Flat -> bumpy

More spice! That's more like it. Or more unlike it, because it hasn't been very like the Australian team to really spank opposing teams in recent times. It's a strange feeling. It's (a) a good feeling, lots of fun, whoops of joy; (b) a familiar feeling, because it used to be like this most of the time; (c) an unfamiliar feeling, because it's been a long time between spankings, and it was certainly before my time that we last spanked with such pace. It's sweet, but it almost seems too easy. What happened?

Favourite things

Favourite moment number one today was when Stuart Broad came to the crease to face Mitchell Johnson and instigated a long princess-and-the-pea hunt for an offending glint of light off a bolt on the side of the sight board. Then was bowled. Great set up, great punch line. I like Stuart Broad, he's a bare-faced, poker-faced gamesman and I take my hat off to him. Along with maybe Carberry, he's the only remotely likeable member of the English team as far as I'm concerned. Pretty much everyone else enrages me.

Favourite moment number two was Mitchell Johnson's "serious" face send off to James Anderson. The opposite of a come hither but seductive nevertheless. Mean girls! Channel 9 was also mean by playing The Big Pink's Dominoes in the break between innings (main line: "These girls fall like dominoes" Girls!).

Speaking of meanness, it always surprises me how commentators who harrumph about T20 and boorishness and generally espouse a mild-mannered ideal of the sport openly drool down the microphone at a vicious bouncer. Sort of like it's okay to try to break someone's arm but not okay to tell them you will. Okay.

Girls on fire

With the flambé intros, the rule seems to be that fast bowlers get a close up that makes them look like serial killers and spinners get a head and shoulders, except that Panesar got the serial killer treatment so I don't know anymore.

Lookalike corner

I once claimed Broad was a lost Hanson. Here's an attempt to sell Joe Root as a lost Windsor (with a soupçon of Diana Spencer?).

But this is the real one. I've heard Michael Carberry does a fine impression of Viv Richards, but I think he could turn his talents in another direction.

The big question is: 

What to cook for the next game?