[terminal pharmacy]

unless the whole australian team gets injured the ashes will be back in the hands of the true world champions. you may say this is premature..........

[Norma J]

Not premature at all.

[Onani Nic]

I forgot how much I liked cricket until I watched the first few overs of the Ashes.

[RIPfrey05]

WTF.
never mind, i understand.. its a bunch of hip australians.. on eof them likes fugazi.. i do too, its ok.. i dont know shit about cricket.

[the ikara cult]

Its looking bleak from an England point of view. But who knows, Monty could come in for the 2nd test and end up being amazing throughout the rest of the series.... although its 99% certain not to happen.

Do you have the Ashes on "Freeview" TV in Australia? Cos last summer it was on terrestrial here in the UK and it was THE sporting event of the year by far, and not just because we won. and now this year its on Sky, not nearly as many people are going to follow it. If it was on terrestrial TV it wouldve been almost as big as the World Cup. Your man Richie Benaud has been the great example of saying cricket should be available to everyone, its such a shame that the series is on Sky.

[Norma J]

It's on free to air tele here.

[the ikara cult]

you lucky souls. Last year cricket was so massive here, my dad was saying it hadnt been as prominant in the national consciousness in 20 years. But now going to Sky, even if we win this series cricket wont capitalise on the boom from last year. Just cos so many people dont have Sky.

The analogy i look at is boxing. Someone like Joe Calzaghe could (some might say should) have been a massive star for years over here. But his fights have not been on free to air TV. Nor Ricky Hatton. when you compare it with 15 or so years ago when we had Eubank Vs Benn - They were national superstars, as big as the most famous footballers. And their big fights were on free to air TV. when the BBC lost Cricket and it went to Channel Four (free TV) people were worried, but the C4 coverage turned out to be better than ever, attracting more and more people to the game by the way it was promoted and presented whilst still being true to what cricket was about.

In my opinion, we have all these awful footballers whining to the ref on every decision made. Whereas in cricket we have a sport where the rules are respected and sportsmanship is most important.

[Glice]

I think it's horrifically premature to say that we've lost it already. If you'll remember, we got raped in the first test last year.

The problem with the most recent test is that we had a great 4th day, we looked pretty confident at Pieterson wasn't letting Warne shit all of over us. We went to shit on the 5th day, probably thanks to the new ball, and our fielding hasn't been great - I'm hoping Monty pulls out the goods for the next test - but all is not lost yet. I'm hoping McGrath doesn't hold out for the whole series, he looked great during our first innings, but deteriorated towards the end. He's no spring chicken, and I suspect he's not going to continue giving us shit for the whole series.

I think we'll have a struggle on, to be fair to those convict bastards, they are looking pretty shit-hot, but we've done it before. I'm putting our first test performance down to nerves and acclimatisation.

I have to say, I was enormously impressed with the attitude of the Aussies, as I usually am. We've got the rivalry with them, but any appeals or close to dropped catches have been owned up to by the Aussies. There was one dropped catch, I think it was Warne, where it looked for all the world like he held on, but he straight away said he didn't, which wouldn't happen with Pakistan, for instance.

It's going to be a good series. The Aussies are proper sportsmen, they're not going to try and draw the next 4 tests, they'll want to beat us proper, and I'm sure we'll put up a valient effort to win.

[terminal pharmacy]

ahhh as long as old man glenn mc stays fit. but hey our batting goes down to 9 and our bowling goes up to 6, tough ask to match that, and england can't rely soely on pieterson, and harmison can't even hit the pitch

[Glice]

A fair point (although I'm not entirely sure I understand it). Freddy can pull the goods out under pressure, and Monty, when he's not being an utter pleb, can be pretty intimidating. Part of our problem is that our batting is so very shaky until we've been at the crease for a few overs. And, with Australia's bowlers, we don't get much of a chance to do that.

I quite fancied the draw after the 4th day, but we, once again, turned to utter gash on the 5th morning. It's infuriating, because I know we can play better than we have so far.

[the ikara cult]

We need a few things to happen to win this series.
Strauss needs to have the series of his career.
Flintoff needs to be even better than last year
Monty needs to come in and decimate EVERYTHING.
Harmison needs to bounce back from the first test and use the criticism as a springboard, and basically have the series of his life...

Basically all our major players need to have the series of their lives. It shows how much we miss Vaughn Trescothick and Jones.

[Glice]

I recently found out that decimate is nearly always used incorrectly - it's used as a synonym for 'obliterate' or 'annihilate', when in fact it means to reduce by a tenth (as in 'dec' meaning '10' in Latin). Otherwise, I concur entirely with the above post.

[Hip Priest]

2 - 0. Oh dear.

Apart from the general calamity of the thing, two of our top order bastmen were run out and at one managed to get out playing to a ball that pitched outside the leg stump. That wouldn't matter so much of we were pressing for a win, but all we had to do was not lose nine wickets in the space of four or five hours. For a decent test side, that shouldn't be too much to ask, and we are a decent test side. Flintoff's stance that things are looking up, because we've improved since the Gabba, will not wash. Not at all.

Our injured players are a factor, but so is our selection from what we've got. Duncan Fletcher has spent too much time worrying about the number eight batsman getting a few extra runs, which is why the out of form Giles has been picked ahead of the potential match-winner Panesar. We are too quick to make the most of things; the fact that we declared our first innings on 551/6 is irrelevant; the fact that we then proceeded to let the opposition win is the relevant thing. We also didn't play nearly enough warm up matches before the series started.

There is an eight day gap before the third test begins. The first two matches of this Ashes series will be remembered for England's poor preparation, poor selection and poor application. The next three, and the rubber as a whole, can still be remembered differently, but only if Duncan FLetcher, the ECB and the team wake up to the reality now and act immediately and decisively.

[Glice]

There was a few dodgy decisions today; this doesn't detract any from the fact that we managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of a near-certain draw. I've not been this disappointed in our side for years. To be fair, the Aussies are looking shit-hot, but I'm still incensed that we managed to have such an utterly appaling last day.

[Hip Priest]

I don't think Australia have played their best yet, because I don't think we've pushed them to have to do so. They will be able to raise their game still further if they have to.

I enjoyed Shane Warne's post-match goading of Fletcher, I have to admit; Fletcher had claimed that our batsmen had worked out how to play Warne, which is quite possibly the silliest thing anyone in the world of sport has ever said.

[Norma J]

www.the12thman.com