The Ashes thread

[francisbarton]

Can't believe we haven't got a thread for this yet AFAICS.

So...  Broad and Swann to make a 50 partnership, England to scrape past 400, slender lead over the Aussies, set them 270 to win and a cracking last day with Swann picking up 5-for.

Your predictions?

I was happy with yesterday.  I'll take Pietersen's audacity and a truncated 69 for every time he goes and makes an amazing 100.

[francisbarton]

So...  Broad and Swann to make a 50 partnership, England to scrape past 400...

OK, Anderson and Swann 50 partnership then

Anderson has just swept Hauritz for 4 

[ChrisO]

Yes, if only...

Looking like 500 on the cards at the moment.

26 off two overs. Is this a 20-20 game I've wandered into.

[mike]

and the ball is spinning nicely.. should be an entertaining afternoon!

[andyoxon]

Yes, a good five wickets this pm would be nice.  Did you hear KP defending his failed reverse sweep? At least he was right about the 400 runs though.

[Tewdric]

Freddie's just got Hughes!

Are we going to see a collapse?  The Australians haven't had much luck in Cardiff recently..

[Von Broad]

Freddie's just got Hughes!

Yet again, Flintoff's come on to bowl and changed the 'feel' of everything. Ruffling those feathers once more. That bloke's bowling has developed so much that he's worth his place in the team on that alone [imo]. Fantastic bowler.

[Fingers crossed those injury problems stay away].

Nice to be tuned into the shipping forecast for the summer once again too

[ChrisO]

Well that makes the England score look a little short of the mark doesn't it.

Mind you, at this rate we'll be lucky to see a result at all. A supine pitch as Peter Roebuck put it.

[Chris S]

<annual_lame_call_every_summer>
Never mind chaps - it's going to rain...
</annual_lame_call_every_summer>

[Jaded]

Hmmm.

I think Peterson has to decide which side of the fine line he is on. I love to see him in full flow, but this is a 25 day series and looking at today, those two centuries weren't generated with a collection of swashbuckling, crowd pleasing sweeps etc. they were ground out. We need grinders as well as swashbucklers.

Midway through yesterday I thought we haven't got a strong enough attack. I think today proved that.

I'm hoping they last 'til Sunday so my lad and I can see part of an Ashes Test. I think hope might lose out.

[ChrisO]

I'm hoping they last 'til Sunday so my lad and I can see part of an Ashes Test. I think hope might lose out.

Yesterday I would have backed you seeing a day's play on Sunday but the pitch is looking more treacherous today. Broad's first ball would have looked more at home in the French Open.

[francisbarton]

England can be really shit sometimes.
Like pulling teeth today.  Ah well, at least we'll escape with a rain-affected draw.

Hope our bowling attack has a bit more about it at Lords.  We could do with some runs from Strauss and Cook too.

[ChrisO]

Well it's all gone very quiet on this thread hasn't it.

End of Day 3 of the first test and all those who were slagging off the "worst Australian team" for 30+ years are now praying for rain.

If those 22 were in the playground and you and Andrew Strauss were the two captains picking teams, what order would you pick in, assuming Lee was fit ?

Flintoff
Ponting
Pietersen
Lee
Katich
Clarke

... after that I wouldn't care.

I would argue there are only two players in the England team that most other teams in the world would automatically slot in.

Not to say that they can't do well with a collective effort, as can any decent team, but it makes talk about other teams being weak look a little optimistic.

[GruB]

I'm just sat here being smug, so far. 

[DuncanM]

I'd pick Mitchell Johnson way above Lee.
Look at your list though - you only have 2 bowlers, and Lee is not fit, and Flintoff is not really a strike bowler.  On a slow pitch, it's no wonder that to get a wicket you have to be very lucky or have the batsman throw their wicket away. (esp when the umpires have given 1 lbw in total!)

It'll be interesting to compare the attacks on a pitch where there is some pace/bounce, especially if it's also swinging.  I don't think batting will decide the series, it's going to be a struggle (for England at least) to take 20 wickets...

[Pancho]

I think the forecast for S. Wales[1] is rain, rain, rain. We can hope.

[1] An ashes test in Wales is one of those things that make me feel like a visiting alien. I think the feeling is cause by becoming old.

[ChrisO]

I'd pick Mitchell Johnson way above Lee.
Look at your list though - you only have 2 bowlers, and Lee is not fit, and Flintoff is not really a strike bowler.  On a slow pitch, it's no wonder that to get a wicket you have to be very lucky or have the batsman throw their wicket away. (esp when the umpires have given 1 lbw in total!)

It'll be interesting to compare the attacks on a pitch where there is some pace/bounce, especially if it's also swinging.  I don't think batting will decide the series, it's going to be a struggle (for England at least) to take 20 wickets...

It wasn't supposed to be a team - just the people who would be first picked in a game of playground cricket.

The point being there are only two English players who you would be wanting the opposing captain not to pick before you could get them for your side.

So, maybe Johnson above Lee but it wouldn't change the argument.

[Von Broad]

It'll be interesting to compare the attacks on a pitch where there is some pace/bounce, especially if it's also swinging. I don't think batting will decide the series, it's going to be a struggle (for England at least) to take 20 wickets...

The main problem I see with our bowling attack is not that we haven't got the bowlers, but the bowlers we have got need the conditions to be effective. Without real genuine hostile pace, conditions are going to be a big factor. On the right pitch with a ball that's moving about Anderson & Flintoff could easily bowl the Aussies out. I don't doubt that. Problem is, that's a big variable. Twas ever thus of course with bowlers, but with no real hostility of pace to compensate, it leaves us well vulnerable. Thinking back to 2005 [which is slowly becoming Cricket's 1966 :-], we were well beaten in the first test, but things changed when conditions favoured 'reverse swing' and Simon Jones picked up 5 wickets in the 3rd test [IIRC].
Steve Harrmison also added the pace factor. It's easy to forget how close that series was.

I never doubted that the Aussies were going to be anything other than the typical tough customers that they have always been[ they've just beaten the South Africans in SA for goodness sake!]. What's been so interesting to see is, without the flare of Warnie and Gillchrest, they've gone back to being a more traditional test side, digging in, grinding down the opposition and most importantly not getting themselves out by playing stupid, self-destructive shots. [are you watching KP?.....and everybody else for that matter!]

One thing I can't get out of my mind is Ricky Ponting going back to Australia empty handed for a second time against the Poms. It's difficult to envisage. His first innings just confirmed to me what I was fearing from the out set - he's well up for it. He leads by example. I like Strauss, but looking at the two captains, and what they represent, how they play, how they come across, I can only see one winner.

But...let's not get too down. Rain is on it's way and it's only the first test, long way to go yet

[francisbarton]

Well it's all gone very quiet on this thread hasn't it.

End of Day 3 of the first test and all those who were slagging off the "worst Australian team" for 30+ years are now praying for rain.

You'd think people would learn...
I never slag off Australia, they're like the Germans at football, they always do well even when people think they won't.
Any Englishman who wrote off a team who just went to S Africa and won is stupid.

Still hoping for rain though...
Just gutted that we have managed to let the likes of Clarke and North get a decent innings in, to get some form.  Ponting's century was inevitable, especially after his ducks at Worcester  

I've always said you can't have Broad and Flintoff in the same team.  If Fred has to play then Broad has to wait - I'd have kept Onions in.  And thrown Harmison in instead of Panesar, based on form and the fact that the Aussies probably didn't want to face Harmison again (element of hindsight here I admit).

Edit: Garry beat me to it, sort of.

[DuncanM]

I'd pick Mitchell Johnson way above Lee.
Look at your list though - you only have 2 bowlers, and Lee is not fit, and Flintoff is not really a strike bowler.  On a slow pitch, it's no wonder that to get a wicket you have to be very lucky or have the batsman throw their wicket away. (esp when the umpires have given 1 lbw in total!)

It'll be interesting to compare the attacks on a pitch where there is some pace/bounce, especially if it's also swinging.  I don't think batting will decide the series, it's going to be a struggle (for England at least) to take 20 wickets...

It wasn't supposed to be a team - just the people who would be first picked in a game of playground cricket.

The point being there are only two English players who you would be wanting the opposing captain not to pick before you could get them for your side.

So, maybe Johnson above Lee but it wouldn't change the argument.

I know it wasn't supposed to be a team.  I was really just saying that the batting on offer is far higher standard than the bowling.  So to have matches where either side can win, the bowlers need help from the pitch/conditions/umpire/batsmen. 
Think about making that list 4 years ago.  Warne and McGrath would have been at/near the top, and Harmison and Jones possibly make the list (as well as Flintoff and Lee). Now, any bowler is luck to be on that list...

[ChrisO]

The BBC text commentary, and Ben Dirs in particular, is quite funny - almost as good as TMS.

Choice of this morning:

"Panesar, wading in to bowl like a man trying to keep his wallet dry above his head in some surf... "

"Broad still on, no idea why, it's like watching a prisoner trying to tunnel through his cell wall with a sharpened lolly stick... "

And yesterday that Strauss had ended the day with a face like someone sitting at dinner with his girlfriend three days into an expensive holiday when he's just realised it isn't going to work out.

 

[Pancho]

You know, I almost prefer the over-by-over text commentaries (BBC or Grauniad) to the TMS audio.

[ChrisO]

Almost... but no amount of comedy writing can outdo Aggers asking Geoff Boycott if he Twittered.

[ChrisO]

England being put to the sword now... previous efforts appear to have just been pointed sticks.

Haddin has hit two big sixes and is racing towards a century.

I can only imagine how painful it must be to watch this... really.

[DuncanM]

And that's what happens when the batsmen and the umpires help the bowler...