Well the English cricket team have recaptured the Ashes. Congratulations. Another swing of momentum?

However,as I raised in my post straight after the Fourth Test, did the momentum swing start on that last day of Englands defeat. When Broad and Swann hit the Aussies all over the ground. That Test was lost, but it certainly must have built up the confidence of those two guys. Both performed brilliantly in the Fifth test.

Now where does the momentum, the cycle, move for Australian cricket. A decline to fourth on Test rankings. Will we still head downwards? Will the long term cycle, within which these last few ups and downs have occured, prove to be a “Bear Market?”  Will Australia continue to decline?

The future presently does not look too good. We do not appear to have any super stars on the horizon. No Pontings, Waughs, Warnes, McGraths, Gilchrists, or Haydens. Only Michael Clarke looks like a world beater, with hopes for Hughes, Johnson and Siddle.

Unless other teams deteriorate as we now are, the cycle WILL be downwards. We will have to depend on guts, determination and tactical nous to win Test series over the next few years. But so what if we lose. We have had it so good for over ten years.  It is important for Test cricket to be balanced across the competing nations for it to remain viable. So lets see us struggle for a while and recognize with good systems of skill identification and development, we will eventually enter another “Bull Market.“

Tags: Ashes 2009, cricket tragic, peter Siddle, Shane Warne