Only saw it flleetingly the other day on Sky sports but Jimmy Anderson holds the record for the most consecutive innings without being bowled for a duck, think it was close to 60, and was a nice bit clear of the lad in second place…some going considering he would be seen as a tailender…
[quote=“Manuel Zelaya”]Yes, I remember that test match in Kingsmead very well. It started the same day as the Tsunami in South East Asia. In fact, its a match that England looked like winning for most of Day 5, despite their first innings deficit of 200. Only a dogged 8th wicket stand from AB de Villiers & Shaun Pollock saved South Africa.
I thought you might have been referring to Mike Athertons finest hour at the Wanderers in 1995. His 185 not out when he batted for almost 2 days to save the test when England were in a position which was every bit as hopeless as that which they were in at the end of the the first innings in this match.
http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63701.html
Some Mike Atherton or Geoffrey Boycott application sorely missing from the current English lot.[/quote]
I was thinking of that Kingsmead test all right but I remember the Atherton knock too - that type of grit and application has been sadly lacking in this test.
There was a decent headline in one of the English redtops when Strauss and Trescothick both responded with hundreds in that test in 2004.
Arjen Robben had sent Chelsea top of the EPL with a winner against someone on the same day and headline was ‘Batsmen and Robben’.
Ah lovely.
E&W have serious selection problems in the middle order. problem is that they have not got a lot of options. I would bring Trescothick in now. Pietersen is a huge loss. Bell has had so many chances now it is a joke. Bopara should be batting around #6 if at all.
50 for Broady and 6 wickets in the Australian innings. Man of the match, without a doubt. Well done Broady. :guns:
England have come out fighting this morning. Its too early to call it a comeback but Onions will score a century - thats my prediction.
The greaseball
This is some laugh - 49 runs from the last 3 overs. Stuart Clark is taking some punishment here. 100 partnership up in 73 balls.
Boooooooooooo.
Australia just got the 8th wicket
:guns::guns:
England could steal this yet
25 more boundaries and we are back in it 
Three loins on a shirt… :guns:
So, Australia have just wrapped it up - Johnson getting the Michelle and Hilfenhaus stuck on 4 wickets yet again. Very, very emphatic and England and Wales have a lot of thinking to do. There’s some awful stats in truth - the England and Wales bottom five have scored as many runs as the top five in the series so far. The middle order was as brittle as I feared once the openers went. There’s people calling for Trescothick and Ramprakash to play at The Oval! Good effort from the tail today and they gave some entertainment.
Fair play to the EW tail, they were as excellent as their middle order were shite. Broad was great (is he really 6 foot 8 inches?), a joy to watch, some technically excellent strokes. That was a truly disgraceful decision on Swann.
Fair play to Australia though. Mitchell Johnson has come good, and for that we have to finally pay some form of tribute to Ricky Ponting’s captaincy. I don’t think he’s put a foot wrong during this series. He’s gone into it with a dodgy attack, which he has tweaked, but supported. He made a decision on Hughes which has worked out handsomely and he’s batted well himself. I’m disappointed I must say, at the boorish behaviour of some of the loutish elements of the English crowd (the Welsh contingent’s manners would never allow such scangerness) in constantly booing Ponting, who has behaved himself impeccably throughout the series.
EW in fairness, have been without Flintoff, their undoubted best player and an unconvincing Pietersen. But to collapse in such a manner must sound serious alarm bells in the ECB. Their middle order is a joke, their bowlers can only fire when its cloudy overhead and openers have not exactly set the world on fire. Its not all bad though and they’ve proved they can beat Australia, so panic is not the answer.
Australia will be absolutely gagging to get the Oval. For England it can’t come too soon.
The fact that people are calling for Trescothick to come back and Ramprakesh (who cannot tell enough people he doesn’t want anything to do with it) smacks of utter desparation.
We have the face the fact though that there is only one test left. FFS, does it seem to anyone else that this Ashes has absolutely flown by?
What is the situation now? Australia 2-1 up with one more test to play, is that it?
1-1, with 1 more to play. Australia would retain the Ashes if the final test is a draw.
Mark Ramprakesh must be a fair age at this stage, thought he would be well retired at this stage, didn’t he win one of them celebrity dance yolks a couple of years ago?
Bit of controversy about this today.
The Ashes: leaked dossier shows what Australia really think of England team
Telegraph Sport can reveal what the current Australia side really think of their England counterparts and the weaknesses that were pinpointed before the series began.
By Steve James
In an amazing document detailing the thoughts of Somerset captain and former Australia opener Justin Langer, English cricketers are witheringly described as lazy, shallow and flat, and as players who love being comfortable. Fast bowler James Anderson can be a bit of a pussy if things do not go his way and skipper Andrew Strauss can be too conservative. And there are barbs at the egos of Matt Prior and Graeme Swann, as well as the annoying strut of Ravi Bopara.
A copy of the dossier, leaked to this newspaper last week and printed in full inside, was handed to the whole Australia squad before the first Test. It will shock cricket followers in this country. In it Langer roundly condemns English cricketers attitudes and apparent lack of fight in the battle, surprising given that it was only last season that Langer was proclaiming that the standard of cricket in division one of the County Championship was as tough as anything he had ever experienced in first-class cricket.
English players rarely believe in themselves, says Langer. Many of them stare a lot and chat a lot but this is very shallow. They will retreat very quickly. Aggressive batting, running and body language will soon have them staring at their bootlaces rather than in the eyes of their opponent it is just how they are built.
He emphasises the point by describing English cricketers as great front runners. He continues: Because of the way they are programmed they will be up when things are going well, but they will taper off very quickly if you wear them down. Because they play so much cricket as soon as it gets a bit hard you just have to watch their body language and see how flat and lazy they get. This is also a time when most of them make all sorts of excuses and start looking around to point the finger at everyone else it is a classic English trait from my experience.
Langer also warned this Australian side not to repeat the mistakes of 2005 and be too friendly with the England team. They [English cricketers] like being friendly and 'matey because it makes them feel comfortable, he says. In essence this is maybe the key to the whole English psyche they love being comfortable. Take them out of their comfort zone and they dont like it for one second.
Of Anderson, Langer says: He is hugely improved but can be a bit of a pussy if he is worn down. His body language could be detrimental to them [England] if we get on top of him early.
Langer was once a team-mate of Strausss at Middlesex and says of him: He is a very solid character and excellent bloke. His weakness is possibly his conservative approach. He will tend to take the safer options in most cases.
As for the edict from Cricket Australia that Australian players should not sledge in this series, Langer immediately dismisses this by saying of Prior, who he describes as having a massive ego: I would chip away at him about his wicketkeeping. I would be reminding him about how it could see him out of the team. I would definitely work his ego.
But, by contrast, the plan for Bopara has been silence: He is sure to wind the boys up by his strutting around, but I would leave him alone.
Worryingly, Michael Vaughan, Englands Ashes-winning captain in 2005, agrees with many of Langers assertions. In his column on page five today, he says: If I had been asked to write a dossier on English cricket, I would have come up with many of the same points. This is a reality check for the games administrators in this country to change our structure.
Langer declined to comment on Saturday.
What role (if any) does Langer have with the team? I know they’re calling it a dossier and suggesting it was handed out to the squad but the media* have a way of exaggerating these things. You’d wonder was it used by the squad at all.
- other than TFK obviously.
[quote=“Rocko”]What role (if any) does Langer have with the team? I know they’re calling it a dossier and suggesting it was handed out to the squad but the media* have a way of exaggerating these things. You’d wonder was it used by the squad at all.
- other than TFK obviously.[/quote]
I think he’s just mates with Tim Nielsen, the coach, and he was either invited to or volunteered to put down his thoughts on the English and Welsh.
Langer is said to be both seething and mortified that this was leaked. Of course its all true, so a storm in a tea cup really.
I was listening to Langer commentate for the ABC on the South African series in Australia, he was very very good, intelligent and passionate.
[quote=“Fitzy”]Fair play to the EW tail, they were as excellent as their middle order were shite. Broad was great (is he really 6 foot 8 inches?), a joy to watch, some technically excellent strokes. That was a truly disgraceful decision on Swann.
Fair play to Australia though. Mitchell Johnson has come good, and for that we have to finally pay some form of tribute to Ricky Ponting’s captaincy. I don’t think he’s put a foot wrong during this series. He’s gone into it with a dodgy attack, which he has tweaked, but supported. He made a decision on Hughes which has worked out handsomely and he’s batted well himself. I’m disappointed I must say, at the boorish behaviour of some of the loutish elements of the English crowd (the Welsh contingent’s manners would never allow such scangerness) in constantly booing Ponting, who has behaved himself impeccably throughout the series.
EW in fairness, have been without Flintoff, their undoubted best player and an unconvincing Pietersen. But to collapse in such a manner must sound serious alarm bells in the ECB. Their middle order is a joke, their bowlers can only fire when its cloudy overhead and openers have not exactly set the world on fire. Its not all bad though and they’ve proved they can beat Australia, so panic is not the answer.
Australia will be absolutely gagging to get the Oval. For England it can’t come too soon.
The fact that people are calling for Trescothick to come back and Ramprakesh (who cannot tell enough people he doesn’t want anything to do with it) smacks of utter desparation.
We have the face the fact though that there is only one test left. FFS, does it seem to anyone else that this Ashes has absolutely flown by?[/quote]
For someone who has no problem constantly making racial jibes towards Andrew Strauss & Matt Prior, youre getting very hot under the collar about this boorish behaviourof the English crowd towards Ponting. I thought that was all part and parcel of the Australian game anyway? Sledging its called down there I believe? Ponting is no stranger to boorish behaviour on or off the cricket field. Just ask the bloke he picked a fight with in Kings Cross in Sydney.
As regards this sudden discovery of captaincy skills from Ponting thats captivated you so much this series, maybe you should have a look at the video of Day 5 from Cardiff. You wouldnt be long in being disabused of your rather fanciful theory that Ponting hasnt put a foot wrong in the captaincy stakes this series. The main reason that the Ashes hasnt been retained by Australia in advance of going to their traditional Ashes graveyard of the Oval, is down to Pontings inept performance as captain on Day 5 in Cardiff, which cost Australia what should have been a certain win.
For all those Australians gagging to get to the Oval, a sobering thought should be that Australia has only won 6 out of 34 Ashes tests played at the Oval. England have won 15. The more recent record is even further tilted in Englands favour. Of the 15 tests since Don Bradmans last test in 1948, Australia have won just twice in 1972 & 2001.