Uncle Allen Madden stole the show on day one of the New Year’s Test in Sydney with “the best Welcome to Country ever”.
The Sydney Test kicks off today and that can mean only one thing — rain in the NSW capital.
Wet weather has been forecast for much of the fourth match of this summer’s Ashes series but hopefully the clouds stay away for long enough to get a result.
After Australian batter Travis Head tested positive to Covid-19, Usman Khawaja was recalled to the Test XI for the first time in two years.
Catch every moment of The Ashes live and ad-break free during play on Kayo. New to Kayo? Try 14-days free now.
Rain returns
Bad news – it’s raining in Sydney. The players have rushed off, and the covers are on.
After a frustrating 30-minute delay, play got back underway at 12pm AEDT.
‘What a legend’: Gadigal Elder steals the show
Uncle Allen Madden stole the show on day one of the New Year’s Test in Sydney with “the best Welcome to Country ever”, packed with dad jokes and one-liners.
The Gadigal Elder performed the Welcome to Country at the SCG ahead of the fourth Ashes Test between Australia and England, and quickly won over the spectators.
Madden started his speech by stating: “For my first song …”
It prompted a laugh and round of applause from the Sydney crowd – Australian spinner Nathan Lyon was particularly amused.
Madden later said there were only three things surer than this being Aboriginal land: “Coming, taxation, and going.”
He finished with his best joke of the day: “There’s an old Aboriginal saying out there, and I think it’s very appropriate for you mob here today. They say where there’s a will, there’s relatives.”
The SCG crowd and Australian cricket team were left in hysterics.
Sports reporter Mark Gottlieb tweeted: “This guy is awesome. Love it. Just riffing a 5 minute stand up in the middle of a welcome to country. What a legend.”
Former Australian hockey player Georgie Parker posted: “This is the best welcome to country I’ve ever heard. I love Him.”
Aussies win the toss
Pat Cummins has won the toss and Australia will bat first at the SCG.
Playing in his 169th Test, England seamer James Anderson becomes the second most capped cricketer in history, sitting behind only Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar.
Australia XI: David Warner, Marcus Harris, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Usman Khawaja, Cameron Green, Alex Carey (wk), Pat Cummins (c), Mitch Starc, Scott Boland, Nathan Lyon
England XI: Haseeb Hameed, Zak Crawley, Dawid Malan, Joe Root (c), Ben Stokes, Jonathan Bairstow, Jos Buttler (wk), Mark Wood, Stuart Broad, Jack Leach, James Anderson
Cricket boss apologies over England’s Ashes shocker
England managing director Ashley Giles has said he “absolutely felt” the responsibility of an Ashes series loss in Australia but insisted a mass clear-out of the senior leadership would merely mask underlying problems.
With England already 3-0 down in the five-match series heading into the fourth Test, there has been speculation about the future of both captain Joe Root and head coach Chris Silverwood.
Giles’ role has also been questioned given it was the former England left-arm spinner who was behind the sacking of national selector Ed Smith and giving Silverwood sole authority for picking the team.
England are now in danger of suffering their third 5-0 series whitewash in Australia of the 21st century, having only previously lost an away Ashes campaign by that scoreline back in 1920/21.
“Being here now in this position, I absolutely feel the responsibility of losing this Ashes series,” Giles told BBC Radio’s Test Match Special and travelling English media at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
“Absolutely, we all do, and we can only apologise,” the 48-year-old added. “I know there will be a lot of emotion, a lot of anger about how we’ve lost it.”
Tom Harrison, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chief executive, was already in the firing line regarding the governing body’s response to a racism scandal sparked by former spinner Azeem Rafiq’s revelations regarding his treatment at Yorkshire.
But Giles said changes at the top of the ECB would fail to solve the problems that saw 50-over world champions England lose the ongoing series in just 12 days’ play when they collapsed to a meagre 68 all out in Melbourne last week.
“You can change me, change the head coach, change the captain, but we’re only setting up future leaders for failure,” Giles insisted amid concerns about the quality of English first-class cricket.
“Four out of 15 (Test wins in 2021) is not good,” he added of a year that also saw England beaten 3-1 in India.
“In the 90s that was accepted as normal for England leaderships and they got away with it. We set our standards much higher than that.”
Giles said England’s struggles in Australia were simply a reflection of the players at their disposal, for all they aspire to be cricket’s number one Test team.
“At the moment do we think we are a better side than we are? We are sort of at our level. Fourth in the world is probably where we are,” he said.
“We’ve beaten the sides below us but, in these conditions, we’re not beating the sides above us.
“What’s important is that we don’t try to paper over the cracks. We could easily go to West Indies (in March) and win, then win this (English) summer.
“We could do ‘everything’s alright, rah, rah, rah’ but I think we still need to be truly focused on finding a way we can compete in Australia and in India.”
But former England Test batter Nick Compton was not impressed with Giles’ remarks, tweeting: “Come on Ash! Trying to put more spin on this s***show than you ever did on the ball!”
AFP
Originally published as Live: Cricket world loses it over Gadigal Elder’s hilarious Ashes intro
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