Off Topic The Official Ashes 2013 Thread

1620: Aus 108-9 (need 54 to avoid the follow-on)

 

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Phil Lee: 1st law of English cricket: Never feel sorry for the Aussies. Any other team yes, but not the Aussies.

 

Breaking news: Michael Vaughan has been freed from the media centre lift. Apparently there was eight people in there. Eight! Sounds uncomfortable.

Swann to Harris, who pulls out a wonderful back-foot punch through the off side for four. Takes us to 118-9. In the first Test, number 11 Ashton Agar strolled out at 117-9 and biffed 98. Any chance of a repeat?

Very much doubt it.

 

1653: ENGLAND WILL BAT AGAIN

As we thought, England are looking to grind the Aussies into the dirt. By batting again, they will look to take the tourists out of the game, setting a target of over 500 at some point tomorrow evening or on Sunday morning.

 

128 all out. england lead by 233 and will bat again. A nice slow grind to the end of day 3 will do nicely. Harris's knee will explode again. Bad day for the Aussies, you'd like to think we'll push on now and wipe this series 5-0

 

That would really be something, but nothing less than the guys deserve.

 

If Swann can bowl so well on a fresh pitch, imagine the damage he can do when it breaks up in Australia's 2nd innings.

 

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hammer time!

 

Doubt it, at this stage of the match their is the worry that they score 500 and we lost the advantage of having Swann bowling in the 4th innings

 

Pietersen off the boil and Siddle on fire for the Assies.

Siddle 5.0 3 4 .3

 

Won't happen. Their batting is shocking. There is more in this pitch than commentators are letting on. Perfect batting track my arse. The ball is moving in the air, moving off the seam in extravagant style at times, the ball is turning, there is uneven bounce. By no means a poor pitch but Lords is pretty hard these days and as a result when it is baked it can be difficult to read. One of those pitches you are never really in. And again, the Aussie batting order is poor. Too many technical faults to exploit. Watson plays across the line (that'll always get you at Lords), Khawaja is yet to convince he can cut it at the level and clearly struggles with spin, Smith - too much bottom hand, Hughes just can't build an innings and under pressure gets a scrambled brain (a bit like Bell used to), Clarke looks out of nick and has a mental block with England since we went down there last time, Haddin is decent but he'll always give you chances. Rogers actually looks their most solid batsman.

I can't see them getting 200, nevermind 300 plus

 

bit of Lords rep for Norma

 

England and Australia both look poor teams to me, the Australia team from a few years ago would beat England 5-0

 

Just try to live with it!

Maybe you should start a Test Match thread on the Norwich board if you're going to be Mr Grumpy.

 

For what it's worth, I was along at Durham CCC yesterday and I got one of the Cotton Traders wide brimmed hats for £13. I'd been talking to one of the guys in the pub about getting one the night before and we both thought they'd be about £30-£40 each. They do like to make a bit of profit on the goods they sell, so it was a pleasant surprise to get one for £13.

 

lets hope fat mike never buys into Durham CCC

 

Nice to hear someone making good use of getting a bargain there, well done AB.