The mischievous little imp sat on my shoulder wearing his 'Devil's advocate' t shirt just said "wouldn't it be good for the benefit of the series to see England rolled over for 160 this afternoon so there's something still riding on the match at Chester-le-street"
Not a chance. I'd feel sorry for the punters who turned up today but I'd haapily see the rain pour down and close out the series. I'd rather see a plucky rearguard action by England's allegedly world class top six but unless something changes radically that is not looking too likely so it's prayers for rain for me I'm afraid.
I'm with norfolk on this one, don't want the aussies getting any confidence from a win. loads of rain will do for me this afternoon followed by a thrashing of the aussies at durham!
We've been outplayed in every session in this match - apart, maybe from Pietersen's century. Moral victory to Aus whatever happens but the scorebook will still say 'draw' in years to come. Here's a thought :
They can have all the moral victories as long as we get the ones written down in the record books. I have grown up suffering decades of being stuffed by the Aussies and I want to keep the boot on the other foot for as long as possible and I don't want them getting some momentum going into the last two matches. Hopefully a combination of rain and not batting like the Womens Auxilliary Balloon Corps Second XI for a reasonable period will close this game out and then we can march on to the final two matches and stuff them out of sight and then repeat the dose over in the Colonies next winter.
Barry in Edinburgh, via text: At my desk, office temp around 23, maybe a bit too hot. Hating the delay. on the BBC website -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Am I the only one that has this vision of a dirty old boss, perving after the new secretary?
Couldn't agree more Would the Aussies want us to win a test just make the series more exciting? Would they buffalo!!
Glad it's over now and the Ashes retained for the second time in a row. Now onto the business of rolling them over in the next two and beating them in their own backyard over the winter.
There aren't many things more entertaining than a whinging Aussie! Hopefully this will give the lads a kick up the behind and wake them up into comfortably winning the remaining two tests, as we indeed should do.
I'm on holiday so haven't seen any of this test but as soon as Aus put up that large score I knew this test would be a draw. They may have got the runs but took far too long, ultimately the rain decided ended things but I'm pretty certain the result would have been a draw either way, was bad captaincy from Clark who was also the main offender on keeping he strike rate low.
Bit harsh on Aussie run rate. They scored at 3.61 in 1st innings and 4.78 in 2nd. It was England who took time and overs out the game by scoring at 2.64 and 1.61. The Aussie rate was above average for test matches, but England did what they had to do and slow the game down,facing 527 we were never going to win.
I agree with Yarco. Hard to find fault with Clarke's endeavour but he probably could have declared when they were 275 ahead and given his bowlers another 20 overs to have a crack at England. There was an element of risk but he had nothing to lose in terms of keeping the chance of retaking the Ashes alive and I seriously doubt that England would have done more than block out and play for the draw. It will be interesting to see how England respond on Friday - will any of the seamers be rested and Onions brought in on his home ground or Tremlett to add a bit of bounce and variety to the attack? Will they consider dropping Bairstow and adding a fourth seamer/second spinner? Personally can't see us playing two spinners at Durham if we didn't in Manchester but could see the argument in favour of adding another seamer to give something different and share the workloand plus Broad/Bresnan and Swann are all more than capable of a decent innings in the lower middle order. Can't see any change in the top 5 or Prior despite the relative failure of our top order this series - pretty amazing to think that we are 2-0 up without either Cook or Trott making a significant score. Looking forward to Friday and hope the weather is kind. Come on England!
Agree totally with this. Why not mix it up with our bowling attack, we sometimes rely too much on Swann and Anderson imo. Broad and Bresnen, alothough great bowlers can go off the boil in a game and look a bit ordinary. Can move Matt prior up the order a bit.
