2006 Ashes

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I fell asleep at 69/1 thinking it was just going to be a boring draw finish. Woke up a few hours later and Aussie had bowled us out and needed about 10 runs for victory off around 40 overs. Gutted!

 

What a test match! It's the sort of exciting finish the neutral observers like me love to watch.

How can you possibly lose after scoring 551-6d in the first innings? It's virtually impossible!

Oh well England, let's be optimistic . . . . 3-2 to England!

And I'll say it again: What's the point of Ashley Giles?

 

We put on 27 runs for the last 7 wickets. That's just ridiculous.

 

Ah, the beauty of cricket. The game is never over, because in theory, it only takes 10 deliveries to bowl out a whole team. The bowling side is always in with a potential chance.

You've got to make some changes for the next test, surely.

 

Cook needs to sort his head out. He looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights when he goes to the crease. He blocks away for about 30 minutes then gifts his wicket. he's a very talented lad, but he's showing these bowlers far too much respect. Where's the Alastair Cook who clobbered the Aussies for 200+ last year?

Anderson is not really up to it at this level to be honest. He's a fish in a barrel with the bat and not particularly good in the field. With that, he should be an absolute demon with the ball to justify selection. He isn't, it's time to ship him out. Personally, I'd swap him for Panesar and play 2 spinners with our 3 pacers.

Strauss needs to stop playing that stupid pull shot that he keeps getting out to.

Jones is not chipping in with some runs. After all, that's the only reason he was picked ahead of Read.

The players who've so far played anything like decent are: Collingwood, Pietersen, Flintoff, Hoggard and Bell. That's 6 players out of 11 who aren't doing the business. You can't win test matches in Australia is more than half your team isn't doing it.

 

The most amazing thing about this test for me is how Australia managed to skittle England using only 4 front line bowlers, compared to England's 5. It's actually a bit ballsy to go into a test match with only 4 bowlers. England are lucky to have a genuine allrounder in their team, but even that doesn't allow them to have frontline batsmen down to number 7 like Australia do.

I do think that Panesar needs to be given a go. He can't do any worse than Giles or Andersen. You also don't really have any 'old heads' in your batting line up. I think you do miss the settling influence of a 'veteran' in the top order. Bring back Graham Gooch!

 

Strauss was clearly not out. If that decision was correct it could have been an entirely different last day. I'm not making excuses as we have played fairly poorly I just hate it when a wrong decision like that can decide the whole series. Not sure who I'd swap Monty for, Giles is a slightly better batsman so probably Anderson who has failed to impress in the last 2 matches. If Jones and Trescothick were fit I think we'd be looking at a completely different score. Theres bugger all chance of us winning 2 matches based on the performance of our bowlers so far, only Hoggard, Flintoff and surprisingly Pietersen have troubled Australia.

 

Oh no, not the old Barmy Army tactic of blaming the umpire for losing. I hate that. There were all sorts of decisions throughout the whole game that could have gone either way. Don't single out one that you don't like and claim it as the reason for losing.

Funniest part of yesterday (other than Pietersen getting bowled) was the 7 that Australia got when they ran 3 and then Pietersen (again) threw that wild shot that went for 4 overthrows. Hilarious.

[ December 05, 2006, 20:42: Message edited by: Harbourboy ]

 

If you get bowled out for 129 you've got no-one to blame but yourselves.

 

Although I see that Flintoff and Fletcher are not blaming the players for the loss. Go figure.

 

That's infuriating at times. Fletcher will always find other reasons why the team played crap. No, Duncan, the players were just crap and folded under pressure. In the last Ashes series, even when a few players dropped some right clangers, a few other players would step up and do something special to claw us back into it. That's not happening this time, we're all buckling as one. I agree it's probably a lack of experience. We could use Vaughan back.

 

Bloody hell lads I said I wasn't making any excuses! I was just a tad peeved about the decision. It's not bloody fair we didn't deserve that, after dominating a match then losing it like that just makes you feel gutted.

 

It is fair. You did deserve it. You shouldn't have lost all those wickets.

This echos what I posted here before the 2005 Ashes. Australia can snatch a game away from you in the space of one session (in this case, the morning session of Day 5).

They did that to us continually in our 2004 series against them. We'd dominate for most of the game and then Gilchrist would come in and smash 3 million off 8 balls and suddenly they'd won.

 

Exaggurating a bit arent we Harbs? He's absolutely amazing to watch when he is in form but as the commentators have stated through this match, he lost his batting form around 12 months ago. And I think overconfidence played a big roll in the English defeat. After declaring for a massive score then getting us Aussies out for less than the score they made, they must have been feeling pretty good but probably let it get to them.

 

Giles - good lord what a waste of space. Can't bowl, can't field and can't bat.

 

Although his current (this year) average is significantly down on his career average it is by no means bad (at around, iirc 35). This is also well above Geraint Jones' average of 24.9 (who was chosen for the English side primarily for his batting ability).
Martyn retired! Probably not a bad thing for Australia (there are plenty of younger more capable batsmen around). At the moment Symonds is set to take his place and Adam Voges is being named in the 13 man squad. I would still like to see Mark Cosgrove (with a pura cup average of around 67 this year) make the team (but I'm more than a tad biased towards South Australians)
My Gold Coast trip managed to work perfectly around the Ashes..somehow. I postponed my flight by two days to attend my graduation (which coincided with the last day at Adelaide) and I returned today, the day before the Perth test.
In response to your third to last post Barmy, there was a newspaper article about a week ago that argued that for a team to beat Australia, in Australia, you need to have a 100% fit team (no injuries) have a good allround team (with no one letting it down, anywhere) and a champion player (eg Brian Lara) putting in a superhuman effort. At the moment England doesn't really look like it has performed any one of those criterion (unless, of course Freddy or KP up the ante).
McGrath expressed a bit of disappointment that the series wasn't closer - not too sure that he was serious though - In the same statement he expressed interest in the recently vacated number four batting position .

 

To beat Australia, the main thing you have to do, above all else, is to play well in every single session. If you give them just one session, then it's over.

Panesar and Mahmood in. Anderson and Giles out.

I wonder how the WA timezone will impact Barmy Army's sleep patterns over the next five days.

 

Good spinners will KILL Australia. Vettori gets 7-fers against them and no one else.

 

Ooh, Ponting out early. Interesting stuff. Time for someone else to score some runs for a change.

 

We bowled well that session. Harmison looked like something back to close to his best. Panesar ripped Langer's off with a rip-snorter . Now it's time to keep the pressure on. There's questions about the temperament of these batsmen when under pressure, especially with Ponts gone.