen. They could handle losing the Ashes, but if there was no cricket team to play (because they had no feet), they couldn't even contest the Ashes, and then they would have no jobs. Bugger the grandkids.

If they'd really thought it through they'd have realised that the police would have caught on if every single player was mysteriously hobbled. But they didn't think about it.

So they installed Andrew Flintoff as captain. He didn't let them down. They lost five-nil.

But the public (especially the public who had spent not-so-small fortunes on getting to Australia to watch the series) were not happy, and Flintoff had to go. So they thought they'd get one up on the mob, and attempted to hobble him themselves. It didn't work, but it kept him sidelined for a while.

And then Vaughan returned from injury. England's favourite son, who would lead them to victory once more. Unfortunately, the selectors knew he was a liability if they were to keep their jobs and their teams' feet. So what did they do? They told Vaughan about the threat. And what did he do? He cried and ran away.

Plus he was rubbish. A mediocre-at-best player whose leadership skills made up for his lack of playing ability, who made promises he couldn't keep, saw poor performances as being acceptable and couldn't justify his arrogance with results.

So if you've ever wondered about dodgy selections, suspicious injuries or early retirements, now you know why.

In order to fail again, Strauss is their man. Not their only man, one of ten in fact.

I want KP to be the next captain because he's hot, and I for one would like to see that angsty power struggle of captains that would exist between he and Ricky Ponting/Graeme Smith/Daniel Vettori. Can you imagine Stuart Broad in such a fashion? I thought not.

Also, because he's the only one who really seems to have a winning attitude (and if you hadn't noticed, this lack of winning attitude is what annoys me about England the most, and in a supreme fashion). But, and for the same reason, I don't want him to be captain.

Hands off those Ashes. Flounder away.

This one's for you, Vaughany.

A brief exchange

I've been having an interesting Wall-to-Wall exchange with Spigot over on Facebook.

It's gone like this -

Spigot: You realise that as he (James Anderson) did it yesterday it's clearly obvious that he will do this every single day next summer...

Me: You hope.

Spigot: Well "you hope" sounds a lot better than "you wish"... I'll take that for now, you're clearly deeply unsettled over the Windies series...

While I have no doubt that Mr Spigot was not being serious (right?), I have noticed that some people of the English variety do seem to think that England's performance against New Zealand (and, to a lesser extent, Australia's performance against the West Indies) is a reflection of how the Ashes will fare next year.

I, however, see it as a reflection of how shoddy New Zealand are at the moment. England versus South Africa may be a better indication.

Although I suppose we should thank the Kiwis for luring the English into a false sense of security (I will personally thank Daniel Vettori later).

But even so, let's not pre-empt anything.

England, England

Did anyone believe Ricky Ponting when he said that Australia hadn't ruled out Shaun Tait? I didn't. He'd have needed a smack if they'd picked Tait over Hoggy.

So the fourth test is due to start in roughly nine minutes. How exciting!

Anyway. I found this at cricinfo. According to the feature, England are now mediocre as they were in the 1990s.

To me this implies that there was a period when they were excellent, presumably in the early 2000s. This would suggest that at some point they were perceived as a serious threat. And yes, I know they won the Ashes in 2005, and I'm not making light of that, but even they would have to admit that it wasn't exactly a convincing series win. (Although maybe I've just grown accustomed to 5-0 being a convincing series win). To a very large degree luck was on their side, as right up to the last innings of the fifth test it could have gone either way.

In my humblest of opinions, England need more players like Kevin Pietersen. He's not satisfied with just playing cricket at international level, he wants to be the best. The others seem deficient in ambition and drive. Though it would also be good if KP attempted to seem like he was a bit more interested in being part of the team as well. It's all about balance.

Anyway, despite their Ashes victory, I really cannot recall them ever being perceived as a short term, long term or otherwise serious threat here in Australia. No force to be reckoned with. The statistics may well indicate otherwise, but England have, in my recent recollection, always been "only England" and I can't see that changing in the foreseeable future.