Cricket: Heavy rain denied Australia the chance to exact a hint of revenge on England in yesterday’s Twenty20 clash at Old Trafford. Cameron White was the star with a swashbuckling 55 runs off 36 balls. The Aussies reached 145 and had the Poms reeling at 2-4 but the downpour saved the home side from certain defeat.
Not that an Australian victory would justify any gloating. In The Age on Saturday, Richard Hinds wrote: “The English people don’t care about cricket. They only care about beating Australia. In England.” He should have added: “In the Ashes series, not any other gimmicky, crude form of the game.”
Twenty20 is brilliant entertainment, but a series win won’t be enough to serve England a frigid, vengeful dish. And anyway, those Motherland folk are good at insulating themselves from insults, getting in first with their effortless self-deprecation, while Aussies, with their unflagging confidence and premature swagger, fall hard when it all comes tumbling down.
I am not worried about the state of Australian cricket. Pardon the cliché, but the team is in a rebuilding stage after an unprecedented period of supremacy. It’s the end of a cycle of dominance that, let’s face it, usually turns a lot faster.
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