Aussies v England: 5th Test

ziggy

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county

why am i still staying up to watch it,i should know better

ziggy

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Mothman

159-2
Bell 66no
Pietersen 38no
Partnership 101

Both openers fail to get big score after playing themselves in.

Pietersen fairly quiet, seems to be in for a big score and Bell playing well.

Mothman

Mothman wrote:

Pietersen fairly quiet, seems to be in for a big score

Mmm, not so sure about that....

coming down the pitch against Mcgrath and mistimes hook, got away with it.


and as I type, Pietersen mistimes hook with next ball and is caught......

Mothman

Oh dear, Bell left the gate open.

Bowled by McGrath for 71.

167-4

Flintoff and Collingwood in

Both in on zero.

TrueDub

Finished on 234-4 (Flintoff 42*, Collingwood 25*)

Not great, but encouraging when taken in the context of recent England performances. The worrying thing was that all the batsmen got starts of 20+, but none went on, except Bell who perished in the 70s, as he's started doing too regularly.

I saw only about 10 overs between 06:45 and 07:15, but in that time the pitch looked fairly innocuous. I'm not sure England have the bowling to bowl out the Aussies on it, especially with Hoggard out injured. Still, maybe Panesar will have the really big game people have been wishing for...

DMC

TrueDub wrote:

Not great, but encouraging when taken in the context of recent England performances.

Very true, its better from England, but not spectacular.
Imagine Australia won the toss, and it was Langer and Hayden batted first, they'd be not out, 150 a piece.
Warne looked flat today. I said flat, just in case anyone missread, but its only day 1 for him.

Day 2 will start as if it were the start of the match, new ball available straight away.

mike65

Did you say fat? :eek:

Mike.

county

258-6

ziggy

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county

291-9

ziggy

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Mad Dog

All depends on England's bowling now with the new ball, if Australia get off to a good start then whitewash is definitely on ! !

Mad Dog

Australia 4-0 at lunch after just the one over.....

ziggy

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DMC

They came back for 11 overs,

England 291
Australia 188/4

Watch out for the last over of the day, Symonds facing Panesar. Kamikaze.

TrueDub

DMC wrote:

Watch out for the last over of the day, Symonds facing Panesar. Kamikaze.

Kamikaze is one word for it - idiotic is another. If I was his captain I'd be livid with him, the last thing they wanted was to lose a wicket there.

Overall this is finely poised - if England can get a couple of quick wickets in the morning they could be set to spring a surprise, especially as Harmison seems to have rediscovered the concepts of "line" and "length".

Alternatively, if the Aussies score big in the morning, it could be all over by close of play.

county

260-6

county

318-7

Mothman

The only thing I'll say as England languish at 114-5 in last over, is that I'm sorry I missed Warne's innings and he got most of the way towards a maiden test century..

decies

Well it looks like history is in the making.Good luck to anybody who backed the aussies to win 5-0 :eek:

mike65

Well its all over and 5-0 is better than a 3-2 / 4-1 type series defeat as it will force some changes.

Mike.

kyp_durron

mike65 wrote:

Well its all over and 5-0 is better than a 3-2 / 4-1 type series defeat as it will force some changes.

Mike.

Yeah but in fairness if they played well enough for say a 3-2 loss, surely the team at least competed with the Aussies and would derserve another shot.

As it stands now a lot of work will need to go in this year. The world cup is looming and things don't look good, in fact they look terrible.

county

watching this ashes series i think has making me crack up,just placed 3 euro of my hard earned on an england win at 16-1:eek:

Chucky the tree

what tights gits gave you 16-1?


Warne on for the last time.

Mothman

county wrote:

watching this ashes series i think has making me crack up,just placed 3 euro of my hard earned on an england win at 16-1:eek:

Fool


147 all out
McGrath takes 3 wickets

Scarcely long enough for me to have a beer

Aus need........46 to win

county

all done and dusted,the england team should be made to get the boat back home

Paul Tergat

Congrats to the Aussies!!!

Thoroughly deserved, again England were bad but even playing at our peak we would have still lost the series....

my whitewash prediciton came true

Doubt it but we may restore some pride in the one-dayers

and finally was great being able to watch the 3 retiring aussies. all 3 were absolute class players...lets hope the aussies can't replace them and that other teams may be able to get near them!

TrueDub

A superbly motivated and drilled Aussie team hammered an ill-prepared and mentally cowed England side.

There are 2 sides to this series. The first is the Aussies, who since they were beaten in 2005 have made this Ashes series the focus of all their activities. They played superb ruthless cricket, utilising the best players available and getting the most out of all their performances. Add to this the incentive of giving 2 of the best ever Aussie cricketers the perfect send-off - this team were always going to be incredibly tough to beat.

Then we had England - woefully underprepared, with poor team selection and questions over fitness and the captaincy. Three key members of the 2005 side were missing, although one of them did travel and may have made things worse by doing so. Then they had no useful preparation to adjust to the conditions, and complicated this by not selecting their best eleven, choosing instead to be loyal to people who hadn't stepped onto a cricket pitch in 12 months.

England need to learn lots from this - I thought they'd learnt when 2005 went so well, but maybe it's only at home. They have the potential to be a top test side, but only if they learn the lessons here.

However, I think that even if everything was 100% perfect with England, the Aussies would still have won. Maybe not 5-0, but they would have retained the Ashes comfortably. This side is that good and they deserve all the respect in the world for it. It may have been the last act of one of the great test XIs of the world.

Now we can forget about the Ashes until 2009, when the whole merry-go-round starts again!

Washout

for me the hero of this series was Stuart Clark.

he is a guy who will now walk into the the McGrath role rather than be a support bowler.

his accuracy is just as scary as mcgrath.

Warney is the one player irreplacable though. I havent heard of any up and coming aussie spinners.