In the popular Shankar film “Indian” – one of the hit
songs was ‘telephone manipol sirippaval ivala – Melbourne malarpol melliya
magala” – though the lyrical reference was to Melbourne, it was elsewhere
!!.............. and in the final test here – nothing
seemingly is going right for Alastair Cook’s England who were bundled out for
155 and now have a huge 311 already with 6 Aussie wickets and 3 more days to
go………… everything leading to a whitewash….
Sydney is the state
Capital of New South Wales and this most populous city is on south east coast
on the Tasman sea. The site of the first
British colony in Australia, Sydney was established in 1788 at Sydney Cove by
Captain Arthur Phillip, of the First Fleet, as a penal colony.- life has changed totally and now Sydney
consistently ranks high in World city for quality of life. That song was on Sydney harbor bridge, one
of Australia's most well known and photographed landmarks. It is the world's
largest (but not the longest) steel arch bridge with the top of the bridge
standing 134 metres above the harbour. Fondly known by the locals as the
'Coathanger', the Sydney Harbour Bridge celebrated its 80th birthday in 2012.
Sydney
celebrations from smh.com.au
In the 5th Test at Sydney,
Alastair Cook provided the introduction for another horror show of England
batting on the second day in Sydney. He was out to Ryan Harris – England were
23/5 at one stage and recovered well (so to say) to eventual 155 in 58.5
overs. Cricinfo stats say that England's first innings was only the seventh
time in Tests that their top-five batsmen all got out for either a duck or a
single-digit score. The last such occurrence came against West Indies at Sabina
Park, Kingston, when England's top-five batsmen scored a total of 15 runs, none
of them scoring ten.
Sydney for long is
heralded as spinner’s paradise but today all Aussie pacers capitalized leaving
Nathan Lyon a solitary wicket. If you
are doubt the remark spinner’s paradise
– back in Jan 1989 – Test no. 1113 Australia defeated West Indies in the 4th
test of Frank Worrel trophy. In that
test, largely unheralded 34 year old leg spinner Trevor Hohns made his debut
alongside Mark Taylor….. the strong WI line up of Haynes, Greenidge,
Richardson, Hooper, Viv Richards, Logie, Dujon lost to the spin power …. Of the one
you are unlikely to guess !! ~ a left
handed batsman who made 11174 runs in Test with 27 centuries…. Guess who ? Earlier, in Dec 1984 Bob Holland marred
Clive Lloyds final test with a 10 for, handing over an innings defeat at
Sydney.
In the present Sydney
Test, Three England players - Boyd Rankin, Gary Ballance and Scott Borthwick -
made their debut. This was the first
time three or more England players made their debut in a Test since Nagpur
2006, when Ian Blackwell, Alastair Cook and Monty Panesar made their
debut. Borthwick is 23 and is a leg
spinner. Gary simon Balance is 24 years of age, bats left handed and bowls
right arm. He was a boy wonder having
appeared for Zimbabwe at the 2006 Under-19 World Cup, taking three wickets and
top-scoring with the bat in a win over England ~ now he has debuted for England
and it stated that despite growing up on
a tobacco farm in Harare, Ballance does have British roots through his
grandparents, one of whom flew for the RAF during World War II.
The other is well known
pacer - William Boyd Rankin – 29 years of age.
Boydo sprung to prominence when Ireland progressed to the Super Eight
section of the 2007 World Cup. The
tall six feet, seven inches bowler is
known for the bounce that he extracts – Pak and Bangladesh will vouch for that.
Five years later, he made himself unavailable for Ireland in a bid to play Test
cricket with England. The move provoked disquiet in his home country – after
playing some one dayers, he has now made his debut in Tests for England. Before his ODI debut for England he has
played 37 one dayers for Ireland and 15 T20s.
The man of the match of that 1989 Test was Alan Border
who took - 7 for 46 and 4 for 50...
Border photo - courtesy : images22.com
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar.
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