Australia has suffered its worst cricketing day for 100 years: Roebuck

SYDNEY - After Australia scored a shocking 98 in their first innings in the Boxing Day Test, noted cricket columnist Peter Roebuck believes that the Ashes is in England’s pocket.

With the hosts falling to their lowest Ashes total at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in the venue’s 133-year history, the contest with England has for all practical purpose become a rout, adds Roebuck.

England with a lead of 346 runs with 5 wickets remaining in the 1st innings, can almost certainly feel that they have wrested the Ashes Down Under for the first time in 24 years.

Australia was bowled out for 98, roughly a run for every 1000 spectators.

According to Roebuck, now Ponting and his glum men face a well nigh impossible task as they seek to turn the match around.

“Not since 1907 has any team scoring under 100 in the first innings of a Test match fought back to take the spoils,” Roebuck says in his syndicated column for the Sydney Morning Herald.

He concludes by saying: “Had the Australians adapted their game to suit the conditions they might have survived their period of peril. Due diligence might have brought a respectable total of 200 or so. Instead they drove without proper care and attention.” (ANI)