Excellent England thrash the Aussies to retain the Ashes

GRIP: Andrew Strauss continues to hold the urn tightly

ENGLAND’s cricketers completed a historic Ashes series victory in Australia in the early hours of Friday morning.  Andrew Strauss’s side won the fifth and final test by an innings and 83 runs in Sydney, to complete a crushing 3-1 series triumph and a first win Down Under since 1986-87.

2005 Ashes winning Captain Michael Vaughan handed the Ashes over to Strauss, as England completed their utter domination of the entire series in special fashion.  “All credit to the guys again, they have been outstanding, we’re delighted with the victory and we are certainly going to enjoy this evening;” Strauss told Australia’s Channel 9 in the post-match interviews.

The Barmy Army packed into the Sydney cricket ground and with only three Australian wickets remaining, it was expected that England would finish them off fairly quickly, which they did.  Alistair Cook was voted man of the series for scoring 700+ runs, whilst James Anderson took the most wickets.  Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott built on their reputations and even the mercurial Kevin Pietersen chipped in with some priceless runs and the odd wicket, despite not looking at his best.  

DOWNCAST: Australia's cricketers hang their heads in shame

The Australian press have ripped into the team, calling it their worst ever XI.  Ricky Ponting has now become the first Australian captain to lose three Ashes series in history, a sobering statistic.  The Herald Sun newspaper was especially damming; “It was such slow, painful torture that you wondered whether this is what it must be like to be squeezed to death by a boa constrictor.”

Australian cricket is in crisis, as the side has slipped from invincible to easily beatable in a few short years.  The dominant days of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden now are only a distant memory.  Just four years ago, England were crushed 5-0 in Oz, how quickly can things change, this was such a convincing victory, it made Australia look like Bangladesh in terms to test cricket level! 

PERFECT: The best way to finish Paul Collingwood's test career

Whatever happens in the coming months in the test game, Paul Collingwood won’t be part of the arena again.  The middle-order batsman, who by his standards had a dismal series, announced his retirement from this form of the game the day before the series victory.  He will continue to represent England at 20:20 and one-day level.  This is a great way to finish his distinguished career.  He told Sky Sports; “I’ve been involved in some tough times in Australia before, so to go out on this note is really sweet.” 

The Aussies can try and salvage some pride by winning the upcoming one-day and 20:20 series, but for England, they have the main prize and in some fashion.  Summer challenges at home to India and Sri Lanka are bound to prove stiffer examinations.  England has a winning habit in cricket and will not want to lose it anytime soon.

Freddie Says Goodbye To The Cricket Arena

Whilst the County Championship was being settled on Thursday afternoon, one of England’s greatest ever Cricket players was announcing his retirement from the game.  Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff has retired from the Cricket arena, on the recommendations of doctors and surgeons, due to a constant knee injury, that has plagued him ever since the Ashes triumph of 2005.

Flintoff’s career came to an end as it turned out in August 2009, when he played a minor role in helping England regain the Ashes last summer against Australia.  This was despite a fantastic five-wicket haul at Lord’s, and more memorably, running out the Australian captain Ricky Ponting on the final afternoon of the series at The Oval.  He bowed out of the test scene there and then, but he hoped to carry on playing 20:20 cricket for England, county championship action for Lancashire and in the fast-paced Indian Premier League for the Chennai Super Kings.  However, after two more surgeries required in the last twelve months, both unsuccessful, Freddie has decided to make the right decision and call it a day at the age of 32.  Bookmakers are already slashing odds on Flintoff appearing in some form of reality show like ‘I’m A Celebrity, Get Me out of Here,’ before the end of the year.

Rather than facing the press about his decision, Flintoff chose to tell the world via a released statement:

"The decision to end my career came yesterday after consultation with medical advisers."  "I was told that the problems I have been trying to overcome in rehab for the last year following the latest in a series of operations would not recover sufficiently to allow a comeback.  "I will now be taking a break before deciding which future direction to take."

In his charismatic career with England, Flintoff took 226 test wickets and 169 wickets in the one-day form of the game.  He played 79 tests, scoring nearly 4,000 test runs, averaging 31.77.  This included five flamboyant centuries, including a crucial century in the Trent Bridge test of 2005, that helped England earn the crucial 2-1 series advantage against Australia to win the coveted urn for the first time in eighteen years.  He was captain of his country for the doomed defence of the Ashes in Australia, losing 5-0 in the winter of 2006/07.  His Ashes exploits also earned Flintoff the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award for 2005.  Off the field, Flintoff was known to like a cigarette, and didn’t set the greatest examples of professional behaviour to youngsters on occasions.  Most memorably, he slurred through several interviews, having knocked back many in the 2005 Ashes celebrations.  He was also stripped of the England captaincy during the 2007 Cricket World Cup, for escaping from the team hotel and crashing a pedalo, whilst drunk. 

However, nothing can take out his dramatic effect on the game and although England have moved on fairly well since his departure from Test Cricket, his missing presence in this winter’s Ashes series will be felt, by both sides. 

After all, the remarkable Ashes Series of 2005 was truly the summer where we fell in love with the game of Cricket, and that was all down to the remarkable, outstanding Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff.

Free-To-Air Sports TV List Deferred

A decision on the future of free-to-air sport television events to be shown in the future, including home England Ashes Test matches has been deferred until the completion of the UK digital switchover in 2013. 

In November 2009, an independent review was recommended, led by the former chief executive of the FA, David Davies.  On the proposed list, the Winter Olympics, rugby league’s Challenge Cup final and the Epsom Derby would disappear from the free-to-air list, with the Rugby World Cup, England’s World Cup qualification matches and the Ashes would be added.  At the time, the panel also recommended a secondary list of protected events, which must have highlights available as free-to-air, to be abolished.  The delayed announcement which was made on Wednesday means that the current list, last drawn up in 1998 will remain the same for the short-term at least.  This means, that Sky are likely to still hold onto the 2013 home Ashes series.  The last terrestrial broadcaster to hold live Ashes cricket on free-to-air was Channel 4 back in 2005.

It is caused a lot of concern and talk about the future of many sports.  For now at least, things will not change:

PROPOSED LISTED SPORTING EVENTS (As made by the panel in November 2009)

Olympic Games
FIFA World Cup finals
UEFA European Championship finals
Grand National
FA Cup final
Scottish FA Cup
Home and away football qualifiers for World Cup and European Championship Wimbledon Championship
Open golf championship
Cricket's home Ashes Test matches
Rugby World Cup

CURRENT LISTED SPORTING EVENTS (Last changed back in 1998)

Group A (Full live coverage protected)

Olympic Games
FIFA World Cup finals
European Football Championship finals
FA Cup final
Scottish FA Cup final (protected in Scotland)
Grand National Epsom Derby
Wimbledon tennis finals Rugby League Challenge Cup Final
Rugby World Cup final

Group B (Highlights only on free-to-air TV)

This secondary list would be scrapped.

England's home cricket Test matches
Other matches, excluding finals, at Wimbledon Championships
Other matches, excluding final, at Rugby World Cup
Six Nations matches involving home countries
Commonwealth Games
World Athletics Championships
Cricket World Cup - final, semi-finals and matches involving home nations
Ryder Cup
Open golf championship

Sky Sports Price Cut - But They Are Not Happy!

Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 have been deemed too expensive and have been asked to cut their prices by the media regulator, OFCOM.  However, Sky isn’t very happy with this forceful move by the regulator.

The chief executive of BSkyB, finds OFCOM’s findings as ‘extraordinary,’ and insisted that they want to ‘appeal against the decision via the courts.’  On the other hand, OFCOM has previously warned Sky about its prices, largely because Sky holds the majority of rights to key sporting events, such as The Ashes, the US Open Tennis and FA Premier League football.  They insist that today’s ruling will make Sky Sports more available now to nearly ten million new customers.

However, the regulator stopped short of price cuts in Sky’s varied selection of movie channels, which has angered some of BSkyB’s closest competitors, like BT and Virgin Media.  If a move is agreed to cut the price of Sky Sports to the normal customer, Sky will be allowed to bring some of their pay-TV channels like Sky1 to Freeview, which had been agreed over two years ago, until Virgin Media’s buyout of ntl: telewest.  The broadcaster now has six weeks to outline a template contract to other pay TV providers, with OFCOM set to make a final announcement before the World Cup finals this summer.

Sky is the largest operator in the pay-TV market at the moment, with nearly ten million subscribers.  Under the new proposal, OFCOM has suggested the Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 shall be made available for a price of £10.63 per subscriber, whereas the current subscriber would be paying £17.14, a reduction of over 10%.  This news comes after a three-year investigation, in which OFCOM has denied claims of foul play tactics and everywhere was done on a ‘fair and square basis.’ 

Virgin Media, BT and the normal or new subscriber are the main winners and Sky the losers, as they have already insisted of their intentions to appeal against the decision.  The bidding war involving pay-TV prices has certainly well and truly begun.