amazing, just when i thought andrew symonds should be put to the sword , he scores a century. Still , he is not a long term solution and i honestly dont think he has the abilitly to be a test regular , but i am happy for him to prove me wrong.
amazing , the aussie fightback & recovery from 5/84...then to win by an innings.hayden and symonds were great . australia always have the ability to back each other up , when 2 or 3 bats fail , another 2 score runs. hussey , ponting and clarke all missed out this time, but we still post a good score...The only time recently we have failed in backing each other up was 2005 ashes...
amazing , stuart clark 21 series wickets. i always watched stuart play for new south wales and thought he was unlucky not to play test cricket...it shows that sometimes picking more mature players (clark & hussey ) is a better policy than throwing untried kids into the test arena.
amazing , still after all these years , shane warne , bowled brilliantly and a handy 40n.o....i saw warne's test debut at the scg in 1992 v india. tendulkar was just 17 and scored a handy 140 , ravi shastri smashed 200 and warne had about 1/150 . we all thought who is this warne and will he be a one test wonder...i cant wait for next weeks test at the scg , no matter the result , i will get to watch two of my heroes ( warne and mcgrath ) play their last test match for australia and i will be cheering for them long and hard.

5-0? Two moments demonstrate English cricket's poverty right now - 1. Harmison's first delivery of the series and 2. snatching defeat from the jaws of a draw in Adelaide. The first shows England's bowling attack to be crap, which it largely is. The second shows that confidence is not high, leadership is poor and quality is not there. Remember that England were heading to a draw, not victory, but lost abysmally. Australia were heading for a draw but decided that they could win. And they did. Let's not forget that England struggled in the two 2006 home test series. Some commentators conveniently overlooked this in bullshitting about the Ashes. I do not think that they had any chance of retaining the Ashes as soon as Vaughan was ruled out and Trescothick went home.

I take no pride or pleasure in having predicted this to a mate of mine before the series began but it looks very likely that I will be right. I simply cannot see how England can even pretend to be as good as Australia are right now. They are nowhere near as good as they were in the last Ashes series. No Vaughan, Trescothick for their batting prowess, no Jones for bowling strength, no late order batting heroics. As for bowling - Harmison? Flintoff seems to be knackered. They couldn't even make their minds up about Giles and Panesar. Then they selected Joyce to replace Trescothick. What has he done? What does Owais Shah have to do to get another game for England? Anderson seems to have lost all confidence and gone from great prospect to total loser. Only Hoggard seems to have retained any form at all.

On the radio yesterday, someone said that Australia went home after 2005 and worked out how to improve. Meanwhile, in England, the press went to town and the team fell apart. There's the difference. Australia want, no need to win. They are ruthless in doing just that and love putting one over the posh Poms. Watch them in the Sydney test - do you imagine Warne or McGrath will relax in their last Ashes test match? Australia will pick players who are up to the job regardless of anything else. England's players seem to have to be 'decent chaps' as well as good cricketers. (see question re. Owais Shah above.) I think England need to find and pick a few shitbags.

Although there have been one or two useful performances (Cook has impressed, Collingwood and Pietersen have too and Panesar has shown that he needs to be played) for England, they are overwhelmed by the paucity of talent, particularly when fielding. Geraint Jones/ Chris Read? There's the epitome of England's selection problems. Which is the best wicket keeper? But instead of that we get this bullshit about batting. We all know that Jones has had his moments but is he in form? Let's get ruthless about it - no, Jones is not in form. So, pick someone else. Then comes the next problem - where is there any other talent?

Oh bollocks. Australia are a very good side and I love watching them - apart from Symonds for some reason. But how on earth did so many people allow themselves to be lulled into the belief that England could beat them? I am reminded of the World Cup - so many in England thought that Beckham et al could win that. That was never going to happen either but some people I know were genuinely disappointed when England were knocked out. Not good enough, in either case.

Isn't Symonds a pommie bastard?

I've found it quite hard to watch the ashes 'highlights' on the beeb, luckily I didn't waste the cash getting sky sports - I'm saving that for the rugby season.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Symonds

We Brummies are contrary buggers - ask Martyn

Sick of cricket.

so's langer who has announced his retirement.

australia are going to struggle to rebuild, the young players aren't coming through. the batting may well hold up, but clarke is into his 30's already and there is a real paucity of other quality bowling.

they'll probably stay unbeatable at home, but i reckon they will start to lose away series on a regular basis.

Don't bank on it, Moster. Don't bank on it.

Decent start. Trouble is, I'm now waiting for the collapse.

i think australia will be the happier, i think we are 1 wicket too many down. flintoff and collingwood need to get a century each, or flintoff to get a big one whilst collingwood goes close, flintoff needs to make sure that he doesn't get carried away and chip one to mid-off or mid-wicket as he is prone to do.

an early wicket will see england struggle to get 275, but if these two stick around then 400+ should be the order of the day.

alas australia will match that, and at a faster rate too.

still, in this series an almost even day qualifies as a success.

I think the weather will beat us.

watched 2 overs of this last night before falling asleep on the sofa, the cheer of ponting being run out woke me up for about 10 minutes, but other than that i missed it all, my worst day in the whole series for viewing. hopefully i shall get to see the highlights later, but the word is that steve harmison bowled very very well.

If only trains were as obligingly predictable..............

Yeah. Bollocks aint it.

Warne top-scores for Australia. Whatever next?!
Nice to see Monty got his wicket.

wow 5-0 for only the second time ever in ashes history.
its very hard to say if the aussies were that good or the english that poor...
but the english were terribly dissapointing.
from harmisons very first ball in brisbane , to giles dropping ponting perth , aussie comeback in adelaide , melbourne aussies 5-84 then a huge stand between hayden and symonds , so many things went wrong.
england had their opportunities and every time they put themself in a decent position they just couldnt land the knockout blow.
england had some fine performaners but no consistencey. bell , hoggard , collingwood, cook , flintoff, panesar all had fine moments but not enough of them. Pieterson started well then fell into this pattern.
anderson , giles and jones were dreadful and maybe strauss could be put in that category . Read looks like he is the better keeper and you must persevere with panesar , giles' test career must be over now.
its obvious england missed vaughan and trescothick.
reading the paper yesterday , the most obvious statistic were the bowlers analysis , how many wickets they had and the series averages.

outclassed in every department. if you put together a combined xi from the series only pieterson and hoggard would come close to getting in the side.

what's important now is how they recover from this, it's unlikely that trescothick will ever play at the top level again, mentally he's turned off. i'd say the same for harmison too, totally uninterested. there are also serious long term doubts over the fitness of flintoff, jones and vaughan. i can't believe that vaughan is being rushed back for the winter 1 dayers, we're going to be slaughtered in both the 3-way and world cup anyway. i want to see vaughan play in test matches not circus cricket.

bell and cook have to start being more consistant and turn in some big scores next summer, collingwood has to keep proving me wrong. i'd have played joyce in the final test instead of cook, to see what he's about.

after 5 years i suppose we have to accept that anderson is never going to be a test class bowler, and mahmood looks a million miles off too. i think broad should be given a chance, he looks pretty nasty from the limited times i've seen him.

the one thing that really pisses me off though is how we can not keep our best players fit and interested when every other country seems to be able to. it's hardly because of being over-worked, harmison bowled less than 300 overs last year (according to boycott) and yet can't stay fit or interested. jones breaks down every year, and i expect flintoff's appearances to become fewer and further between and all.

i expect to win both home series next summer, we have a good side, just nowhere near as good as the aussies have been.

I couldn't care less about toytown cricket but 221 - 5?! Fuck me that's impressive batting. (Or was it crappy bowling? Or both?)

Moster, we bumped into Martyn Moxon just before the 3rd test. As you probably know Moxon is Harmison's coach at Durham & is highly rated by many cricket people. Moxon thought the trouble with Harmi was that he hadn't had enough bowling since returning from injury in the summer of 2006. This was proved as Harminson actually bowled well in the short Aussie 2nd innings at Sydney ..... which was a bit late in the day !!

As for Frddie he was obviously not 100% fit.

then moxon as his coach has to shoulder some of the responsibility, no?

well here we are for the first of the 1 day tonkings. the commentators stated that england had given themselves a chance. my thought was that england were about 30 runs short. you can make that 50 short as we sent down 15 wides in the first 2 overs to lose the match. how can you lose the match in the first 2 overs? fucking pathetic. i predict australia to have at least 8 overs to spare when they win, possibly 12, depending on how much they want to take the piss.

10 over comparison, eng 47-2, aus 60-0.

Pieterson out for the rest of the Triangular series with a rib fracture

Moxon is caoch for Durham, Harmison's county so has no say what so ever about when he bowls. England (namely Mr Fletcher) say when a bolwer can bowl not the county so they can't blaim the counties for the Ashses disaster for which he should be sacked.

Well now the Ashes is over and England is getting smashed in the one day series lets hope the Wallabies can do as well against England in the World Cup, should be a shoe in without Johhny

True Story too

SYDNEY(AP) -
A seven-year-old boy was at the centre of a Parramatta, NSW courtroom
drama yesterday when he challenged a court ruling over who should have
custody of him.

The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents and the judge
initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with child custody
law and regulations requiring that family unity be maintained to the degree
possible.

The boy surprised the court when he proclaimed that his aunt beat him
more than his parents and he adamantly refused to live with her. When
the judge then suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy
cried out that they also beat him.

After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning
that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the
judge took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who
should have custody of him.

After two recesses to check legal references and confer with child
welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the English
Cricket Team, whom the boy firmly believes are not capable of beating
anyone.

perhaps a game of 50twenty might give us a chance of actually having an interesting game

sorry guys - i didn't come here to post that, it just slipped out. i meant to ask if any of you have heard the new 12th man?

Nope, I just have 'It's Just Not Cricket' vol 1 & 2 and 'The Final Dig ? '

Is it good ?

yeah, it's pretty funny. the premise is that channel 9 sacks the whole commentary team cos they can get the 12th man to do it cheaper, as he can do all the voices and they only have to pay one bloke. needless to say, richie is really pissed off, and all the guys get a plan to get taken back. it's really funny, but then maybe i'm easily pleased.

it's called 'boned'

having members of the barmy army playing for england to help make up a half decent team might have actually helped your lot in real life, too

yeah, whatever.

CORWDED HOUSE, DAME KIRI TE KANAWA, RUSSELL CROWE, SAM NEILL, GEORGINA BEYER (you may want to google him, er, her), JONAH LOMU, SIR RICHARD HADLEE, MADGE ALLSOP, MICK THE MAORI....YOUR BOYS TOOK ONE HELL OF A BEATING.

Er? "One hell of a beating"? I really don't think so. Still, as you implied, the winning starts here.

I think its a reference to a Football commentator Andy... I'm sure Moster will be able to enlighten us!

When Norway (I think) beat England in the 90's their comentator went into a long rant saying Maggie Thatcher, Lord Beverbrook, Lady Diana etc your side took a hell of abeating.

Ever since when an English team has beaten anyone it's become traditional to echo this rant however close the result. It was funny for a year or 2.

close? we fuckin murdered the sheep worrying bastards.

and it is still very, very funny.

Moster, I think the quote was we flippin' murdered them (In an Accrington accent).

In my explanation role the then England coach David Lloyd came out with 'we flippin murdered them' when Zimbabwie managed to get a draw with England by bowling about 10 overs in the last hour of a game. It was then too dark to continue.

I know. I know. I was trying to be funny. S'all right. I won't bother in future.


I genuinely do not know who the "sheep worrying bastards" are. You see, I am something of a "progressive patriot."

P.S. Mention of sheep usually means an insult to the delightful people of Wales. On this occasion, I don't think it does.

kiwis love their sheep. a lot. my favourite joke:

A Kiwi walks into his bedroom with a sheep under his arm and says: "Darling, this is the pig that I have sex with when you have a headache"

His girlfriend, lying in bed replies: "I think you'll find that's a sheep, dickhead!"
The man says: "I think you'll find I wasn't talking to you!"

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