The Urn - Photo lildude CCANDNC
There is so much to see on YouTube that it is tempting to gouge at somebody’s eyes at work so you get suspended for eight weeks. But where to begin? Sport without Spin will guide you with a digest of some of our favourite clips.
This week, we take our inspiration from a certain cricket series starting in Cardiff (yes, Cardiff) next week. For those of you who don’t have time to watch your Ashes 2005 DVD box sets before Wednesday morning, we bring you the seven best moments of that huge triumph, obviously in a hugely biassed way that ignores anything good that the Aussies did in that particularly year, where they even had the temerity to win the first Test.
1. Harmison roughs up the Aussies on Day 1
Starting at the start, the terrific 2005 series went off with a bang, with Harmison in his pomp rampaging into the Australian top order. Having first caught Langer on the elbow with the second ball of the match, leaving the opener requiring treatment, he then fired one bouncer into Hayden’s helmet followed by this bouncer into Ponting’s face with such force his grille cut his cheek open, leaving him with physcial scars on top of any mental scars the rest of the series would leave him with.
2. Flintoff goes Super N-over
At Edgbaston in the second innings, Flintoff, having fired a remarkable 73 including 4 sixes with a bad shoulder to give England a sniff of victory, came on to bowl with the Australians 47 without loss. He bowled a remarkable over of pace and skill that turned the match in England’s favour, galvanising the team and removing two cornerstones of the Australian batting lineup. His second ball, a leg cutter, took Langer’s inside edge. He then tore into Ponting: first he swung one in for a close lbw shout; then he moved the ball away to take an edge that didn’t carry; followed by another inswinger and an lbw shout that was slightly outside the line of off stump. Just when Ponting though he had survived the over, the 6th ball which was left was signalled a no-ball and Freddie summoned up one last Herculean effort to get his man, teasing Ponting into a drive with a classic outswinger that tickled the edge on the way through to the wicketkeeper. Game was on.
3. Harmison takes last-gasp wicket of Kasprowicz to square the series at Edgbaston
This more than any other moment was when the dream of regaining the Ashes began to look plausible. After Harmison’s magnificent slower ball took Michael Clarke out of the equation, leaving Australia 107 to win with the last 3 men left, nerves were shredded as Warne hit 42 before treading on his wicket and Lee, despite taking a battering from Flintoff, made his way to 43 not out with Kasprowicz on 20 in a last wicket partnership of 59. With four to win, Lee middled an attempted yorker on the full toss straight to the man in the deep as hearts wedged in throats across the country, leaving Kasprowicz to face a steepling ball from Harmison that he could only glove behind, leaving Jones to take a tumbling catch down the leg-side.
The fact that he had taken one hand off the bat fractionally before gloving it meant it shouldn’t have been given, but that is merely a footnote now, as is the fact that match-winner Harmison bowled poorly that morning - England celebrated victory grasped from the jaws of defeat (after the jaws of victory had earlier seemed so close), Flintoff comforted a dispairing Brett Lee, and a series that surely would have been all over had the Aussies wrapped it up was very much alive.
4. Strauss flying catch
In the vital Fourth Test victory, when England restricted Australia to just 218 in response to England’s 477, this stunning slip catch from Andrew Strauss got rid of danger man Adam Gilchrist. At full length, Strauss opted a the last second to go with one hand and grasped the ball whilst completely horizontal a few feet in the air, impressively clinging on when he hit the ground. England will be hoping for many more moments of inspiration from Andrew Strauss, now the team captain, in the field as they seek to recapture the urn this summer.
5. Ricky Ponting meets Gary Pratt
If you’re only going to do one thing of note in your first class cricket career, running out the Australian captain in an Ashes Test is not a bad way to be remembered. Another pivotal moment in the Fourth Test that gave England what would prove a decisive victory, and one that was hugely satisfying, not to mention extremely funny, for every Englishman watching. Ponting, following a call from Damien Martyn he no doubt didn’t thank him for, fell victim to young Durham reserve Gary Pratt’s quick pick up and direct hit.
Brilliantly, Ponting could be seen to be launching his metaphorical toys from his metaphorical pram at the literal England balcony in protest about the regular breaks their fast bowlers had taken, leaving young athletic fielders such as Pratt in his place. Even more brilliantly, he managed to pick one occasion to have a moan when an England bowler was legitimately off the field, as Simon Jones had gone to hospital to have an injury assessed that would keep him out of the final Test and would not appear again in the series.
6. England master reverse swing
Key to the Ashes success in 2005 was the English bowler’s mastery of reverse swing, particularly Messrs Flintoff and Jones (Simon not Geraint, obviously). Here are two superb examples of these bowlers mesmerising the Aussies with the technique, with Katich shouldering arms to Flintoff expecting to see the ball swing away, only to see his off stump cartwheel away instead, whilst Clarke did the same to Jones with identical results. With England’s use of reverse swing effectively being the difference between the two sides where the margins were so small, the ECB, in their infinite wisdom, decided it would be a good idea to let the man who taught the bowlers these tricks to go and work for the other team, cue 5-0 reverse 18 months down the line. Nice one.
7. Pietersen’s 158 at The Oval
With England in trouble on the final day of the series, 133 ahead with 6 wickets left and 5 hours to play, this extraordinary knock of 158, Pietersen’s maiden Test hundred, put the draw that would have seen Australia retain the Ashes out fo reach. this 3 and a half minute thrash through his innings reflects the drama that unfolded on that day: KP surviving McGrath’s hat-trick appeal as the ball cannoned off his shoulder rather than that of the bat before looping to slip; the edge from Warne that eluded Gilchrist and then Hayden (though it doesn’t show the regulation slip catch Warne spilled); and the 7 remarkable sixes he hit in amongst 15 fours. Plenty more of these hundreds, minus the chances offered and the nailbiting circumstances, will do nicely from KP this summer.
