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Hardys England cricket joke falls flat
Australian wine brand Hardys series-long dig at the England cricket team’s batsmen ended up falling flat during the fourth test in Melbourne late last year.
It has been a disappointing Ashes series for England, having lost the five match series 3-0 in early December and with the top order batsmen, Alastair Cook and Mark Stoneman recording woeful partnerships of 11, 29, 53, 26 and four across six innings.
In typical Aussie fashion Hardy’s was ready for some serious sledging before the series began running an ad aimed at Cook and Stoneman that would be shown (among other places) on the big screen next to the scoreboards at the various grounds hosting matches.
“Why can’t the Poms open a bottle of wine?” it read. “Because they don’t have any openers.”*
Regardless of the fact that being packaged in a screw-top negates the need for any sort of tool to open the bottle, unfortunately for Hardy’s, while it came too late to save the series, during the 4th test in Melbourne Cook finally found his form.
The Hardys ad flashed up with Cook firmly entrenched on 206 in an innings where he went on to carry his bat with 244 and England in the ascendant on 491 to Australia’s 327. In the end the match ended in a draw after several rain delays.
On the other hand, with Cook and Stoneman falling for a combined 63 in the first innings of the fifth and final test in Sydney this morning it seems that normal service has been resumed.
*ba-dum tish
It’s a stupid ad anyway, it should read Why don’t the Poms drink Wine, would make more sense.