excellant work alb. Its always satisfying returning a profit.
My opinion on the series is as follows;
England outplayed Australia in nearly every session of the series, helped by some favourable umpiring decissions.
However, Australia's only win came in the first test when England dropped 7 catches which amounted to Australia achieving a further 307 runs.
The second test was the pivitoral moment in the series. Australia lost their second best bowler 45 minutes before play was to start and then Ponting won the toss and asked England to bat first. I cannot for the life of me understand how, after going 1-0 up in the series and the momentum with Australia, you ask the opposition to bat without one of your two main strike bowlers and the best spinner in the world in your side to bowl in the last innings on a deterioting pitch.
This alone should see Ponting stripped of the captaincy.
The third test should have been won by England but for the weather saving Australia. A loss of 72 overs in total.
The fourth test was an epimic and England nearly threw the test away chasing such a small total.
The second biggest blunder by Australia came in the final test (fifth) when needing to win, they decide to accept the light on both the second and third days, hence losing time and any chance they had in winning the game. If it was England who needed to win, I am sure they would have stayed out on the field.
Australia really did blow the fifth test by not batting on when the light was offered to them and they had 6 favourable umpiring decisions against two for England, so that more than made up for the favourable decissions England received in the earlier tests.
My one joy from the whole series is knowing that I was right about how Australia will struggle when McGrath isn't playing and with the imminant loss of Warne and McGrath in the next two years, it is hard to see how Aystralia will replace these two greats who have over 1100 test wickets between them.
I still think Hayden is class opening bat on flat wickets with bounce. He proved himself (albeit late) with his knock in the final test when he started to play the ball later instead of hitting everything on the rise as he does in Australia.
Martyn is still class, and he suffered twice from awful decissions.
I agree Gillespie on the form shown over here all summer has lost the plot and is no where near the bowler he was of say two years ago. That's another front line bowler that Australia have depended upon in recent years that will need to be replaced.
The biggest selection I couldn't wok out from the start of the series was why Katich was playing in place of Symmonds. The latter is a better bat, better fielder and offers both spin and medium pace.
With the poor form of Gilchrist with the bat, Australia were exposed in the 5, 6 and 7th spot in the batting order and it speaks volumes to Australia's plight when Warne finisihed 10th highest scorer in the series (both teams combinded).
I will be making my pilgrimmage to Australia for the series in 2006-07 and I hope to meet up with pawa for the boxing day test in Melbourne.
