You can surely count on the baggy green Australian cricketers for drama. Led by Aaron Finch they would have disembarked in Melbourne and the UAE with broad and jubilant smiles on their faces after their magnificent victory over England in the final one-dayer at Old Trafford on Wednesday.
With this incredible victory the Aussies proved their superiority in this format of the game, which the writer titles the ‘cowboy game’ because the cricketers take the field in coloured cowboy like outfits under lights and with everything in colour from the umpires to the balls in white and the sight screens in black.
When this type of game now in vogue with T20 and 50-over World Cups being played, one must spare a thought for that man who had innovation in his blood. The one and only Kerry Packer who turned the cricket world upside down.
He made the arrogant Australian Cricket Board of that time to bend before him and grant him his demands. We need not further sing the praises of Packer because it is well documented for history and the players must say a prayer in silence for giving them fabulous pay packets and sing their way to the banks.
Having said that we pad up to take on the TV commentators for their repeating that the boundaries were short at Old Trafford ground every time a batsman hit a four or a six.
It must be said that with both England and Australia going over the 300-run mark, it rained fours and sixes at one side of the ground with the big hitting batsmen targeting that side of the ground.
The commentators repeating of short boundaries were heard with monotonous regularity while the devastating partnership between Alex Carey and Glen Maxwell were on fire and when the biased English commentators were doing their thing.
It was sickening to listen to the short boundary comment continuously. What the English commentators should have done and would have been appreciated had they released their pent up anger at the England and Wales Cricket Board for playing such an important decider on a boundary shortened ground and not belittling the batsmen.
With both Australia and England each having won a game in the three match one-day series this third game was going to be a no-quarter asked or given game and a cracker.
To say that the baggy green caps came saw and conquered the 50-over series forgetting the dreaded covid-19 is no misnomer and all plaudits to them and the EWCB must say a big thank you to the visitors for keeping the wonderful game of cricket alive and kicking and being an example.
Australia’s victory is fantastic considering that they were chasing a mammoth 303 and were sans their best batsman the any bowler mauler former captain Steve Smith. Sans him it was cricket’s Mount Everest to climb to achieve victory. And that the Aussies performed this miracle was great.
When Australia were chasing victory and when paceman Jofra Archer had wicket keeper and left hand last recognized batsman Alex Carey caught at third man by leg spinner Adil Rashid and with the Aussies 73 for 6, England were dancing the jig.
They were justified in dancing and doing the jig and celebrating because they knew they were sniffing victory and a 2-1 series triumph. But with a dejected Carey taking the long, lonely walk back, he was stopped in his tracks by the third umpire who had noticed that Archer had delivered a no-ball.
What a relief for Carey and what joy it turned out for the Aussies and England did not seem disheartened because they had the fire in their attack to burn the rest of the Aussie batsmen.
But what one saw after the reprieve of Carey was utter mayhem as Carey along with the devastating Maxwell riding a crest of a wave of success took the threatening England attack by the scruff of its neck and lambasted it along the ground and out of it and made it look ordinary with the home team bowlers and fielders looking utterly helpless and looking to the cricketing gods for help.
It is accepted that God helps those who help themselves and Carey 106 and Maxell 108 believing in this saying during their double century stand 212 lit up the ground like a Chinese-like wonderful fireworks display of stroke-play that had probably not been seen on this ground before.
Carey the talented left hander had a poor run with the bat in the T20 and 50-over series came good with a century. Maxwell who hits the ball with the strength of an ox was simply belligerent and unstoppable.
But the guy who made this impossible victory possible and needs to be always remembered was veteran left arm new ball bowler Mitchell Starc who sent back England’s Roy and Root with the first two balls of the match.
And then when Australia required 10 runs off the last over, Starc slammed leg spinner Rashid for a six and a four to signal an unforgettable triumph for the never-say-die Aussies thus ending the series and cricket for the year in Old Blightey hosting West Indies, Pakistan and Australia kicking aside the covid-19 fear.