I just knew that it was going to happen. If I had said as much a week or two back, I would have been considered a Casandra; a profit of gloom, doom and despondency. It's not the first time and as sure as eggs are eggs, it will happen again. It has actually happened at least six times this year alone. But still no one sounds the alarm. I am talking, of course, about expectations of sporting success. It is like politicians who ultimately come to believe that their own propaganda is the truth. We have so many ready to predict sporting success that the whole population comes to accept its inevitability. it seems inevitable - until we actually take to the field. We thought that the England football team would win the World Cup - it was almost a certainty. In practice, the team performance was abysmal and these over-paid prima-donas were out in the early stages. Then it was suggested that Andy Murray would be the first British winner at Wimbledon since 1936 - or was it 1836. Of course, he failed. We will gloss over the rugby team[s]. In the search for the player of the year not a single one of those on the shortlist plays for a team from the Northern Hemisphere!! All the candidates play for South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. Why?
But, the latest is the cricket team. This was the team that would win the Ashes in Australia for the first time since Mike Gatting was in charge. It started off well. Andrew Strauss was out to the third ball of the first over of the series. After that things went downhill. The Aussie bowler, Siddle, achieved his best ever bowling figures in first class cricket when he took six wickets - including a hat-trick. In the modern game, only Shane Warne and Darren Gough have achieved that. Previous to those two requires a search back to 1904. At the end of Day 2 the Australians were on 220 for 5 and the match evenly balanced. But most of Day 3 was to elapse before England took another wicket. Hussey and Haddin put on 307 for the 6th wicket. This was a record for the ground. It was well below the world record for a 6th wicket partnership; that was George Headley and Clarence Passailaigue at Kingston, Jamaica in 1931-32. But all this does not augur well for England's chances. It looks like they will lose this test unless there is a superhuman effort to [a] score some runs and [b] take some wickets very quickly. First of all they have to score 221 to make Australia bat again and that is not something anyone would put a lot of money on at this stage.
Still, I will wish them luck. They are going to need it.
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