A Sense of Unreality

I didn't see the fall of the World Trade Center on 11th September 2001 as it happened, but people who did reported that doing so induced a sense of unreality. Many of them genuinely couldn't believe what they were seeing.

Today was a bit lke that. As I watched the Australian second innings wickets tumble in the kind of surreal freefall rarely seen away from the game's lower echelons, I briefly felt as though what I was seeing couldn't reallly be happening.

This was Australia.

Australia. The side, if not the players, who used to bestride the world, trampling all challengers underfoot.

And they were 21 for 9.

Precise reasons were hard to come by. There was some fine bowling, of course, and the pitch did its bit, but, as the cliche goes, 'it wasn't a 47 all out wicket'.

There were poor shots, from Hussey and Haddin in particular, but, more importantly, Australia, despite their fine showing in Sri Lanka, remain in an uneasy place. Watson now looks several places too high, Hughes, jumpy and staccato, still fails to convince, and Ponting may be facing the final curtain. Johnson just struggles on.

For all Clarke's class, the many qualities of Steyn, Morkel and the excellent newcomer Vernon Philander were always going to test their mettle to its limits.

They did, and they were found wanting. The game could go either way tomorrow but South Africa are favourites.

Ricky Ponting's Barmy Army

These are confusing, possibly distressing, times for the Australian cricket follower. If you are one you would have to be in your early thirties, at the very least, to have any conscious memory of a time when your national side was as poor as it is now, and, even if you're older and were around in the days of Murray Bennett and Andrew Hilditch (I wonder what happened to him?), there's a good chance that you've forgotten what it's like to see your side repeatedly humiliated at home by superior opponents. The fact that the team raised your hopes by beating the very same opponents with ease in the previous match probably just serves to increase the feeling of disorientation.

And it's no better for the players. The last time this sort of thing was going on Punter was playing for Mowbray under-10s and Steve Smith and Philip Hughes hadn't even made their debuts in the human race.

So what, as a spectator, when your flagging, toothless team needs your support more than ever, do you do?

Well, if the first day at the MCG is anything to go by, you decide before tea that you can't take any more and you simply walk out of the ground.

Opening Gambits

When it emerged yesterday morning that Australia had dropped Philip Hughes, there was a strong temptation to write a piece castigating their selectors for replacing him with Shane Watson when there appeared to be better and more obvious alternatives, such as Mike Hussey, who learned his trade as an opening batsman.

Now, in the light of what happened between 5 and 7 yesterday afternoon, I'm glad I didn't, although the arguments against Watson still stand, and it's difficult to envisage him staying at the top of the Australian order for very long.

Yesterday afternoon, though, England did their level best to make him look good, bowling with poor consistency and concentration in front of what sounded like a boisterous and over-hyped crowd. The two may not be unconnected; England have a tendency to believe their own publicity too readily, and, with the cheers of the Lord's crowd still ringing in their ears and supplemented by those of Edgbaston, they looked like a side lacking focus.

James Anderson, of whom a lot was expected in this series, and Stuart Broad, of whm a lot was hoped, are particular concerns, and they and their team-mates need to show a lot more when play resumes in three hours' time.