God help me I’m becoming a cricket troll. For those that don’t know, I’m of the view that the only thing standing between Australia and 14-nil loss to India and then England is the weather. Overnight Australia took just four days to lose the third test from a seemingly impregnable position and the revolving door selection policy is swiftly becoming a maelstrom:
Michael Clarke admits his back injury could prevent him from playing in Friday’s fourth Test against India but failed to clarify if Shane Watson will take over as skipper.
Clarke batted in obvious pain on Monday’s fifth day of the third Test in Mohali as Australia were bowled out for 223 in their second innings, setting India a target of 133 to win from a minimum of 36 overs.
India captain MS Dhoni (18 off 28 balls) was tied down by some spirited Aussie bowling but eventually hit out with three successive boundaries at the start of the 34th over to seal the win for the home side at 4-136 with 15 deliveries to spare.
The victory gives India a 3-0 advantage in the four-match series as Dhoni’s men reclaimed the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
“It’s very positive that Watto is coming back,” Clarke said, attempting to put an end to the speculation over the past week about Watson’s personality clashes with his Australia’s captain, coach Mickey Arthur and high-performance chief Pat Howard.
“I know all the boys are looking forward to having him back and no doubt if I am unavailable … I haven’t spoken to the selectors but I would imagine that Watto would be captain,” said Clarke, who is also a selector himself.
Some nice schadenfreude for Shane there. I look forward to a new level of pouting as we go down in the next test.
I believe that this is the worst Australian cricket side in living (or perhaps dead) memory. The only solution is some kind of forced resocialisation in which the current team faces severe deprivation in the event of further losses: force feeding of beer and beef, bans on all forms of capucino, endorsements, WAGS and peroxide. If that fails, forced mustaches with no charitable outcome. Then we might at least see some spine. Or imagine we did.
