Ashes comments and a local story

South African cricket at the moment is a little slow but I see there is a nice spat developing between the Gauteng Cricket Board (GCB) and Cricket South Africa. The GCB have been quite vocal in their criticism of Gerald Majola and the handling of the IPL in South Africa.

The full story can be found here but I think the general impression was that the Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament held in South Africa was an unequivocal success. Will have to try and drill down into the specifics around the GCB's complaints.

I see that Cricket SA has taken a tough stance as well - no more games at the Wanderers until the GCB withdraws their threats and accusations. Good to see strong leadership at the helm of SA cricket.

The big story of the moment is of course the first Ashes test which looks like it is leaning toward a draw unless the pitch offers something to the Australian bowlers in the last two days. At this moment in time the Aussies are 53 runs ahead with 5 second innings wickets in hand with North and Haddin in and Mitchell Johnson to come in.

I suppose cricket purists can take a bit of solace from the fact that the Poms showed a bit of backbone in their first innings to post a respectable enough target. Good to see that they didn't just depend on Strauss and Pietersen to get them somewhere. Unfortunately I think that Ponting and Katich have showed that it is imperative to actually go on and make big scores if you get a start.

Hilfenhaus with the new ball surprised me a bit - I would have gone with the more bustling Peter Siddle and given Hilfenhaus a slightly older and softer ball and see what he could get it to do. Will be interesting to see what the Australians do in the second innings.

If the Aussies put their foot down in this session I might not like to be the English management in the next few days...