{"id":3583,"date":"2010-12-20T07:35:37","date_gmt":"2010-12-19T21:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=3583"},"modified":"2010-12-20T07:44:17","modified_gmt":"2010-12-19T21:44:17","slug":"the-ashes-game-3-applesauce-bitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=3583","title":{"rendered":"The Ashes 2010\/11 Game Three – Applesauce, bitch."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ahh, the beauty of test match cricket.\u00a0 In the middle of Day Two in the third game of the Ashes, all appeared lost for the Aussies.\u00a0 Already down 1-0 in a home series where England held the Ashes, they were dismissed for a lowly 268 and were bowling at a supremely confident English batting lineup that had reached seventy eight runs without the lost of a wicket.\u00a0 The situation looked hopeless and the series appeared lost.<\/p>\n

At that moment, Mitchell Johnson, who had been wicketless in the first game and dropped for the second, dismissed Alastair Cook who had previously scored a double ton and a century in the games before.\u00a0 It probably should’ve been a blip on the radar but it wasn’t.\u00a0 It was the first of Mi-Jo’s unprecedented six wicket haul, removing England for just 187 in their first innings.\u00a0 I say unprecedented because Johnson is typically a rubbish bowler renowned for serving up enough pies to open a bakery and a guy that normally doesn’t get any movement off the seam.\u00a0 Yet here he was, man of the hour, taking a six wicket haul.<\/p>\n

Unless you lived in Australia, you had no idea what pressure these guys were under up to this point.\u00a0 The fickle Australian media and public, via News.com, Twitter and Facebook had more or less sacked and replaced the entire squad in their minds and had basically conceded the Ashes.\u00a0 There were honestly serious calls in the media to bring Shane Warne out of retirement.\u00a0 Johnson’s six wickets suddenly turned the nation’s psyche on its head.\u00a0 Hang on a minute, can we actually win this?<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/em>

A desperate moustache with nothing to lose<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/em>Australia cobbled together a respectable 309 in the second innings, with underfire captain Ricky Ponting and vice captain Michael Clarke both continuing to underwhelm with their batting form, only to bailed out by Shane Watson and Michael Hussey.\u00a0 Would a lead of 400 be enough to defend against the mighty English batting attack?<\/p>\n

Well just as the Aussies had their tails up from their first innings bowling performance, so too had England’s nerves come back to haunt them.\u00a0 They would crumble for a paltry 123 runs and be dismissed barely an hour into the fourth day.\u00a0 Australia had won the game and had drawn the series.\u00a0 The Ashes now tied 1-1, with two games to go and next up:\u00a0 A Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.\u00a0 It doesn’t get any bigger or better.<\/p>\n

All of sudden, in the 2010\/11 Ashes series, there is all to play for.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Just a desperate moustache<\/p><\/div>\n

The only downside to it all was my shocking performance in the Fantasy Ashes league.\u00a0 My choice to make Cook captain didn’t pay off and the lack of Tremlett, Harris or Johnson in my bowling lineup meant I missed out on the lion’s share of the points.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ahh, the beauty of test match cricket.\u00a0 In the middle of Day Two in the third game of the Ashes, all appeared lost for the Aussies.\u00a0 Already down 1-0 in a home series where England held the Ashes, they were dismissed for a lowly 268 and were bowling at a supremely confident English batting lineup …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[306],"class_list":["post-3583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-ashes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3583"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3590,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3583\/revisions\/3590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}