Upcoming Ashes series, Australia confident, England look to defend title
Australia and England prepare for reignite their old rivalry in the Ashes. These two cricketing giants have been representing and celebrating this prestigious cricketing event since 1882. The series itself follows the highest format of the game, in 5 breath taking test matches.
The name “Ashes” came about after Australia and England’s first encounter. A British newspaper published a satirical obituary referring to the series as the death of English cricket, “the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”. The English made it such a big deal as they lost the 1st series stating, “The quest to regain the Ashes”. Hence, the name “the Ashes” was given to what became one of the biggest cricketing events ever. Which was all about who would take home the Urn.
The Aussies, are confident, led by veteran Australian Captain Ricky Ponting, of yet another win on home territory. The English have not lifted the urn in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 since 1986-87, making the Aussie’s mightier than ever. Home advantage has played a crucial role in past and would do at present as well. Whereas, the young English test side will surely be tested on Aussie land, at the same time England’s last two wins have been a real confidence booster for them.
The Aussie Captain is looking forward to the return of their number one wicket-keeper, Brad Haddin, and off-spinner, Nathan Huaritz. The Aussie squad hopes to have the services of the talented young right-arm fast-medium specialist Peter Siddle. They lacked a firm bowling attack in the previous encounter in England, which could not bowl-out the English line-up. Veteran skipper, Ponting believes in an “absolutely possible” 5-0 Ashes whitewash this summer.
Ponting says, “We know now that we're a more experienced and probably a better team now than we were then. We put that together plus we're playing in our conditions, we hope to win this series and win it well. Batting collapses probably were the reason we lost the series last time around and our inability to bowl them out on the last day in Cardiff. I've got confidence in the squad of players that we've got that they are going to be good enough to win an Ashes series”.
England’s confidence suffered recently as they failed to achieve a clean-sweep against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/A-Young-c41367 Pakistani team in the ongoing test series in England. The English were hoping to win the entire series making a national record of winning 8 consecutive tests but the visitors surprised them at The Oval. Obviously, the English sides last two Ashes encounters gave them the upper hand, but veteran Aussie skipper is believes that the Mighty Aussies have learned from their previous mistakes.
The English still have one more test match to get their act together for the Ashes against the young Pakistani test team. The Aussies drew their test series against the same opponents 1-1 because they failed to negate swing bowling. But conditions at home will be different. The Aussie’s look forward to competing against the Indian’s in October to fine-tune their preparations for the Ashes.
Critics believe that pressure would play on the Aussie’s based on the previous two loses. Plus, out of the 64-times the two test cricket founders have met for the Ashes, 31 wins belong to the Aussies and the Englishmen have 28 wins to their name, while 5 series have been drawn. Critics also believe the current tempo of both test teams suggest a comfortable victory for the hosts, as the home advantage would definitely play a major role. One can just wait and see how the tournament and its history would play on the minds of the players.
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