"Dominant Adelaide win sees Aussies go 2 up".

Back beside the beautiful River Severn in equally beautiful Ironbridge as we return once more for an England defeat in the 2021-2022 Ashes Series in Australia as the hosts go 2 up on their way to a thoroughly dominant 4-0 series victory.

Here follows an extract from the chapter being read here together with a link to my self-published book I'm incredibly proud of and other ways and means to support me, if you are able, to thumb the eye of the traditional publishers who refused to read my original manuscript!

Alas.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C5Z3FVYC

https://www.patreon.com/TheBlackfordBookClub
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"Rather than a Session by Session recap, here’s today’s play and their notable timings in real time:

3.30am and a shrilling alarm wakes me from my slumbers and whereas yesterday I awoke to the mists of a Victorian England shrouded in a freezing fog, this morning was clear, crisp and clearly blooming cold!

4am and with a huge lead and only 6 wickets needed for victory, Australia start the day as they clearly (and correctly) mean to go on.

Mitchell Starc opens the bowling to a ring field of 3 Slips, a Gully and a loudly chirping set of cricketing comrades in the close-in field.

“The Goat” Nathan Lyon opens the bowling from the other end to a brilliantly old fashioned and hyper pleasing field of 5 catchers and the wicket keeper around the bat, Slips, Gully, Bat/Pad.

Marnus Labuschagne is incessantly chirping like a song bird on the “stump mike”.

This is Test Match cricket!

4.09am Pope caught Smith bowled Starc (5)

Mitchell Starc was magnificent as always this morning and with only 9 minutes play gone he snagged Ollie Pope after he “set him up” by bowling across him, frustrating him and then pushed a delivery slightly wider and Pope didn’t have to play the ball, but he did, nicking an outside edge to Aussie captain Smith at 2nd Slip.

4.19am and Jos Buttler is the recipient of what is commonly known in the cricketing vernacular of a “life” as he edges the dangerous Starc through the gap between wicket keeper and first Slip. There clearly should not be a “gap” between these two closest of catchers and the error, charged to wicket keeper Carey, is perhaps the first genuine Australian error of the match. Being as we’re on the final day of a 5 day Test Match, this is high praise and indeed indicative of their supreme dominance all round.

4.52am Stokes lbw bowled Lyon (12)

Against his natural grain, Ben Stokes simply dropped anchor and tried to bat out the day defensively and his battle with “Gazza” Nathan Lyon was the morning highlight. Strangely, his dismissal seemed, at first, to be a non-starter. Rapped on the pads but the ball appeared to be heading down leg side and missing the stumps. This was clearly a view shared by both the Umpire and a reluctant captain Smith who took an age before deciding to review the decision via DRS. Even whilst the technology unravelled, demonstrating that Stokes was, in cricketing parlance, “dead” and “out”, it certainly mystified me.

Not from a biased point of view, it simply looked like it was missing the stumps but alas it was hitting the top of middle and leg stumps and Stokes, after a defiant display, was gone".

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