Ashes to ashes, dust to dust

Confidence.

Its a small word, but it carries huge amount of boost for human being.

Recently Australia lifted the Ashes urn again. For those of you who doesnt know, Ashes is a cricket competition between England and Australia, conducted every 1 or 2 years.

At this stage, maybe some of you will ask,"Its only England and Australia, whats so good about it?"

Put it this way, imagine a football match between Indonesia and Malaysia. Both play 5 games in each country. Add in the feisty, no hold back nature of media there. Its a battle zone.

Australia has been invincible in the past. They are like that likeable school bully in the school yard. They just better, fitter, meaner, and just downright awesome. They have won like 8 or 10 ashes series in a row against England.

While England is the nerd, the geek. They calculate everything, managed to get a decent squad in and managed to win the last 3 ashes.

Yes, the last 3 series.

What they did then, was pretty much asking for trouble. Since they started winning and become world beater, they got cocky. Imagine that nerdy kid in your class, who are usually quiet, suddenly becomes the new bully. Suddenly becomes the new Alpha man, an alpha male. All in a while the "old bully" just sitting down in the corner, looking.

Last ashes series in England, Australia didnt play badly. They were written off so bad in the paperm labeled "the worst team to leave aussie shores" and were destined for doom.

In the end, they only had 1 bad match i think.

Lost the 1st one by coming so close in the end,
Lost the 2nd one by playing shit
Drawn the 3rd one because weather intervened, they could have won this
Lost the 4th one after almost defending the total
Drawn the last one

result: 3-0 in England.

Then they head home for another 5 match against England in Australia.

At this stage, the attitude was clear. I didnt have microphone in Aussie change room, but if  did, it would sounds something like this:

"Fuck it. Fuck getting this poms kicking our ass all the time. We'll get them here, we'll give em hell with the media, then we'll kill em in the field. Prepare the short pitch stuff, aim for their head and send them packing in the coffin"

What happen after that, was pretty much that.

The first test was a bloodbath. Mitch Johnson, the man who got ridiculed so much in the past by England supporter, now boasting a nasty moustachioed and looking for blood. Fast, sharp, aiming at head or arm or fingers.

Whichever one he can break first

The captain is on it too, with a reminder to the opposing player:

"Get ready for a broken fuckin arm"

This is nasty. This is Aussie. This is gold

England made a huge mistake. They poke a stick at the bee hive, and now they have the whole Australia as a nation hell bent for revenge.

Needless to say, england lost the first match badly. But one thing was apparent, they were scared. They were wounded. They had the face of "i didnt sign up for this shit" thing.

One of their senior player went home for "stress related illness".

Repeated dose was applied for the 2nd and 3rd match, and after the 3rd one another player had a broken ankle, hit by the ball, and another decided to retired.

England were completely broken.

In the end the scoreline were 5-0.

They didnt win anything, they didnt managed to drawn anything. All inflicted by the same Aussie team they ridiculed about 6 months ago.

Form, is temporay. While class, is permanent.