For those of you with a penchant for good films, The Shawshank Redemption will feature quite highly and the line from Morgan Freeman's character 'Red' to Andy Dufrane will resonate strongly amongst England cricket fans....."Hope...you want to forget about hope, hope can kill you." And so it is with the last test of this one-sided series drawing to its inevitable conclusion as England closed the day only 12 runs ahead of Australia with five of their best batsmen gone.
Perhaps naively, there was a sense amongst the large British contingent here that with Australia still 100 runs behind at the start of the day, this might be the test that England finally stop the rot. That thought was strengthened when Mike Hussey edged James Anderson behind without adding to his overnight score early on, to leave the Aussies 190 for 5. However, there the optimism faded and Andrew Symonds with the help of the brilliant Adam Gilchrist wrested the initiative away from some profligate England bowling before the incredibly annoying but amazingly effective Shane Warne came to the party - his party - and top scored with a bludgeoning 74.
Stuart Clark joined in the fun with a rustic 35 and Australia lead by 102 on first innings, and the writing was very much on the wall unless the England top order could produce something special. The England 2nd innings was a perfect example of why Australia have won this series, with the England batsmen having to fight tooth and nail for every run against the remorseless accuracy of the Australian attack. Those of you who watch cricket on tv will be aware of the 'grouping' showing how consistently each bowler gets the ball in the business area. For Australia, and Glenn McGrath and Stuart Clark in particular, the grouping today was about the size of a dinner plate whereas for England, and especially the hapless Sajid Mahmood, a snooker table would be more appropriate.
Put simply, it is so much harder for England's batsmen to score runs against Australia than the other way round, and that inevitably leads to mistakes and the loss of wickets. Andrew Strauss is a fantastic player but he has had a tough time of it for one reason or another and the sickening blow he took on the side of the head from a Brett Lee bouncer was the second time the Australian speedster has hit him. He bravely carried on his innings but fell soon after, LBW to Clark's inswing before heading to hospital for a scan and it is to be hoped that his injury is not too serious.
Going into the fourth day, England's hopes (there I go again) lie with the near-genius of Pietersen, who remains 29 not out, and the new England nightwatchman, Monty Panesar. Thus the torture that has been the 2006/7 Ashes series - for an England supporter at least - will reach its end tomorrow and we can all look forward to a better showing in the one day stuff. I hope.....
Wello
