Wicked Mitch of the West!

Peter Roebuck:

By now there was electricity in the air. Everyone could feel it, the crowd, players of both sides, even the fleeing gulls. Johnson surged in again and sent down a delivery as sinuous and slithery and spitting as a snake. Trott shuffled across his crease and too late realised that the ball was changing course. The swinger thundered into his pads and all Australia celebrated as umpire Erasmus raised his arm.

"All Australia celebrated"!

From here.

Cricket writing

Good cricket writing can be as absorbing as the game itself.

They betray the profound confusion that has pervaded cricket since India's triumph in the Twenty20 World Championship set in motion the juggernaut of the Indian Premier League.

This is a shame because the two days were among the most involving and absorbing of recent memory.

Saturday's first session contained only 46 runs, but once the Indian tactics and Australian response were clear, each ball was loaded. A wicket or two would change everything. On the stroke of lunch, a reverse-swinging yorker from a toiling fast bowler in the eighth over of a persevering spell; an hour later, an acrobatic save and return by a tyro on his Test debut.

For the rest of the afternoon Australia's batsmen were like all the king's horses and men after Humpty-Dumpty's fall.

For the media to complain about the entertainment value on the basis of the runs scored was like a complaint against Picasso for using too few brush-strokes.

From Gideon Haigh.