Why Australia can win the Ashes 5-0 -- Part 6

In terms of most recent Ashes form, M.E.K. Hussey is at the top of the batting pile: his 121 in the fifth Test at The Oval was the highest score in the final three matches of the 2009 series. It was an innings which kept alive the slim optimism of an Australian jail-break. Set an improbable (my Dad would of course say ‘impossible’ — see Vol I) 546 runs to win, Australia were 2 for 90 when Mike Hussey joined Ricky Ponting. This was early in day four of the Test, on a Sunday. On day three I had enjoyed the magnanimity of breaking the spirits of young fifteen-year-old bowlers by uncouthly belting them back over their heads — in other words, I was playing village cricket. All the pundits there, and village teams are full of sagacious musings over a post-game pint, agreed that if Australia batted out the rest of the Test, they would win. Easy game from the pub!

Once Ponting and Hussey put on a century stand without glimpse of being dismissed, I declared to my wife that it was all getting too exciting to stand around to try to help her with the Sunday roast. I had been dithering betwixt kitchen benches to sort out the rebellion of the roast veges and attend to the precious demands of the chicken to be basted every so often. But, and I’m sure most cricket fans can relate to this, as the reception in my house is poor, my moving from one bench to another induced machine-gun fire static from the radio. I had to time my moves to coincide with a boundary or the end of an over. But even my shrewdest endeavours were not able to permit unmolested listening. The game was getting far too exciting to miss a small tit-bit of wisdom from C.M.J.

So I went upstairs, with the radio, and lay down on a camp bed. If, instead of Test Match Special, I had Barber’s Adagio for Strings playing, the scene would resemble one from Platoon. Ponting was dismissed — quick singles are all well and good, but why tempt fate when embarking on chasing down 500+? — but the Huss batted on. Determined? Sure. Patient? Of course. Punishing of loose bowling? Naturally. And Hussey was pretty good too.

He was perhaps not able to exercise his powerful off-side stroke play, particularly backward of point, in India. Unless England post four slips and three gullies, I should think that Hussey will make no fewer than two centuries, and four over-fifty scores in the series.