The Australian cricket team practices before test match against P

<div class="WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-us" style="color:#1f497d;" xml:lang="en-us">Secret to getting the Australian cricket team back in form? Just play the Kiwis</span></p><p> <span lang="en-us" style="color:#1f497d;" xml:lang="en-us">Whew.  sigh of relief, not a reaction to a bad smell. For a moment the Australian cricket team was at its lowest point since the mid-1980s. But that kind of talk is so two weeks ago. A body-snatched dead rubber in Adelaide, then white-ball thrashings meted out to the Black Caps in Sydney and Canberra, and everything in Australian cricket is rosy again.</span></p><iframe width="500" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EY41X9sfxlA"/><p> <span lang="en-us" style="color:#1f497d;" xml:lang="en-us">With the infinitely subtle skills of a cricketing Bart Cummings, Pat Howard is bringing the young paceman to the point where he will peak at precisely 10.30am Brisbane time on the first day of the 2017-18 Ashes series. And James Pattinson will be there too, to complete the hardest, most injury-free quartet since Mount Rushmore. Gosh, Australian cricket is looking good these days. And did you see Mitchell Marsh towel-up the Kiwis at Manuka? Can't want to see him take those Indian spinners apart on the subcontinent.</span></p><p>as it is to employ what our school teachers called the lowest form of wit – sarcasm, an even lower form than fart jokes – it might be more interesting to take things at face value and believe, for a moment, that Australian cricket's nadir did last from August to November 2016, two consecutive quarters of negative growth that constituted a recession. Can the wheel have turned that quickly? The wise old head will muse sagely about the test of time and reply to any question with a Confucian: "It is too soon to tell." But we already know we live in a post-truth time and a post-irony time. What if we also live in a post-time time? </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-us" style="color:#1f497d;" xml:lang="en-us">The collapse of time is one of the evident benefits of the cricket season's "hey, look over there!" schedule. Back in the day (in November), the insertion of a white-ball tournament between two pink-ball Test matches, themselves inserted between two red-ball Test matches, was commonly believed to be one of the many roots of all evil. At the very least, all that mixing of white, pink and red suggested that Cricket Australia had mixed up its washing. Now the genius of that scheduling is revealed. The audience is refreshed by the sublime talents of the Australian captain and vice-captain, the zest of the pace attack, the esprit of the corps. Hobart is forgotten. The long-desired "meaning" of one-day international cricket is also revealed, and this is it. How do you make Australia great again? Have them play New Zealand.</span></p><p> <span lang="en-us" style="color:#1f497d;" xml:lang="en-us">Pakistan, as is their wont, may also play a role in Australian cricket's post-trauma counselling. Playing New Zealand this past month did little for their confidence. These Pakistani cricketers promise much, as always. But even more compellingly, they promise to fail to deliver on their promise. They have a wily pace attack in which left is the new right.</span></p><p/><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p/></div>

<div class="WordSection1"> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-us" style="color:#1f497d;" xml:lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">Secret to getting the Australian cricket team back in form? Just play the Kiwis</span></p> <p> <span lang="en-us" style="color:#1f497d;" xml:lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">Whew.  sigh of relief, not a reaction to a bad smell. For a moment the Australian cricket team was at its lowest point since the mid-1980s. But that kind of talk is so two weeks ago. A body-snatched dead rubber in Adelaide, then white-ball thrashings meted out to the Black Caps in Sydney and Canberra, and everything in Australian cricket is rosy again.</span></p> <iframe width="500" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EY41X9sfxlA"></iframe><p> <span lang="en-us" style="color:#1f497d;" xml:lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">With the infinitely subtle skills of a cricketing Bart Cummings, Pat Howard is bringing the young paceman to the point where he will peak at precisely 10.30am Brisbane time on the first day of the 2017-18 Ashes series. And James Pattinson will be there too, to complete the hardest, most injury-free quartet since Mount Rushmore. Gosh, Australian cricket is looking good these days. And did you see Mitchell Marsh towel-up the Kiwis at Manuka? Can't want to see him take those Indian spinners apart on the subcontinent.</span></p><p>as it is to employ what our school teachers called the lowest form of wit – sarcasm, an even lower form than fart jokes – it might be more interesting to take things at face value and believe, for a moment, that Australian cricket's nadir did last from August to November 2016, two consecutive quarters of negative growth that constituted a recession. Can the wheel have turned that quickly? The wise old head will muse sagely about the test of time and reply to any question with a Confucian: "It is too soon to tell." But we already know we live in a post-truth time and a post-irony time. What if we also live in a post-time time? </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-us" style="color:#1f497d;" xml:lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">The collapse of time is one of the evident benefits of the cricket season's "hey, look over there!" schedule. Back in the day (in November), the insertion of a white-ball tournament between two pink-ball Test matches, themselves inserted between two red-ball Test matches, was commonly believed to be one of the many roots of all evil. At the very least, all that mixing of white, pink and red suggested that Cricket Australia had mixed up its washing. Now the genius of that scheduling is revealed. The audience is refreshed by the sublime talents of the Australian captain and vice-captain, the zest of the pace attack, the esprit of the corps. Hobart is forgotten. The long-desired "meaning" of one-day international cricket is also revealed, and this is it. How do you make Australia great again? Have them play New Zealand.</span></p><p> <span lang="en-us" style="color:#1f497d;" xml:lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">Pakistan, as is their wont, may also play a role in Australian cricket's post-trauma counselling. Playing New Zealand this past month did little for their confidence. These Pakistani cricketers promise much, as always. But even more compellingly, they promise to fail to deliver on their promise. They have a wily pace attack in which left is the new right.</span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p></p></div>

<p>epa05673635 Australian cricketer Nathan Lyon throws a ball at a fielding session during a training session at the Gabba in Brisbane, Australia, 13 December 2016. The first day-night Test Match between Australia and Pakistan at the Gabba begins 15 December. EPA/DAN PELED AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND OUT +++(c) dpa - Bildfunk+++</p>