Never mind the Bledisloe, the Aussies won the Ashes

Above: the Victorious Aussies. The men on the far left and right were the outstanding players of the team. The two in the middle were pretty average, especially Junior, who obligingly hit a rank long hop bowled by a wheezing English prop forward straight down mid-wicket's throat. In the background, you can see Junior's Dad (Senior?).



Above: Ye Noblest English. Unfortunately we were pants. Messrs Robinson and Nazer were the outstanding batting pair but the only way could have won this match is if we had been allowed to bat against our own bowling.



Above: Tim Robinson makes ready to smash another boundary. Robinson's excellent and rather classical batting was the highlight of the England performance. His bowling was another story - ask him to show you the 'mystery' ball which he runs along his back before delivering it.


Above: "Wait until the price hits 50 and then dump everything you've got." Shane Wallis managed to direct trading operations from the point fielding position. Sadly, this affected his focus on the cricket. He recorded a 24-run over (wide-wide-4-4-4-6, 2 runs and no repeats for wides) to Robinson in game 2 and famously declared that Nazer's bowling would be a "goldmine" only to be castled by the same man shortly afterwards. Of course, Wallis is not the first Aussie to suffer a little from hubris. Who can forget Glenn McGrath's "5-0" comment before the 2005 Ashes (turned out he was a series too early) or the rhetoric from the Australian camp about a 30 point margin of victory in the 2007 Rugby World Cup quarter final?


SOMEWHAT PREDICTABLY, Australia trounced England in the inagural Wahu Hong Kong Ashes Pairs Cricket tournament last Friday (October 31). Australia Captain Junior "AB" Naylor had drafted in some fine players in the form of James Shortis and Gary "Gilly" Hill and their all-round strength was too much for a more modestly-talented England team. In truth, the series resembled all too many real Ashes series of my youth - dominance from the Aussies as they build an unassailable advantage, a brief show of defiance from England, then systematic crushing from the Australians.

After humbly appointing myself England Captain, I tried to find some Brearley-like words of wisdom and encouragement before Ian Ridgeway and I took the field to open the batting in the first game. "Chaps," said I. "Let's try and look for scoring opportunities when they offer us width or anything short. But, above all, the way we should avoid getting out at any cost today is to be run out." Five minutes later I had run Ridgeway out twice in one over, leaving us with an embarrassing negative score at one point (each wicket costed the batting team five runs). I am clearly not the judge of a run that I used to imagine myself. Either that or I am very, very slow these days.

Anyhow, England rallied to an apparently defensible 70 runs from our nine overs (there were six players a side and each pair batted for three overs). The Pom effort was led by Tim Robinson, who found effective support from David Nazer in a 4o-ish run partnership from their three overs. Any notion that this would be adequate was short-lived though. The Aussies marched out with grim intent and began to lash our sorry bowling to all parts, with Junior and Gary in particular running riot. England were cheered by the introduction of Phil Millward, our star bowler and first wicket-taker of the day, but even his pacy and accurate deliveries couldn't entirely stem the tide. The Aussies marched off triumphant, finishing with 90-odd runs from their nine overs.

In the second game, we opted to field first and try and chase them down. The innings started wonderfully for England as Aussie opener Kris Marin obligingly smashed Millward's loosener into Robinson's waiting hands. But the Aussie batting line-up continued to pile on the runs despite some tidy off-breaks from Gordon Marsden and Nazer's "ball of the century" that did for the hapless Wallis (poor chap must have been having a shocking off-day because he was yorked by me shortly afterwards). Australia's more senior players also did their part. John Rogers made a tidy contribution with the bat and in the field and Andy Randall enjoyed himself immensely, hoisting his colleague Millward for a six before being cleaned out by the same bowler to leave battle honours even. Randy also attempted to incapacitate your correspondent by releasing the bat after playing one shot, but I am pleased to report that my self-preservation instincts were as sharp as ever and I was able to jump over the flying blade.

Set an imposing 90-ish to win, the England response started at a fair crack with Robinson punishing the bowling and Nazer defending his wicket to leave us on about 35 after three overs. Millward and Marsden played a solid three overs but about 35 were still required from the final three overs. Fellow loosehead Ian Ridgeway and I marched to the "wicket" vowing not to repeat the run-out debacle of the first game and to smash these Aussies around a bit, what. We never stood a chance. Junior, Shortis and Hill had thoroughly mastered the Gray Nicolls "Wonderball" by that point and were swerving the damn thing around like Lewis Hamilton's racecar. We scored a creditable 28 from our three overs but I must confess that only eight of those came from the bat and we had reason more than once to be thankful that there were no LBWs in this format.

After two highly enjoyable, if slightly one-sided games in the afternoon sun, the teams retired to the Sportsman's for fines and awards. Gary Hill and Phil Millward were named players of the series by the opposition. We hope this "dance-off between cricketing lightweights", to use Mike McKee's memorable phrase, will become established as a regular HKFC Rugby Section event and we may even consider holding it on a weekend day or public holiday next time.

Harps