The final countdown...

December 17, 2006 by The Third Umpire

It was all going so well: Cookie and Belly batted for three and a half hours; they’d added 185 without losing a wicket and the Aussies were starting to look a little ragged. The English supporters were oooh-ing and aaah-ing after every Warner ball, the way the great man does himself; they were booing every dodgy appeal (these Aussies appeal for leg-before even if the ball goes for six.) The Aussie fans were also on their players’ backs. Just not so wittily: “Warne, you useless w***er” was the best effort. Seriously. The Perth heat was also on the ageing Aussie backs - ‘just’ 32 degrees. And then Belly played a loose drive at Warner and the spell was broken....

The thing is England have a massive tail in this game; you’re not even confident that Freddie at No 6 isn’t part of it. When he came in at the end of the day - after Farmer Hoggard’s brief attempt at being nightwatchman - it looked as though he couldn’t get a bat on it. As the clouds came over the WACA, McGrath suddenly became unplayable. The other thing is: England fans STILL think they can win it.

Okay, readers: here’s one for you. If England had been playing South Africa or India or Zimbabwe in this series, would Freddie, Gilo, Jimmy A and Tinker Harmison have been considered match fit to play the first Test? Would they have been hot-housed back to ‘fitness’ in time for that to even be an issue? My guess is ‘No’ on both counts. So: if the guys wouldn’t have been fit enough to play Zimbabwe - which buffoon thought they would be match-hardened enough to take on the Aussies in the biggest series ever? I’ve said it a few times on here, but surely you can’t prefer four half-fit (or half-prepared) first-choice players to four fully-fit youngsters on a roll? Maybe you need one - Fred, say - but all four was asking for trouble.

I tell you who I’ve got NO TIME AT ALL for: commentators and fans who say, ‘Well, it’s never been done in the history of the game.” Fact is, these guys are idiots. They trot out these statements as though it means that something is prohibited and CAN never happen. And yet cricket records are being broken every month these days: what about the Saffers 438 off 50 overs at Jo’burg? What about Gilly’s 100 off 57 in the first innings here? (Okay, not quite an all-time record that, but there was probably some fool saying that no-one had ever hit a 57-ball ton at the WACA, shaking his head as though he was talking about the future prospects of that, as well as the history of it.)

What I have got a lot (well, some) time for is the ABC radio commentary here in Oz, and in particular Kerry O’Keeffe, a kind of mix between Kevin Keegan and Stan Boardman who seems only vaguely aware that there’s a game going on at all. He’s spent four days laughing at his own jokes, discussing his career as an after-dinner speaker and so on. Agnew treats him the way a teacher would treat a naughty child. Yesterday, O’Keeffe asked fellow gantryist Jim Maxwell “if you talk this kind of bollocks at your barbecues.” There was a long silence. Imagine Blofeld saying that! What a country!

So can England do it? Hit 290-odd in a day and not lose five wickets? Will they even try? Well, its like I said yesterday - the fans still think they can, but they also know it could be all over and down the beach by lunchtime. What do you reckon, though? 158 from KP and Fred and Jonah to suddenly come good? If the sun’s out the conditions will still be great for batting; I’m just worried England’s tail is too long. If only we had a No 8, eh?

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