They really missed a trick before lunch by not having Freddie open the bowling. He’s just taken the first over after the restart and bounced Hughes three times in a row before going past the edge. He doesn’t like it up 'em, does Hughes.
Great stuff there from Freddie to remove Hughes. It was coming, he was working him over for a while. A good start from Hughes to some fairly slack English bowling but once Freddie got to work on him, it was man against boy.
And Freddie gets Hughes. That lad’s a laugh - another flat track bully in the making but he sure don’t like the short stuff. Poor enough stuff by Strauss not to have Flintoff opening the bowling given what Harmison did to the chap last week though, as alert and tactically astute cricketing brains such as myself noted before lunch.
Ponting [the Australian John Leahy] is just shy of 11,000 runs here. Some legend.
I despise the cunt.
Good call on Flintoff Bandage. Still think it was promising enough from Hughes. Don’t expect him to get bullied all summer.
Australia in a bit of a groove again here. They’re motoring along well.
Ah this is brilliant stuff from Ponting and Katich. 195-1 with Katich on 80 and Ponting on 69.
Australia are looking very comfortable here. Are Anderson and Broad good enough to bowl out Australia twice in a test match? No, bring back Harmison. Panesar has been shocking according to the text updates I’ve read.
Oz are cruising at the moment. Katich and Punter closing in on tons. This test has draw written all over it. Monty’s economy is not bad but no wicket threat. I don’t know about ye but I think Broad is way too expensive for a top class bowler. Harmy could indeed be back for Lords.
Have I mentioned that I like this graph:
[quote=“therock67”]Have I mentioned that I like this graph:
http://play.pulselive.com/pulse/Image?id=80&t=1247157449409[/QUOTE]
It’s super
Century for Katich
Australia 243-1 (Katich 100 Ponting 98)
And Ponting follows suit in final over.
Australia 249-1 (Katich 104 Ponting 100)
A huge mistake by England not to start an in form Grevious Bodily Harmison. Broad is apparently injured now which effectively reduces the England attack to two seamers Freddie & Jimmy Anderson. And Anderson is not much use because the ball is not swinging. It’ll need to be spin alot by Day 5 to justify the selection of Monty.
Pity with wickets not coming that they couldn’t have slowed the Convicts down a bit and kept Katich & Ponting stewing in the 90’s overnight.
Disappointing bowling performance from the English and Welsh but Katich and Ponting batted on, unlike Pietersen et al who all got starts but didn’t go on and convert them into big hundreds.
On the draw point, Australia are scoring at 4 an over + so they could conceivably get up to 600 by close of play tomorrow and have a healthy enough lead.
If Australia then declare (or are bowled out around that tally) and then take a few early wickets on day 4, England and Wales could have a real job on their hands to hold on for the draw. Quite a turn around because they were well on top this morning after the late flurry of runs from the tailenders.
[quote=“Bandage”]
If Australia then declare (or are bowled out around that tally) and then take a few early wickets on day 4, England and Wales could have a real job on their hands to hold on for the draw. Quite a turn around because they were well on top this morning after the late flurry of runs from the tailenders.[/QUOTE]
True enough Bandage. was thinking the same after I posted. It’s not as if E&W don’t have form for collapsing in that way.
The EW tail wagged well, Aussie bowling was pretty insipid against it, so their total was very good, given no one had a particuarly big score. EW should be happy enough that pretty much everyone got a start.
Hughes did well against a flurry of bouncers I thought. They threw everything at him and he didn’t fail. Ponting will be quite happy to see bowlers tire themselves out against Hughes for the rest of the series. Hughes will be happy to do this as well. It gives Ponting and Katich plenty of room to score, which is precisely what happened. Aus should bat through day 3 to about 550-600, unless a collapse happens.
Good chance for a draw, but at the moment I’d say adavantage Australia. Ponting has to be big now and absolutely drive Australia for a victory.
Bandage - Hughes as a flat track bully? FFS, you obviously have not seen him play much. This guy has strokes everywhere. He’s a naturally gifted and very intelligent batsman. He’ll keep sucking up the bouncers. They’ll stop at some stage, and then he’ll be off. He did very well yesterday.
[quote=“Fitzy”]The EW tail wagged well, Aussie bowling was pretty insipid against it, so their total was very good, given no one had a particuarly big score. EW should be happy enough that pretty much everyone got a start.
Hughes did well against a flurry of bouncers I thought. They threw everything at him and he didn’t fail. Ponting will be quite happy to see bowlers tire themselves out against Hughes for the rest of the series. Hughes will be happy to do this as well. It gives Ponting and Katich plenty of room to score, which is precisely what happened. Aus should bat through day 3 to about 550-600, unless a collapse happens.
Good chance for a draw, but at the moment I’d say adavantage Australia. Ponting has to be big now and absolutely drive Australia for a victory.
Bandage - Hughes as a flat track bully? FFS, you obviously have not seen him play much. This guy has strokes everywhere. He’s a naturally gifted and very intelligent batsman. He’ll keep sucking up the bouncers. They’ll stop at some stage, and then he’ll be off. He did very well yesterday.[/QUOTE]
They did only bowl 54 balls at Hughes? It was hardly the exertions of that, that saw England’s ‘bowlers tire themselves out’. Hughes prospered early from some slack bowling from Broad. Once Flintoff got to work on him Hughes was out of his depth.
On the basis of the warm up match and his first innings performance yesterday Hughes has been a big letdown so far and has not lived up to all the hype about him.
Not ashes related but it is cricket related
Joyce victim of freak dismissal
Sussex ended the day at Edgbaston on level terms after hitting 276-4 in reply to Warwickshire’s total of 407.
But Ed Joyce’s golden week turned sour as the victim of a freak dismissal.
Four days after leading his new county to the FP Trophy final with a match-winning ton against Gloucestershire, Joyce was bizarrely caught sweeping.
Jonathan Trott took evasive action at short leg but as he turned away the ball somehow dropped into the Bears fielder’s right-hand trouser pocket.
Law 32 says a fielder has fairly completed a catch “if the ball accidentally lodges in his clothing.”
With Joyce departing for 29 - the first of three wickets to fall in the afternoon session - Sussex were forced to dig in after more problems on a ground where they have lost five of the last six Championship meetings.
[quote=“Manuel Zelaya”]They did only bowl 54 balls at Hughes? It was hardly the exertions of that, that saw England’s ‘bowlers tire themselves out’. Hughes prospered early from some slack bowling from Broad. Once Flintoff got to work on him Hughes was out of his depth.
On the basis of the warm up match and his first innings performance yesterday Hughes has been a big letdown so far and has not lived up to all the hype about him.[/QUOTE]
36 from 54 isn’t bad scoring at all. After the tail from England and Wales it was no harm to have a bit of aggression from Australia at the start to put England back on the back foot and Hughes did that impressively.
So he was undone by Flintoff after a while but not after setting Australia up nicely and 36 is hardly a disastrous score given the tone it set for the day. I think there’s too much optimism in the England camp about how they got rid of Hughes. He’s one guy and he had already scored reasonably to bring up 60 before he got out.