Wednesday, December 8, 2010

The winner takes the trophy..........

As expected, lastday, England drew the first blood in the most prestigious cricket series 'Ashes' between Australia and England. At the end of day four, England were in strong position as their opponent were behind for more than 150 runs after England's first innings score and had only 5 wickets were in hand after previous day game. In the fifth day, England bowlers dominated and took the remaining wickets very quickly. This win is significant for England as they have created a history by beating Australians in Australia in tests which did not happened in recent, at least I don’t remember, and also winning this match was important for England for they were whitewashed by 5-0 in their previous visit to down under.

Alas, where the hype gone? England is strong favourite here whereas Australia has been virtually brought down to be seen an ordinary team like any other cricket playing country; beaten by the teams like India and south Africa, relatively weaker teams in comparison to the standards which cricket Australia sets for itself. Defeat after defeats, Ricky Ponting might be looking for some magic wand which could fetch Australians the lost glory.
Down but not out yet, Australia has still lot of faith in their experienced sailor in Ricky Pointing who once made the mockery of the cricketing skills of the other cricket playing nations crushing them beneath the hammers of Mathew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds and piercing the opponents castles with lethal accuracy of Glenn McGrath and the menacing pace of Brett Lee where the most seasoned batsmen will fall into the swirling web of the magician, Shane Warne. Only fighting spirits in England in recent past were either Andrew Flintoff or Kevin Pietersen, the same man who was judged man of the match in this match after his valiant double century. Flintoff was such a talent but could not continue his career, blame to his groin injuries. He would always be missed.

Anyway, in this tour England confirmed that they won't let that trend continue as they beat Australia by an innings and 71 runs. It is a very huge win because not many teams beat Australia at their home by an innings and more.
Now with this win England has much needed 1-0 advantage and it seems that they will make full use of it because they seems to the strongest team by far when compare to the current Australia team. One more win will confirm the fact that England won't loss the series and that seems very much possible. Australians seem the most struggling team in recent times.
The topic went slight off-track because this was not something I wanted to write by the way. It was about the trophies we see the with the winners often …The heroes of real life with their hard fought rewards. We see them on TV, kissing the trophy, cuddling, creasing it with tender hand and the proud in those eyes ……..those moments are frozen and we remember the face and trophy. But I am always amused whenever I see this trophy which is the mother of this battle of cricket between Australia and England. Have you noticed how big it is…….. Just watch it you can not stop smiling I hope.
Now this is something like a trophy



And here is the mother of cricket tussel.


1 comment:

manoj upreti said...

In fact,it is not a trophy.It is an urn in which the ashes of a burnt stump are kept.The stump was burnt some 75 years ago due to a controversy during a Aus-Eng match.