It’s coming home, footba… oh wrong sport, erm… cricket’s coming home… England have regained the Ashes in excellent style, it was no crossing the line with as whimper as England beat the tourists by 197 runs. The Englishmen played well in this series, the only blip really was the fourth test when England imploded to give the Aussies an easy win. Australia started day four on 80 runs for no loss but wickets soon started to tumble as Katich and Watson both fell just two overs into the days play. The Englishmen had to wait some time before the next wicket, Andrew Flintoff in his final International test match ran out Aussie captain Ricky Ponting. The captain’s replacement Michael Clark might as well stayed in the pavilion as he was also run-out in the same over for a *quack*duck*quack*. To cut a long story short, Michael Hussey was last man out after making an innings best 121. England regained the Ashes back from Australia at 5:49pm BST on Sunday 23rd August, mark this date in your calendar folks, one to remember!
In Formula 1; Rubens Barrichello claimed his first win in five years as his world championship leading team mate Jenson Button could only manage seventh. Barrichello is now Jenson’s closet rival leapfrogging both Red Bull drivers. The Brazilian is only 18 points adrift with 60 points available. It won’t be easy for Rubens to overhaul Button’s lead as Brawn are no longer so dominant with Ferrari and McLaren breathing down their necks. The Red Bull pairing of Webber and Vettel are falling back as Red Bull find themselves only the fourth fastest team right now. Red Bull also didn’t take any points away from Valencia with Vettel’s DNF and Webber’s ninth. Pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton finished the race on the second step of the podium after being leapfrogged in his pitstop by Barrichello. Although it is generally accepted that Barrichello would have won the race on pure pace. But catching the car in front in one thing, overtaking is another thing completely, Lewis is very good at making his car very wide. Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen finished the race in third while team mate Luca Badoer finished in a lowly 17th position. Is Badoer really that bad in a good car or are Ferrari using GP’s as an “in-season” test session with stand-in and test driver Badoer? Conspiracy theory? it does seem odd that he got the nod over the more experienced race driver Marc Gene! anyway I digress… The second McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen finished in fourth followed by Nico Rosberg, Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button and Robert Kubica in 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th respectively. Button said after the race that he will be more aggressive in the coming races at Spa-Francorchamps and Monza to defend his championship lead. I think that Jenson needs to be more aggressive as he tends to sit behind another car rather than making a move to get those vital extra points that may deliver him his first world championship. One thing is for sure; the season isn’t so predictable with six races left!
Addendum: One thing that amused me over the weekend was Speed TV’s interview with Renault new boy Romain Grosjean. The Speed TV reporter commented to Grosjean that he qualified in 14th which is the average qualifying position that Nelson Piquet who Grosjean replaced achieved. Talk about having a dig at Renault specifically Flavio Briatore. The Frenchman eventually finished the race one place lower than he started even with Vettel and Buemi retiring. Hardly an impressive start and certainly not a justified replacement for Piquet, I bet Piquest Jnr and Snr are laughing their arses off!
Liverpool slumped to their first home defeat of the year as Aston Villa visited Anfield. The visiting team ran out comfortable winners leading the game 0 – 2 at half time and as the full time whistle blew were 1 – 3. It really seems that Liverpool are missing Xabi Alonso’s vision in the middle of the park, Gerrard is a great player but the link-up play between Alonso and Gerrard is missing after the Spaniard left Anfield for the Bernabeu in the summer. Liverpool have lost as many games this season as they did last season in total. The title race isn’t over, we are only 3 games in but Liverpool need to pull their socks up if they want to challenge for the title come next May! The Reds are lacking consistency, two losses and one big win. I believe that Liverpool can’t afford to be losing home games. Liverpool were only in the title hunt last season because other teams were also dropping points like it was the new fashion. Next up is Bolton at the Reebok Stadium, a game that Liverpool should win according to the statistics but I am not so confident. It’s definitely a must win game for Benitez’ XI if they are to challenge for the title!
