Andy,
Behind all that humour and sarcasm, you have brilliantly analytical and mathematical mind. Hats off.
JII

Mr Zaltzman, why is your bbc podcast not available outside of the UK? please change it.

As always Sir Andy, You have come up with a wonderful piece of writing. I throughly enjoyed your statistical analysis of a couple of factual realities that should come into consideration of English Selectors and supporters. Bar one match, Aussies have played much better cricket and deserve to hold the trophy. But as you said, stranger things have happened albiet not in cricket, or reality :P

No one supports England in cricket, not even the numbers and statistics, against any opposition.

Harmison is a wuss (a majority of England Players are). Better bring on Monty, maybe this time he will work wonders with the ball in 2nd innings. Oval is supposed to turn right?

well put....england selectors need to take a look at the stats tht u put up, then only will we c an awesome series decider.....either ways, miracles can occur so fingers crossed

Hahahahhaha... Hilarious. Respect for all the bowlers you've listed.

lol and a half. i laughed quite a bit i did. I found extramly funny reading. did not understood the part aboot 1003 run but funny nonethoughless.

haha funny time. i laughed quite a bit i did. I found extramly funny reading. did not understood the part aboot 1003 run but funny nonethoughless.

Andy, the Ashes consist largely of myths - whats one more or less? Some of the more feeble ones doing the rounds are:
1. Its the ultimate cricketing contest. Gimme a break - even Zim v/s B'desh is more gripping these days.
2. It's keeping Test cricket alive. You, dear Andy, are keeping it alive, single-handedly (i presume you are a one-finger typist, given your recent output),in spite of the insipid cricket on display.
3. The Aussies are underperforming because they can't sledge. Santa's little helper, is he, Ponting?
4. Flintoff.

Thats absolutely true about "Hormison" !!! He has got more than enough opportunities. England might have found another "Onions" instead.

Thanks Andy, that makes everything clearer. Suddenly the whole series is making sense.

Brilliant! Makes statistics sound like fun :)

In your own way, you're saying "Drop Steve Harmison!"

________________________________________________
Rishabh Bablani, www.billyworm.blogspot.com

lol

Nothing to add but brilliant once again!

In short, England have no chance!

Pretty revealing stats eh? England might not accept, but I think the only England can win with this bunch is for Australia to wildly off the road and expected road(a remote but nonetheless chance with this current Australian team)

My prediction - With their recent form, Aussies should be able to wrap up the match with an innings and cople of days to spare!

Always love the hilarious but true stats you manage to dig up Andy!

hahaha....great post!!!

hahaha....great post!!!

Another classic Andy. Keep up the fantastic work!

Great stat about onions. Can someone please tell the selectors about this and the real facts on Harmison before the team's picked this morning.
And remember, this is a guy who also has a habit of 'giving up coz it's all too hard'!!
Now England have 4 South African batsmen, maybe we should be plundering their bowling talent too.

Andy may be fogiven on the count of being a formerly-failed-cricketer-successful-comedian but this piece of writing has a negative tone as well as it downplays achievements of Wikramsinghe, Giles, Prabhakar. I hope Andy regains his positive attitude and can marry that with his unmatchable sense of humour. Love you Andy but this was a passable piece of writing.

Hilarious.. your stats rule!!

Andy may be fogiven on the count of being a formerly-failed-cricketer-successful-comedian but this piece of writing has a negative tone as well as it downplays achievements of Wikramsinghe, Giles, Prabhakar. I hope Andy regains his positive attitude and can marry that with his unmatchable sense of humour. Love you Andy but this was a passable piece of writing.

Your third bullet point is spot on. Everyone has focused on the batting after the general and middle order debacle at Headingley but the real issue is the bowlers. This attack based on the history and especially on the last two attempts - that is, form - does not have the penetration to bowl these Australian batsmen out twice on a vaguely reliable pitch. Probably the batsmen will do ok but who is going to get each of Ponting, Clarke, North and Haddin - not to mention the rest who are making fifties and hundreds for fun - out twice each quickly and cheaply enough. I'm not sure there's a selection answer to this which is perhaps why it's been rather unstated but this is a batters' series and the questions are (a) which attack is more likely to bowl to form to disruopt the batsmen's advantage; and (b) which batting line up is less likely to throw its wickets away to help the opposition take twenty wickets? Sadly the answer to both is Australia. Let's hope I'm utterly wrong.

I hope Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower have read this post. But imagine the aussie team reading this post, it much more effective than Langer's Dossier.

the podcast doesnt appear to be available within the UK, either. Boo to the beeb

i hope u r well paid for all the pains u took in coming with the stats.

i hope u r well paid for all the pains u took in coming with the stats.

Many thanks Andy for your consistently incisive yet hilarious pieces. From a different angle, England should have included Monty and Onions to ensure adequate depth in nightwatchmen. Perhaps also as backup for the one-legged wonder and in case Harmison goes AWOL again. (Awful Wides Over Leg-gully).

Brilliant - I love stats, and as such your articles are always hilarious.

However, while it was obviously tongue in cheek, at least Champaka Ramanayake, Nixon McLean and Pramodya Wickramasinghe were actual fast bowlers. Nathan Astle, on the other hand, was a medium pacer at best. I remember a commentator describing his style as bowling "autumn leaves" rather than cricket balls. Surely there is another genuine quick out there with a test average of 43? Probably could even find a Kiwi to replace Astle with like for like.

1003 in 170 overs? Well, recently Sehwag announced a spat with his state Delhi, and is planning to leave Delhi. If the England selectors had been as wise as Andy, they should have manouvered him into leaving not just his state but his country for 5 days, instead of wasting time over Ramprakash, Trott, Trescothick, Flintoff, Panesar, etc. If Sehwag scores 901 of those runs in about 134.1 overs, the rest of the team can score 102 in 33.5 overs like they did last time.

The Times headlines for 24th August:
andy zaltzman elected prime minister after brown steps to celebrate England scoring 1003 for 2 to defeat australia by an innings and 1 run mom: flintoff:900* and 20/40

I'm pretty sure the current selection committee aren't particularly numerate. Maybe you could join Willis and Boycott to make up the 'dream team'. At least they didn't select Panesar...

gr8 comment!!!!!! but i like to support an England's win as then australia will drop in test ranking & ultimately india will move up......

Less english play cricket these days so they hav to choos players born in /related to different countries like trott,pietrson,bopara, panesar

Let's face it people - England is an average team in the world of cricket trying to beat the most consistent, most talented and most determined team in the world. They are trying their best, in home conditions and have just about managed to hang on. It's not surprising at all. England can only win this series if Australia hand it to them on a silver platter.

how do you come up with this stuff?! Great articles !!keep it up!! i am from the west indies and totally love it!!

Henceforth, I will work "Prabhakaretic" into my cricket conversations :-)....

re saket, say what you wish about Pietersen and Trott but Bopara and Panesar are both english.

Boy, I shouldn't read your blog while in office. The whole floor gets up with a curious 'who is the moron laughing like that' look. As always, brilliant article. Keep them coming.

In the Times podcast before Headinglay, someone said "I'd love to see a 3 1/2 day thriller with wickets falling all over the place." You idiot, Zaltzman - look what you did!

you have been proved wrong..better luck next time for your prediction.

They don't call him Steve Harmless-one for nothing.

With hindsight it didn't seem to be all that disparate - Total Aussie runs = 2882; Total Brit runs = 2869 (hope that's right). Given they had the majority of the batting in the badly weather-beaten test it's not all that far out.
I reckon you're pretty much right in that we had 2 tests a piece where one side had the ascendancy with one washout and it was only the tail hanging in there that won it for us.

Looking forward to SA and Broads continuing metamorphosis into what it is to be hoped Freddie but the figures to back up the reputation...

I, for one, would like to see an England team coached by Mr Andrew Zaltzman. I'm sure that with his clearly superior match analysis (demonstrated in this masterpiece of an article) could very well lead the team to the top.