Accidental Fireworks

Even in a one-sided match, test cricket can create some interesting stories. Today Adam Gilchrist hit the 2nd-fastest century in the history of test cricket, rapidly crushing any but the faintest hope of England retaining the Ashes. This alone is a story, but the interesting part is that it should not have happened.

Here's what Gilchrist said:

"After I got my fifty we threw the question back to the rooms, did we want to try and have a look at them (England) if we could press on? We took it as a yes, apparently it was a no."

Translation: Gilchrist got the wrong message, and instead of grinding out a slow, safe innings until the end of the day as captain Ponting had planned he put the pedal to the metal and swung away. The way England has been batting lately, I'm not sure it would have made a difference even if Gilchrist had been caught out on 50 making an imprudent shot, but now the England team has to hold 9 wickets for 2 days or score another 538 runs in order to have any hope of keeping the Ashes. They really only have 3 batsmen left who seem capable of making a century (Bell, Collingwood and KP - Strauss is gone, Cook is too mistake-prone, Flintoff and Jones are out of form, and then you've got the bowlers). Even if all 3 make centuries England could still end up losing by more than 100 runs.

Hats off to Australia. England's Ashes victory in 2005 awakened a sleeping giant. England's team has been in some disarray since Michael Vaughan's knee injury, but this Australian side is better than the one that Vaughan's England team faced in 2005.

UPDATE: Guess I was wrong about Alastair Cook, who just got his first century vs. Australia. Well played! Too bad England hasn't been able to put all these great individual efforts together at the right moments...