"Boland the Hero in 81 painful minutes"

Episode 6 of "The Blackford Book Club" is also the second part of 5 from my self-published book of May 2023 entitled "Ashes to Ashes".

Here we return to a painful Melbourne cricketing morning for a bedraggled England team as Australia unearth a new sporting cult hero. He's an excerpt from the book and from the chapter being read on this video:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C5Z3FVYC

"In just two days and 81 minutes. Two days and 81 minutes of a scheduled 5 day Test Match, Australia had won by an innings and 14 runs and about as comprehensively as can be imagined.

You can dare to hope before a ball is bowled but the weight of 34 years of history and the current tour scars signalled England stood no chance, but to fall on their batting swords in just 81 minutes and to lose by an innings with the entire Ashes Series at stake speaks volumes. In Australian conditions and with the “condition” of this current England Test team, there is a chasm between themselves and their Hosts. Australia have chopped and changed and given debuts to Richardson and here with local hero Scott Boland, but have still dominated and won every day of play and nearly every session therein. England have 3 maybe 4 players anywhere near remotely being in form. Australia have 9/10 and are interchanging with more quality players in every game and are utterly relentless and utterly ruthless.

On to Sydney in the New Year and we can all hope that the invisible blight on all our lives evades the bubbles and the protocols and we see the scheduled 4th Test in this Series of five. A 5–0 whitewash looks almost an inevitability and despite the Aussies now having an unassailable 3–0 lead they will not be resting on their laurels.

It’s not in the Australian character.

What is: Grinding your opponent into the dust and inflicting scars that take a long time to heal.

They’ll be gunning for England in the New Year and that makes for some exciting cricket.

Count me in".

Thanks for watching!

https://www.patreon.com/TheBlackfordBookClub
https://www.paypal.me/TheBlackfordBookClub
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/steveblackford