Oh right. A mate of mine had gone heavy on England to win the first test. Loser.
It was great entertainment- and the promise of 4 more is something to look forward to.
Fair play to collingwood- He has that geordie excuse-tone to his voice(like a shearer) but he stood up and saved his country from certain defeat.
bopara,strauss and cuntface piterson need to take a look at themselves about their performance -then again if the only alternative is that meekest of lambs ian bell then the aussie wil be pissing themselves laughing.
i think ponting made the mistake of thinking it was done and dusted after collingwood went and that ultimately cost them.
should be a cracking series tho and i cannot wait for thursday for the next game. hopefully the weather wont fuck it up.
Grievous Bodily Harmison has been added to the England and Wales squad for the second test. It seems as though he’s mainly providing cover for Flintoff, who strained his knee in the field, and that Onions will probably still be ahead of him if Flintoff’s fit and they drop Panesar.
There are few more hateful cunts in world sport than Ricky Ponting.
He speaks very highly of you Bandage…
Could not agree more with that statement about Ricky Ponting. He is a great batsman but he is a serious prick of the highest order. Him accusing england of suspect tactics is the highest case of bullshit. Fucked up the test match too by bowling North when Siddle and Hilfenhaus should have been bowling
:mad:
Complains about the spirit of the game yet he goes charging at the umpire claiming a catch when the ball had clearly hit the pad with no hint of bat involved.
He might also want to recall the 2005 Manchester test when Glenn McGrath wasn’t shy about calling the 12th man out to change gloves when their last wicket pair were trying to survive.
Also, Gary Pratt. 
It would be an utter shame if a complete cunt like him ended up with more test runs and centuries than Sachin.
Complains about the spirit of the game yet he goes charging at the umpire claiming a catch when the ball had clearly hit the pad with no hint of bat involved.
He might also want to recall the 2005 Manchester test when Glenn McGrath wasn’t shy about calling the 12th man out to change gloves when their last wicket pair were trying to survive.
Also, Gary Pratt.
It would be an utter shame if a complete cunt like him ended up with more test runs and centuries than Sachin.[/QUOTE]
Yep, his conduct towards Umpires is the most disgraceful of his shite. The Gary Pratt incident also brings a smile to my face. His big sulk and tirade to the England balcony was hilarious. Glenn McGrath milked it to the last and in one sense i applauded him, he milked it and got away with it. As did Monty and Andersen. Saw Duncan Fletcher condemned England for it and said if he was in charge of the team he would not have let it happen. Knob
Yeah, Ponting lecturing on sportsmanship is the best Ashes laugh I’ve had since Mike Gatting was giving Nasser Hussein some family values advice during the 2002/03 Ashes series.
A case of Ponting just trying to deflect attention away from his captaincy inadequacies.
[quote=“Manuel Zelaya”]Yeah, Ponting lecturing on sportsmanship is the best Ashes laugh I’ve had since Mike Gatting was giving Nasser Hussein some family values advice during the 2002/03 Ashes series.
A case of Ponting just trying to deflect attention away from his captaincy inadequacies.[/QUOTE]
Hopefully Harmison will get the nod on Thursday and connect with his cheekbone again. Have some more of this Ponting, you cunt:
Id love Harmy to be picked. Cant see it happening if Freddie is fit though. They will go with Onions i reckon. Would be very worried bout the top of the order. Who will get shafted for the Aussies if Brett Lee is fit??
Here’s what the great man made of it all…
Kevin Pietersen is symptomatic of England’s problems
Let’s not kid ourselves. England were lucky to escape from Cardiff with a draw.
by Geoffrey Boycott
They were outplayed in every department of the game, and if they keep performing like that, I can see them losing the series 4-0.
I was worried after the first day, when Kevin Pietersen came to talk to the media and suggested that 336 for seven represented a good position. Which came as a surprise to me, given that six of England’s batsmen had scored between 30 and 69, and not one had gone on to make a hundred on an absolute pancake of a pitch.
Well, if the England players were full of themselves at the end of day one, they were not so cocky after day four. By that stage, they had been given a lesson in simple batting technique. The Australians with the freakish exception of Phillip Hughes all made a big stride forward, played straight, and hit the bad ball. There was no flashiness about their innings, and hardly any mistakes; they just manoeuvred the ball into the gaps, and kept the scoreboard ticking. Isn’t that what you’re taught at school?
The trouble with England’s batsmen is that they are one-dimensional. They only want to play with an attacking mentality, and when they are presented with a situation that demands a different approach, they cannot adapt.
On Wednesday they batted with gay abandon, scoring at four runs an over as if they were chasing a 50-over target. In all the excitement, they forgot to build the big partnerships that would have taken control of the game.
Pietersen has to accept a lot of the blame. He is England’s talismanic trump card, and yet he never puts his hand up to admit he made a mistake. He never says “That was poor judgement” or “I should have pulled out of the shot”. If he could only bring himself to do that, we would respect him for being honest and human. But instead he always diverts attention on to something else. In this case, he blamed the helmet. How dare it get in the way of such an audacious sweep shot, by such a great player? Give the helmet a smack!
My concern is that there is no one in the England set-up who will go up to Pietersen and tell him that this is not good enough. Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower are both quiet men, and frankly I do not think they have got the courage.
Pietersen is like a spoilt child, the family favourite who can get away with anything because he is such a golden boy. Until someone takes the trouble to discipline him, he will keep making the same stupid mistakes over and over again. Of course, he is still the best player by miles, but his erratic performances are bound to have a negative effect on the rest of the team.
Test cricket is like chess. You have to search for an opening. If you just blitz all your pieces out there in the first few moves, you are going to lose far more often than you win. But England do not seem to appreciate the value of building slow pressure on their opponents. We saw the same thing in the field. As the pitch got flatter, they just kept trying to bowl batsmen out. Nobody could bowl maidens or dot balls or cut the scoring-rate down.
The captaincy was poor from Strauss. In fact it was shocking. He didn’t open with Andrew Flintoff, even though Flintoff terrorised Simon Katich four years ago and caused all the left-handers problems. It was obvious that England should have opened with Flintoff to see if there was still any psychological damage there. He is also the best bowler.
Strauss then went too defensive too early, stationing too many men on the boundary for bad balls. He does s not have a feel for the nuances of the game. And don’t tell me he will grow into the captaincy because he won’t. History shows that people like Douglas Jardine, Brian Close, Ray Illingworth and Michael Vaughan were natural leaders who took to the job quickly. Strauss is a nice guy, and a decent bat, but not a great captain.
Thanks to some sturdy batting from the tailenders, England now have a chance to redeem themselves which they do not deserve. But if they pitch up like that again at Lord’s, it doesn’t matter who they pick, because they will get murdered. History is against them, because they have not beaten Australia there since 1934. They have a couple of days to do some serious appraisal and rethink their whole approach to the game of Test cricket.
I was listening to Geoffrey on the BBC commentary on Sunday night, he was hilarious. Apoplectic is probably a better desription (“Back in my day…”).
Pontings a cunt. He’s not a great captain. Right lads, we all identified this a long time ago. We know.
However, look at the facts. When Ponting became captain, there was no real alternative. Gilchrist didn’t want it, Warnie couldn’t have it. Ponting had to be the choice. Too early for Michael Clarke at the moment. And I have my doubts about Clarke as captain. He’s not well liked within the team and I reckon he’d be far too cautious. We wait to see.
Australia should have won the first test, but it was a shocking pitch for bowlers. They actually did quite well really. I don’t hold too many worries for Australia. 4 hundreds in the first test will give those batsmen huge confidence, especially Ponting. Hughes I’m not worried about. There seems to be this perception that England have him cornered and with Harmison coming in, thats the end of him. Not likley. He’ll be happy to take the heat and do a job for the team. He will score runs and plenty of them. They’re bowling well, Johnson looks a bit dodgy, but he’ll be fine. Hussey does worry me, its time he was dropped, he’s lost all form.
England on the other hand don’t look good. Strauss isn’t a great batsman and he’s a terrible, indecisive captain. Flintoff’s not happy and he’s injured. Pietersen is off in his own little world. Collingwood’s the only one with any fire. Most of them look disinterested.
Grevious Bodily Harmison. Thats hilarious. I look forward to him coming in.
Its there for Australia to lose. I can’t now see England winning a test. Its whether or not Australia can win tests or draw them.
I hope England do keep up the gamesmanship, as its quite funny watching Ponting losing the plot. I’m hoping for some serious bouncers and stand offs and slagging in the press, cos there seems to be a complete lack of sledging out there. All too polite for my liking.
Unleash the dogs of war I say. Philip Hughes will more than love that. Look what he did to South Africa when they gave him shit.
Freddie Flintoff is holding a press conference later where it is expected that he will announce his retirement from test cricket after the Ashes
Brett Lee is out of the second test
Didnt realise he was out of the second test for sure. Shame about Flintoff. Coming up to and during the 2005 Ashes he was brilliant. Gave some performance of fast bowling against South Africa last summer as well.
He was never going to be in the second test. He’s playing a tour game to try to prove fitness for the third test. But I don’t know why you all think he’s a given if he’s fit. He’ll find it very hard to get past Hify or Siddle. And Stuart Clark is trying to break in as well.
Shame about Flintoff, a great player and a gentleman to boot.
But - why not prolong his test career by giving up pyjama cricket? Wouldn’t be anything to do with money? (Not just Flintoff, this is the case across the board in cricket these days, and its not right)
[quote=“Fitzy”]He was never going to be in the second test. He’s playing a tour game to try to prove fitness for the third test. But I don’t know why you all think he’s a given if he’s fit. He’ll find it very hard to get past Hify or Siddle. And Stuart Clark is trying to break in as well.
Shame about Flintoff, a great player and a gentleman to boot.
But - why not prolong his test career by giving up pyjama cricket? Wouldn’t be anything to do with money? (Not just Flintoff, this is the case across the board in cricket these days, and its not right)[/QUOTE]
I’m with you in that I have no great time for the pyjama cricket. I think in fairness in Flintoff’s case, the body just can’t take 5 days of test cricket anymore. You could see it the 1st test, he bowled one particularly hostile spell at the start but he’s not able to sustain it over a prolonged period anymore. I get the feeling he won’t last the distance here either that he’s going to break down and get crocked again.
Could be, which would be a pity. I wouldn’t like to see him going out on a personal low, even if the makeshift team he’s propping up will.