Off The Bat — Ian ‘The Terminator’ Bell, Steve Finn far from finished

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  • Terminator Bell (l) and super Steve Finn (r).

    Off The Bat’s latest satirical scamper into the Ashes contest sees high praise for the achievements of Ian ‘The Terminator’ Bell and Steve ‘Bionic Man’ Finn — the Third Test heroes in a series that has swung from side to side like the signature swing of a James Anderson delivery.

    England’s devastatingly handsome win at Edgbaston means they have now recorded a sequence in their last seven Tests of win-loss-win-loss-win-loss-win — the very first time this has ever happened in Test history. Imagine Michael Jackson pulling off a Cruyff turn on a rotating dance floor and you’ll go someway to understanding the dizzying dexterity of England’s fortunes. Going from a 169-run win to a 408-run loss to an 8-wicket victory is a spin in form so forceful that England medics have today prescribed the entirety of the squad a heady cocktail of sickness and altitude tablets.

    Swing When You’re Winning

    England groundsmen finally worked to James Anderson’s strengths — delivering a pitch that shirked the recent trend of flat tarmac. Asking the ‘Burnley Express’ to swing the ball in the previous two tests was like asking the World Water Ski Champion to pull off some extraordinary flips whilst being tugged along by an asthmatic duck. Happily for the home side, Edgbaston offered up a beautiful reunion between Anderson and swing. From his first over the two embraced warmly, shared reminiscent stories of years gone by, exchanged family updates and told each other how well the other looked.

    Whilst the Australian bowling unit achieved as much movement as a 13-year-old boy at his first school disco, Anderson swung the ball not just one way, but two — left to right and right to left.  The skill, which earned a 6-wicket haul in the first innings and contorted his side in the second, is one of the greatest sights to behold in the sport — he can instantly enliven a bog standard cricket ball with the vivacious movement of a Rio Carnival dancer. For England fans and neutrals, it’s a great shame we won’t see his party trick again next week at Trent Bridge — a ground where he averages an astonishing 19 runs per wicket.

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    Steve Finn 2.0

    All hail the comeback of man of the match Steve Finn. Not only did the bowler provide headline writers with an endlessly replenished well of puns on ‘finish,’ he also provided arguably the most inspirational story of the series so far. His metronomic line, length and pace took 8 crucial wickets in total — a huge triumph over long term adversity.

    18 months ago he was left out of the starting line up for the entirety of the Ashes series and sent home from Down Under early after being deemed ‘unselectable.’ Aside from his bowling technique falling to pieces, Finn rotted in the nets, spending so long there he became convinced he was a fish in a salmon farm and evolved gills accordingly.

    After being assured that he was in fact a land mammal, various coaches (including former England fast bowler Angus Fraser) set about rebuilding Finn’s technique and confidence completely from scratch. Off The Bat imagines the project was almost identical to The Six Million Dollar Man — a 1970s American TV series where a severely injured astronaut is repaired with bionic upgrades. We can just see Fraser meeting the English Cricket Board dressed in a white doctors coat and repeating the famous words from the show theme: ‘We can rebuild him. We have the technology. Better than what he was before — better, stronger, faster.’ In his first over back from the wilderness he snaffled the wicket of Steve Smith, the top ranked batsmen in the world. From that ball onwards, it was clear that Finn 2.0 has indeed been rebuilt and is seemingly even better than what he was before.

    Blockbuster Bell

    Whilst Finn has soldered a mechanical excellence into his bowling technique, Ian Bell has harnessed his very own artificial intelligence to help him succeed at the highest level.

    Bell was once nicknamed ‘The Sherminator’ by the Australians — a geeky and mentally weak character from the American Pie movie. That nickname needs an upgrade after this performance. Far from ‘The Sherminator’ Ian Bell has proved himself to have the cold and calculating traits more akin to The Terminator. His steely determination and titanium will saw him achieve two absolutely vital, arguably match-winning, half centuries for his country.

    Lest we forget — coming into the match, the out of form Warwickshire batsmen was under extreme pressure, so much atmospheric pressure that he shrunk in height from 5’ 8’’ to 1’9’’ by the time Day One came around.  Despite the early humiliation of being wheeled out in a pram by the 12th man, Bell quickly grew in stature from his first boundary onwards.  Most remarkably, he took on Mitchell Johnson’s rip snorters with relative ease. It’s a far cry from Lords where he left the crease so frozen by fear that Alistair Cook was forced to apply a blow torch to Bell in a desperate bid to defrost him in time for the Third Test. 

    With Bell displaying such unflinching bulletproof resilience in the face of such colossal pyrotechnics and Arnold Schwarzenegger putting in a truly woeful performance in his most recent cinema outing, there can be one seismic conclusion to be made from this Test. Not only is Ian Bell the saviour of the England cricket team, he is almost certainly the saviour of the faltering Terminator franchise.

    Chain Reactions

    Michael Clarke — a man who was so keen for Bell to be dropped that he took things a little too literally in the second innings — is staring down the barrel of losing possession of the famous Ashes urn. Perhaps his greatest hope of avoiding defeat is praying that the pendulum of form continues to swing back and forth. Both Australia and England seem to be intent on taking it in turns to give each other an almighty trousering. Will that continue?

    And how will Australia react to England’s brilliant reaction to Australia’s tremendous reaction to England’s emphatic reaction? Certainly there will be more reactions served up than Albert Einstein’s ‘My First Laboratory’ toy set. If the current pattern of breathlessly frenetic and increasingly humiliating defeats is anything to go by, the safe money is on Australia securing a 15 wicket win before lunch on the first days play in Nottingham.

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