Ashes Third Test Update
By UPDATE:
Australia 263 & 375-5. England 376. End of play, draw result.
Series stands at England 1 win, 2 draws, Australia 0 wins.
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With only one day remaining in the third test, this will be my final post on it.
Some vintage Flintoff and some excellent England bowling puts England in with a shout for a victory in the third test. While I still hold that a draw is more likely, it’s finely balanced. Although an Australian victory is not mathematically impossible, that’s the best I can say about the probability of this result.
England still have a slender lead at the close of play on day 4, but with one day remaining, time is England’s greatest enemy now. If I were Australia tomorrow, I’d go into immediate defensive mode. A draw helps Australia more than England. As the chances of an Australia victory are vanishingly small, they have to play for the draw. While after a washed out day 3 I suspected a draw, now I have to think the odds favor an England victory. But this is looking like a really good one. The Times sums up the hopes and dreams of both sides thusly:
With the weather forecast to be kind tomorrow, England will be hoping to take the last eight wickets and chase a smallish target. Australia will want to bat until tea and then hope. The game is still alive.
And an England victory would put them perilously close to claiming the Ashes (two England victories and one draw with two series left to play means Australia would have to win both outright to retain the Ashes). This may be a good time to be off that island, come to think of it, as the levels of nervous angst will be intolerable. Mercifully for England, there are no penalty shootouts in cricket.
They’re already writing the obit on the entire series over at Ashes HQ, which is perhaps premature. But this quote captures the mentality of both sets of supporters rather well:
An unfortunate aspect of England’s success is that the world seems to become an exceedingly grim place. Australian fans, not used to losing, grow hugely critical of their team, while English fans barely manage to escape their bubble of self-protective cynicism and focus on whatever bad can be found in their victories. You’d be forgiven for thinking that both teams were losing the Ashes.
Indeed.
