Jul 19 2009
The Ashes 2009: Freddie, Freddie, where have you been?
…He’s been to Lord’s to meet the Queen, along with the rest of the England and Australia squads during the lunch interval on day two of the second Ashes Test. Providing Her Majesty is supporting England, she must certainly be pleased with her team’s dominant performance thus far.
That said, England certainly have had help from a higher power over the last few days in the form of the weather. It seemed almost too good to be true: blazing sunshine to aid England’s batting effort on day one; cloudy conditions conducive to Jimmy Anderson’s swing on day two and yet another fair day to grace England’s second innings yesterday.
They’ve had a fair share of luck in other ways, too. A usually dependable Ricky Ponting seemed a touch off colour when it mattered, missing a Pietersen run out and dropping a Ravi Bopara catch. To make matters worse, the heavily partisan Lord’s crowd have been baying for his blood from the moment he stepped onto the turf of HQ on Thursday morning.
Add into the equation a slightly dubious umpiring decision to send him back to the pavilion seething and you can safely say it has been a Test to forget for the Aussie captain. In a dramatic twist of fortunes from Cardiff, his team find themselves behind the eight ball in a big way, facing a second innings deficit of over 500 with more than 180 overs remaining in the match.
All hope is not lost yet, however, with showers predicted for at least part of the remainder of the tie. It’s not often we can say that rain could save Australia rather than England, so we best savour it while we still can, mainly because the Aussies haven’t lost this match yet… The Poms are certainly on top at this stage, though.
Bet Ricky’s wishing he had some of those Flintoff clones in reserve now. And yes, I am going to milk that story for all it’s worth - there’s still a good couple of months to go in the Ashes summer yet, and Freddie deserves a decent send-off from the Test arena.
Harry Yack’s prediction: three tuna and mayo sandwiches washed down with a pint of beer for Freddie Flintoff’s lunch tomorrow.
