Into The Ashes - Day 2

So, a tremendous day yesterday, rounded off with a quite wonderful homemade chick pea and mushroom tikka massala, all cooked in a world record time of 22.456 minutes. The cricket turned out pretty good too, with England just having the edge thanks to 6 of the top 7 all chipping in with decent runs. Just a shame that no-one had the patience to really kick on, and punish the well below par Aussie attack.


The only downside, cricket wise at least, was Channel Five's woeful highlights package at 7.15pm. As if only having a paultry 45 minutes of highlights on terrestrial television was not bad enough, why let Five spoil it for everyone. Mark Nicholas was great in 2005 as he fronted the live coverage, guiding us through the drama and tension like a friendly uncle. On Five though, he attempted to use the same gravitas as if we all hadn't been listening to the radio, or glued to the internet all day following the action. In fact the only thing more wasteful than Five's use of their 45 minutes, was Pietersen's getting out shot. Just under 9 minutes of the show was lost to adverts, or the never ending Wine advert from the firm kindly sponsoring proceedings. And do we really need 3 minutes of Simon Hughes sitting in the back of a lorry showing us slo-mo's of Ricky Ponting's huddle. The analyst was a great innovation when Channel 4 had all day to fill, but in a highlights show? Why? Channel Five need to realise that we are tuning in to see all the fours, wickets and catches we were told about on the radio earlier, not to find out the frigging score.


As for the Aussies, I would like to give a special mention to Peter Siddle for simply looking like such a reprehensible antipodean. Just seeing his snarling, sunblock covered, freckly boat race charging in made me, in an instant, forget that there was no Gilchrist or Glenn '5-0 to us mate' McGraaaaaaaaaaaaaath to aim my buckets of scorn at this summer. In the end my prediction of 302/5 came up short on both fronts and Straussy failed to get the ton that was there for the taking if any of our batsmen had shown some real patience. Still being wrong has never stopped me from spouting my opinion before and I don't intend to let it now. Expect England to just sneak over the 400 hundred mark today with Stuart Broad playing an attractive cameo and getting a quick 30. The Aussies will then find that this years bowling attack has as much about it as in 2005 and be teetering on 200/7 by close of play.