The Sporting Hack

First Test, Perth Australia won by eight wickets England 172 & 164 Australia 132 & 205/2   One must feel for the food and drink vendors at the Optus Stadium in Perth. They have missed out on some bumper trade over the last couple of days. Instead, punters are spending their hard-earned cash in the hostelries on the Swan River or cramming the Fremantle to Rottnest Island ferry thanks in no small part to England's second day capitulation in Western Australia. The facts are etched in to the mind with England collapsing from a commanding 105 run lead for the loss of just one wicket to posting a very gettable 205 run target which Australia - and in particular, Travis Head - relished. It was a game which felt peculiar from the very beginning. Visiting skipper Ben Stokes won the toss and opted to bat first, forgoing the preferred fourth innings run chase. Whilst this has proved to be the winning formula for all of the previous test captains at Optus Stadium, it isn't tradit...

The wait is over. The time has come for the cricket to do the talking. Securing an Ashes victory in Australia is England’s equivalent of scaling Everest. Winning on the subcontinent may be technically more challenging, but this is the one series where legends are created and, just occasionally, getting up to tune in to the action in the middle of the night during the bleak British winter may be rewarded. Not since the 2010/11 iteration under the captaincy of Alistair Cook, though, has that been the case. When Chris Tremlett bowled tailender Michael Beer at the SCG not long after the New Year’s festivities had died down, not many (other than Glenn McGrath) would have foreseen England failing to register a single victory in 15 attempts…FIFTEEN! That is the scale of the uphill challenge that awaits current skipper, Ben Stokes, and head coach Brendon McCullum . For the latter, his whole tenure since being appointed in May 2022, has built towards this next two months. His record of 25 win...

The build-up to the latest instalment of the Ashes series between Australia and England has ramped up a notch with 14 of the 15 players selected by the home side on domestic duty this week in preparation for the first test in Perth. We asked the artificial intelligence bots if they could shed any light on proceedings and, crucially, who would be lifting the urn in Sydney in January. TheSportingHack: “Firstly, what is the Sheffield Shield?” ChatGPT: ‘The Sheffield Shield is Australia’s domestic first-class cricket competition, featuring four-day matches between the six state teams (New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania) from October to March. It began in 1892 and is the highest level of long-format cricket in the country. The top two teams after the season play in the Shield Final.’ TheSportingHack: “Does it have anything to do with Sheffield in the UK?”  ChatGPT: ‘Indirectly. It’s named after Lord Sheffield (Henry Holroyd, 3rd Earl ...

  With less than three weeks until the eagerly anticipated 2025/26 Ashes series commences, there is an air of confidence growing within Australia that the hosts will triumph against England over the festive period and retain the urn. The comments of ex-Pommie pace man Stuart Broad - that this Australian crop are the worst in more than a decade - have been amplified the most.  While those sentiments were not fully endorsed Down Under, there has been an awareness that there are fragilities in the hosts ranks. Chief among those concerns are that skipper Pat Cummins is absent from the series opener in Perth, at the very least, and that the top order lacks clarity. Perhaps this is what the retired Broad focussed on as he suggested Australia might be about to lose for just the second time in eleven home series. However, stand-in skipper Steve Smith (118) looked in good touch for New South Wales against Queensland recently, and Marnus Labuschagne seems assured of a berth somewhere i...

It could well be a case of back to the drawing board for the Cricket Australia selectors ahead of next month's eagerly anticipated Ashes series. Finding a suitable top order to take on the English in Perth in five weeks is arguably of greater concern than the ongoing injury woe surrounding skipper Pat Cummins. Those waiting by their phones in anticipation of squad selection are now midway through their four-match domestic audition. The chance seems to have all but passed by opener Sam Konstas ( above ).  The 20-year-old burst on to the test scene less than a year ago in dazzling fashion during the home series against India. With time away from the international arena to work on his game, his technique has been scrutinised by onlookers and exploited by a stream of opening bowlers. The latest of which, Australian teammate Scott Boland, did so inside four scoreless balls before the youngster partially redeemed himself with a far-from-fluent 53 in his second dig. The prospect o...

Victoria 240 & 177 beat New South Wales 163 & 216 by 38 runs Junction Oval, Melbourne Sheffield Shield Australian test hopeful Scott Boland (match figures: 8/126) bowled Victoria to a thrilling win against their arch rivals in a see-saw Sheffield Shield encounter. Ably supported across the two innings by Fergus O’Neill (6/80), Boland took some punishment in a low scoring game but will be part of the seam attack to take on the English next month in the Ashes with skipper Pat Cummins set to miss the Perth opener through injury. Defending 255 in the fourth innings, it was an inauspicious start for the hosts who saw opening pair Sam Konstas (53) and Blake Nikitaras (39) lay the foundations with a 90-run stand. The former, desperately seeking form and to avenge his first innings duck, displayed little fear and even reverse-ramped his international teammate Boland for six over the vacant third-man region. However, Todd Murphy (3/17) was on hand to break the resistance by sna...

Second Test, Wellington New Zealand won by one run England 435-8 dec & 256 New Zealand 209 & 483 It was perhaps fitting that in the land of adrenaline junkies, England’s thrill seekers came unstuck looking for their latest hit.  England captain Ben Stokes and head coach Brendon McCullum New Zealand is the birthplace of commercial bungy jumping; falling to the floor from a great height with only an elastic cord tied to your ankles to prevent the inevitable. It’s something England’s head coach Brendon ‘Baz’ McCullum (far right) will probably have done and doubtless enjoyed.  You can add variance to this practice by going backwards, going with a partner, or going blindfold but the premise remains the same.  In defeat at Wellington’s iconic Basin Reverse though, England went some way off-piste and asked for too much rope. It was to be their downfall.  To play ‘Bazball’ you are asked to disregard test cricketing convention and wisdom. Five, six, seven runs requir...

I broke out in a cold sweat. It was the middle of the night – 4:16am to be precise – and I’d wrestled like a Panamanian defender or a politician for power with the idea that what if, tonight, the best team won? A clean, straight battle, akin to what we’d seen in the France v Belgium game, between two teams who have exceeded expectations to get to the semi-final? Samuel Umtiti scored the winning goal in a fair contest untainted by drama or allegations, leaving three teams. And yet, the raging pessimist inside my head reminds me that England, should they lose to Croatia, can still finish fourth. The phrase “don’t get your hopes up” was coined, I’m sure, with the England football team in mind. The thought of bowing out gracefully in the semi-finals fleetingly appeals instead of suffering the gut-wrenching agony and potential worldwide humiliation of being inglorious runners up to our Gallic neighbours. Croatia will pose England’s sternest test of the tournament to date. The sprink...

Second Ashes Test Review Australia beat England by 218 runs. When Australia wrapped up the second Ashes test in Adelaide by securing England’s four remaining wickets within an hour of play on day five, it all seemed too easy for the hosts. It has been a breeze for Darren Lehmann’s side so far as they sit just one win away from reclaiming the coveted urn.  The head coach replaced the unpopular Mickey Arthur just 18 days before Australia began their campaign in England and, though his side lost 3-0; ‘Boof’ provided the down to earth and old school mantra which made the Baggy Greens competitive. Just six months down the line and it’s the English who are “facing a whitewash” according to former skipper Michael Vaughan who labelled the current crop’s attempts as “feeble”. From day one in Brisbane to day four in Adelaide, he wasn’t wrong. The tourists have been battered and bruised and look completely broken. Lehmann’s philosophy, opposed to Andy Flower’s scie...

Picture the scene: The air of a cold Thursday night in Turin is punctuated by roughly 1800 Fulham fans who burst in to bedlam to celebrate midfielder Dickson Etuhu’s deflected strike with a chorus or two of ‘Woy, Woy, Woy’ in gratitude to their then manager Roy Hodgson. What a truly remarkable job he did with the West London outfit when he reached the 2009/10 Europa League final after overturning a 3-1 deficit against Italian giants Juventus in the second leg of the round of 16 fixture.  The fact that Hodgson’s own supporters gently teased their leader with a song that has reference to his slight speech impediment could perhaps be justified as a sign of affection. However, one Sun newspaper headline this week will read ‘Bwing on the Euwos’ in the aftermath of the 64 year olds appointment as England head coach this week. Crude and patronising? Most certainly. A sign of things to come? One can only presume so should the Three Lions fare any less than expected. ...