England’s Achilles Heel?

So Perth 2010 joins Johannesburg 2010 and Headingley 2009 as stains on the record of the otherwise excellent Strauss-Flower axis at the helm of the England cricket side. Worryingly, all three pitches offered the bowlers pace and bounce, and England’s batsmen succumbed each time. Has England’s Achilles Heel been found? Ricky Ponting thought so before the match and his hopes were emphatically confirmed here.

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Hussey serves up more humble pie

Before the Ashes we suggested that Michael Hussey was shot as a test cricketer – we even wrote this: Zeroes – Mike Hussey. We now feel like turning the gun on ourselves as once again Mr Cricket proved that we couldn’t have been more wrong if we had said on the night of the Election that Nick Clegg was a man of his word. Hussey is now the leading runscorer in the series and has hit six consecutive scores of 50 or above in an Ashes innings – a record. Now, where did we store that humble pie?

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Johnson blows hot

We’re not sure what his Mother said to him or whether he drew inspiration from listening to ‘I Am the Resurrection’ by the Stone Roses, but it certainly seems to have worked for the cuckolded Mitchell Johnson. After getting less movement than a cyrogenically frozen sloth at Brisbane, he suddenly regained the ability to swing the ball at his favourite WACA hunting ground.

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Brave call at toss pays off for Strauss

Andrew Strauss’ brave call at the toss to insert Australia paid off in spades as England dominated again on the first day at the WACA. And it could have been worse too for Australia as had to recover from 69/5 before posting 268 all out. The recalled Chris Tremlett was the standout man in the attack, but all the bowlers chipped in with wickets even if James Anderson and Steve Finn were not at their best.

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