Ashes to Ashes

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Third Test, Day Two

Look, England have bowled very, very well and deserve their success, and well done them. No complaints there.

However: Rudi Kurtzen has finally, once and for all, gone and proven himself to be the most useless, utterly incompetent and painfully and obviously blind excuse for an umpire in world cricket; possibly ever in the history of cricket.

For God's sake can we please get rid of the guy!

:mad::mad:

[Sweder]

Agreed: Watson was plumb yesterday and not given.
Hopeless

[Sweder]

Flintoff out, Harmison in, Prior injures back in warm-up, Ponting doesn't pick a front-line spinner on a pitch that's turned all season ... and England win the toss and elect to bat. At least Prior can rest his back until after lunch ... fingers crossed :o

Aussie must fancy the win but if Harmison fires watch out - could be a classic ...

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

I'm not gloating...

I'm not.


:o:RFLMAO:

[Sweder]

Eh? Is there cricket on? Blimey ...

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

All out 102.

Shame.

[El Gordo]

I reckon the Aussies will be all out for 75.

Wouldn't be surprised if they fail to hit a single 4.

:o

Er, Australia 8-0 after 2 balls.....

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

I reckon the Aussies will be all out for 75.

Wouldn't be surprised if they fail to hit a single 4.

:o

Er, Australia 8-0 after 2 balls.....

Very magnaminous of you EG, I shall buy you a pint of London Pride for that!

[Sweder]

Clearly some kind of ugly, twisted conspiracy here :mad:

First up some loutish Aussie sets off a fire alarm in the England team hotel at 4am.
Sky's commentary team announce it would be 'great' if Australia won here as it would create the ultimate decider at the Oval.
Someone looking horribly like Shayne Warne chucks a ball at Matt Prior, sending him into horrendous back spasm.
Ponting takes the cowardly option of calling 'tails' handing Strauss the poisoned chalice of a won toss in tricky conditions.
TV and radio queue up six deep to interview Strauss seconds before he opens the batting.
England's bowlers, despite seeing Clarke and Siddle bowl the perfect, pitched-up line, start throwing ugly, looping, long-hop pies.

And to top it all off SP confesses last night over drinks that for the first time in his miserable life he sat down to watch the cricket.

Bah! :mad:

[SIZE="1"]NB: some of the above feeble excuses may have been fabricated/ embelished for effect. SP did however watch the cricket. He's clearly watching again this morning ...[/SIZE]

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

And to top it all off SP confesses last night over drinks that for the first time in his miserable life he sat down to watch the cricket.

Is he OK?

[Sweder]

Well that should just about do it for this match :o

Bopara picks up a shocker first-ball. Heavy inside edge missed by the Ump - Ravi shows his bat and will probably get a rap for that - and he's given LBW. Ironic given some of the previous dodgy decisions and, on balance, maybe for the best. It'll help crush any last vestige of hope held by the residents of Nine Elms for an improbable fight-back.

Jury remains out on Bopara but there must be at least eleven angry men in that room following his 'straight ball' dismissal at Edgbaston and his cavalier swipe in the first innings here.

This one's over before lunch on Sunday I reckon.
Roll on the Oval and A Nightmare on Kensington High Street VIII - Freddie: The Resurrection

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

It certainly makes a difference when Johnson fires, eh?

No threat of rain, one hopes?

[El Gordo]

At least I had £50 on Australia to win this one. It will be some consolation....

I was also clever enough to miss today's gloomy offering, deciding that an afternoon spent doing a National Trust house and garden was preferable. Fish & chips and 3 excellent pints of Gale's HSB on the way home sealed a nice day.

As for tomorrow, sadly I have to cut the grass and clean the shower. Phew!

[Sweder]

I'd love to catch the nail-biting conclusion to this tense encounter but I, er, have to run

OK, time for my confession/ apology.
I may have given the impression that recalling Harmison may in some way improve England's bowling performance. I might also have called for unfit players - regardless of talismanic qualities - to be dropped/ rested. Clearly in the case of the former I have been cruelly led astray by a parade of whimpering Aussie pundits claiming they 'hate' facing Harmison. The cheeky giggle-meisters ...

As for the latter, it is clear that as auras go Strauss and his band of bungling buffoons were way at the back of the line and dipped out. England clearly need a mascot, a rallying point, a bloodied, battered foot soldier bravely raising the flag amongst the battlesmoke and carnage. A Butcher, an Ince, an obdurate, redoubtable Atherton. We need this damaged colossus, this hamstrung icon, this mortally wounded yet somehow invincible talisman; this Flintoff. The stage is set, the odds stacked against us, yet this could just be our finest hour ...



And so to the Oval.
Flintoff may have to play on one leg to get some fire back in the belly of the side. Sidebottom in for Anderson (Jimmy's our best bowler this series but is clearly wounded - hamstring knack it seems)? And surely Bopara must be consigned to the counties and Rob Key given the three spot? Key is an opening bat and a serious pie-muncher with thicker skin than Richard Millhouse Nixon. Just the sort we need against bushwhacking Johnny Foreigner Ponting and his grinning, sledging Sheileroos.

Ooh, I can feel the green shoots of recovery already ...






... just need to stay clear of the radio for the next couple of hours and the newspapers for the next week or so ...

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Well you got your wish - Flintoff to play is the report I read, and he'll doubtless make a difference, even if he is playing on one leg.

This one should be a beauty. Let's hope iot goes down the 5th day this time!

Bring it on!

[Sweder]

Rollercoaster time

England appeared to have missed a trick first up, making barely 300 on what 'experts' extolled as a flat track. Then Timber! Aussie wickets going down like Rainforest in the Amazon basin. Now, day three, the track looks benign with England ticking along at a gentle rate. Approaching halfway through this match the Crims will need to pull a raft of rabbits out of their baggy green caps if they are to retain the urn.

A fun if slightly frivolous farewell from Fred, taking the fight to the bowlers but ultimately perishing in what some might see as a poor attempt to underline his legacy in the long game. Flintoff's final test batting average is a modest 31.77. As we know stats rarely tell the full story. This applies doubly so in Freddie's case, yet I can't help but look on his career as having fallen short. Hampered by niggling injury, plagued by human foibles and too often failing to lay off the hi-jinks, Flintoff may be a media darling but in my eyes, in the modern Ashes anthology, he plays poor second fiddle to the mighty Botham. Flintoff is a likeable man, a loveable rogue and an undoubted talisman in a side desperate for heroes, yet I feel the cold hand of hyperbole has elevated his resputation to a false position. Thankfully young Broad has the look of a man ready to step into the all-rounders over-sized boots even as Fred limps into history, and he's doing so without the distracting shennanigans.

This series has been something of a curate's egg, lacking the close-balanced intensity of the magical 2005 episode. Perhaps it's the dearth of larger-than-life characters - Ponting stands alone as our favorite Panto villain - though some for the future like Broad, Swann, Strauss and, for sheer guts, Mitchell Johnson, have emerged. I've missed Haden - who has blossomed into a consumate radio summeriser - Warne, Lee and yes, even McGgrath.

Compelling none the less.
I think they're coming home ...

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

If ever the scene was set for a dramatic record-breaking last innings to snatch the series, this is it. It could happen.

Well done Mr. Trott too, btw. He has the temperament of an Aussie, and Ponting took a gamble when he said the things he did, and he lost. Well done to the man with the punny name... Hot to Trott indeed.

Don't celebrate just yet. You could be in for a few nervous hours.

Hope so, anyway.

[Sweder]

Give it up - you're done for.
Shayne Warne, from the ministry of disinformation, has been talking down England's chances, damning them with feint praise from ball one of the series.

Aussies are doing rain dances all over west London under clear blue skies. The cheers coming from the Green & Gold in the stands when the follow-on was avoided was music indeed. England took a brutal hammering at Edgebaston and they've come back hard, with courage and skill, lead by Andrew Strauss, a man fast emerging from Vaughan's lingering shadow.
You're going down, and it's going to hurt

Ponting's due some runs - he's had an unusually poor time of it at the crease lately - but he and at least two others will need hundreds, one of them a big one, and frankly I don't think this lot have the heart.

We're done with you; bring on the Proteas.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Give it up - you're done for.
Shayne Warne, from the ministry of disinformation, has been talking down England's chances, damning them with feint praise from ball one of the series.

Aussies are doing rain dances all over west London under clear blue skies. The cheers coming from the Green & Gold in the stands when the follow-on was avoided was music indeed. England took a brutal hammering at Edgebaston and they've come back hard, with courage and skill, lead by Andrew Strauss, a man fast emerging from Vaughan's shadow.
You're going down, and it's going to hurt

Ponting's due some runs - he's had an unusually poor time of it at the crease lately - but he and at least two others will need hundreds, one of them a big one, and frankly I don't think this lot have the heart.

We're done with you; bring on the Proteas.

Funny how you perceive things... I've been listening to Warne's commentary and he sounds to me like he's desperately sorry not to be out there playing ... for England. Remember he was tipped as a possible England captain not so very long ago. He spends a lot more time in England than he does here and would doubtless qualify for residency. He is, after all, more English than Kevin Skunk Petersen.

Aussies NEVER do rain dances. NEVER NEVER NEVER. Draws are losses in the Aussie vernacular.

Ponting is due some runs, certianly, but not so much as Hussey. It's time for him to stand up. Watch out if he does.

Damn this game.

Damn England.

Damn it all to hell.

We're going to win this one!

[El Gordo]

Crikey, I'm going to sit here and watch this forum battle rather than the TV....

I missed all the excitement of yesterday, though I was able to witness the Broad/Swann demolition derby on Friday. Today I'll be watching again. I expect the Aussies to torment us with a couple of stout innings before holding their hands up around the 350 mark.

No rational reason for saying that of course. It's what I hope, I guess. The crafty, driven Australians have the right mentality for the fight but I think the task is just a little beyond them.

Ashes celebration party tonight boys! [SIZE="4"]Hurrah!![/SIZE]