Idle cricket musing

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

If Australia pull off a draw after all this, I shall be as nauseous as a Psittacus Erithacus.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Anyone else excited? Or are we becoming rather blase about winning the Ashes now?

['bout now]

I can;t wait. I would like to think it will be all done by lunch.

[Tarot]

Any time now.

[citizenED]

Yes, PGC - I'm excited. We'll win this test and with it the Ashes - and even if the Aussies come back to squeak a win in the final test we will have been the better side, winning more sessions and having loads of positives.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

I say! Thought Haddin was going to eke that out a bit longer - well played him.

Gosh! I'm all a-flustered - in a very good way of course.

Shan't sleep for ages now.

It needs to be said in black and white: ENGLAND RETAIN THE ASHES!!!!

[kpc]

Fair play to Haddin and Siddle for adding a bit of late entertainment. Be good if England can win in Sydney to put the correct balance on the series. What has impressed me most is the time England have occupied at the crease, a sign of increasing maturity in the team.

[Huguenot]

After wrecking England's chances to gain the World Cup, are the BBC now trying to wreck our chances of winning the series?

An unattributed slag fest...

I hope it'll get edited, the fact that it was posted at 23 minutes after midnight suggests that it'll be up for a while first.

If it does get edited, the original headline ran.. "Pietersen takes credit for Ashes triumph'.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Alas that story is running in several papers too. Dear old Gobby Pietersen - how we love him.

[Keef]

I'm not sure what he is saying that is so wrong. Seems to me he's praising Strauss and Flowers.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Read the Telegraph version. Pietersen comes across as a cocky tit while Moores seems rather gracious.

Telegraph

[DaveR]

It's a shame that KP can't resist putting his own spin on the story - "I did it for the good of English Cricket" - because most of what he says is positive and reasonably sensible.

One of the most sensible comments from journalists that I've seen was that Strauss and Flower's most significant achievement has been to get the whole team working together without trying to impose too much conformity on players who are naturally very different characters. Pietersen can be an arse but at least under the current leadership he's a team player.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

sounds a damn sight more exciting than Eng v Aus

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Oh, this is getting exciting. I hope England take the extra half hour and get them all out this morning(evening).

[Dickensman]

I am amazed that the Brits are in such a strong position, after all the Ozzy's field a professional team,

and we usually field the pick of last years school teams.

I never thought I would comment on this thread, I feared (the hard ball) and loathed (the slow laborious nature of the game) cricket at school.

[Brendan]

Well the selectors changed their approach a few years ago and started fielding the South Africa A side instead. It seems to be working out.

On that note, as PGC said earlier, there is a bit of a game on in Cape Town at the moment. Jaques Kallis made 324 not out batting with a Kalashnikov slug in his stomach, a broken arm and one of his legs chopped off.

[Narnia]

I've noted Northern accents too and that one of the subs is Irish. Hardly an English team at all then.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Bugger off Declan. Unless your name is Joyce or Morgan, you know nothing of the finer points of cricket.

And Strauss, Prior, Trott and KP all obviously hail from Devon (or somewhere with dodgy accents).

[Narnia]

And what did James or Dermot know about cricket?

[Loz]

(Poking my head above the parapet on probably the worst possible day...)

You can't say the Aussies don't learn anything from the Poms - since you've exhausted the SA supply we've started on the Pakistani-born to bolster our team.

Mind you, he's only the 8th test player ever not to be born in Oz. That's the same as the current statutory minimum for an England squad!

[david_carnell]

Brave man, Loz. Brave man. I think I hear the squeak of magnamity in there somewhere!

But where is everyone today on this thread? Too hung over from celebrating a magnificent victory I suspect.

All the plaudits have already been said and put better than I can but just to add that it was a triumphal performance if not a classic series. The Australians will be back so no resting on our laurels.

Congrats especially to Strauss for excellent captaining, Cook for being man of the series so soon after nearly being dropped and to Colly for a stoic test record even if he wasn't batting at his peak in this Ashes.

Bravo England. Bravo!

[Loz]

Oh, the best team won, no doubt. That's not so much magnanimous, but realistic. England were very good and very professional and we were a shambles.

In a funny way, having lost the Ashes, I'm glad we lost them so badly rather than lost them by a narrow margin. A good Ashes series thumping may shake things up in Australian cricket. I?ve always thought that England?s previous habit of getting smashed around for four tests and then winning the final dead rubber held them back from making the hard decisions ? the tour ended on a high and everyone in charge thought the corner had been turn only to see the same thing happen next time around.

Had we (dream on) won this last test then a final 2-2 scoreline would have meant that Australia would persevere with this lot, which would have been bad (and still, sadly, a danger). Hopefully there will be big changes from Shield level and up now. It?s needed ? the Shield has been looking more and more like county cricket of late with too much dead wood clogging up the new blood coming through.

All is not lost, we have the young talent but it just needs somebody to be brave enough to ring the changes, take the short term hit and we?ll be back a lot stronger in a couple of years.

As for England, they are a good team. I don't think they are quite as good as the Saffers, but I reckon they are number 2 in the world now, whatever the rankings say. A really good set of bowlers, but a small question mark on the depth of batting skills. There's not a good pool of available batsmen of test ability - there's Morgan and maybe Rob Key and ... that's about it. None of the recent tryouts in the shorter forms or England A seem to look test standard.

And who will replace Colly? They are actually quite big shoes to fill - solid batsman, useful 5th bowler and excellent fielder.

[kpc]

Wantonly stolen from elsewhere.

10 Reasons Why The Poms Won't Win

Discuss.

[ratty]

Enjoyed that KPC!

[peckhamboy]

Loz Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> And who will replace Colly? They are actually

> quite big shoes to fill - solid batsman, useful

> 5th bowler and excellent fielder.

Eoin Morgan looks a dead cert to come in as the batting replacement. He's a pretty useful fielder too and, as Colly himself pointed out, another ginger, so he's the perfect replacement. Supposedly Trott might be developed into a back-up medium pacer. He does bowl occasionally. And KP had pretty impressive bowling figures for this series...