AUSSIES WILL BOUNCE BACK
The captain of the Australian cricket team, Michael Clarke, has said that his team will bounce back in the second match of the ongoing Ashes series.
Australia lost the first match of the series by just 14 runs. That match was played at Trent Bridge, Nottingham.
Australia had to chase down a target of 311 runs in the fourth innings. They lost 9 wickets with the target still 80 runs away. The match looked like being done and dusted. But, that wasn’t the case to be. There was still some fight left in the Australians.
A fantastic 10th wicket partnership of 60 odd runs between Brad Haddin and James Pattinson brought Australia back into the match, and at that point they were favourites to win.
However, the Kangaroos couldn’t reach the target eventually. The last wicket fell down when the target was 15 runs away. It was Haddin who was the last man to be dismissed. He nicked an incoming delivery from Anderson to the wicketkeeper Matt Prior and it was all over.
Michael Clarke was looking absolutely gutted in the post match press conference. The Australia captain said, “It’s obviously disappointing to end up on the losing side after being so close to victory, but, I am proud of the way the boys played. There was a lot of character being shown by the team.”
“I am sure we will be able to pull things back in the second test match. We just need to keep backing ourselves.”
“We have got a lot of quality in our squad. There is a good mixture of experience and youth.”
When asked about the 71-run knock of Brad Haddin, Clarke said, “Brad is a class player. He played fantastically well and got us so close to victory. Unfortunately he couldn’t get us over the line, but, he needs to be praised for his gutsy effort.”
