England v Australia, 5th Test, The Oval, 21-25 August, 2013 (II)

I still don't know what Clarke was thinking with that declaration. They didn't have enough time to take ten wickets and he was just handing England a free chance to attack a very get able total.

If Pietersen had middled that slog off Harris we may well have got there with four overs to spare.

Maybe he feels he has to uphold this reputation of being a positive, innovative captain and gets pressured into doing silly things for the sake of it.

Gary 111 wrote:Maybe he feels he has to uphold this reputation of being a positive, innovative captain and gets pressured into doing silly things for the sake of it.

... only because Warne says he is all that.

No one would have blamed him for batting for a bit longer after tea, but no, he had to be macho and declare.
Praise indeed from Warne then . . . .
But then, when he was staring down the gun barrel at a likely defeat, he starts his whingeing, bitching and muscling in on the Umpires querying the light reading. . . and as soon as the Umps said "Off" - he and his troupe bolted for the pavilion.

Absolute unadulterated twat.
IMO - the sign of a weak cptain. . . . live by the sword and die by the sword.
Wasn't he the one, (according to Warne the Wanker) who was not afraid to lose a match in order to try and win it?!

Absolute bollocks.

With the umpires decision on the light & robbing England of a possible win, i can't help but feel there is some poetic justice there considering their negativety for the first four days.

Big Dog wrote:With the umpires decision on the light & robbing England of a possible win, i can't help but feel there is some poetic justice there considering their negativety for the first four days.

Yeah, that's a fair comment.

Not a lot of good to say for England's attempt at a chase even though they got close. The gameplan was the same as against South Africa last year - let Pietersen do it. Last year it ended very quickly and they abandoned it very quickly. This time Pietersen gave it a damn good shot, he scored twice as quickly as anybody else who stayed in for any length of time. Unfortunately, Cook and Trott just played it like it was a one-dayer, by not scoring very quickly and letting the players further down the order actually score the runs.

End of the match ... England just didn't deserve to win it.

So now onto a thousand T20s and JAMODIs. Awesome.  

I must be old fashioned (I blame our team in the 80s when a draw against the windies was worthy of celebration).

I thought the first priority in test matches was to make sure you don't lose. I was happy to hear Stuart Clark say about the first innings "meh, Engand were doing what they to do. I am dissappointed we are whinging about it"

which leads me to, what a silly toxic declaration. It's not the sheffield shield FFS.
Make Faulkner captain

I suppose the fact that we didn't lose 5-0 is sumpent.  

Thank Rhino, Sid and Fork for that.

Seems like some from England literally had a on pitch piss up.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/cricket/the-splashes-england-players-celebrate-ashes-victory-by-urinating-on-the-oval-pitch/story-fni2fnmo-1226704039918

In a distasteful display about five hours after the last Test was called off for bad light with England in sight of victory, the players gathered near the pitch celebrating and yahooing.

While the centre of the ground was quite dark, lights were on in the grandstands with dozens of people still cleaning up after a late finish which saw the game go beyond 7.30pm

A number of players including Stuart Broad, Kevin Pietersen and Jimmy Anderson took it in turns urinating on the pitch to the cheers of their team mates.

I thought England gave it a fair chase and good on them. Probably would've won were it not for the light.

And a good sporting dec by Clarke.

Good series, England. Hopefully you'll get a bit more exercise in the return series.

Just saw footage of Clarke arguing with the umpires at the end. Who does he think he is - Ricky Ponting?

Blackadder wrote:Seems like some from England literally had a on pitch piss up.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/cricket/the-splashes-england-players-celebrate-ashes-victory-by-urinating-on-the-oval-pitch/story-fni2fnmo-1226704039918

In a distasteful display about five hours after the last Test was called off for bad light with England in sight of victory, the players gathered near the pitch celebrating and yahooing.

While the centre of the ground was quite dark, lights were on in the grandstands with dozens of people still cleaning up after a late finish which saw the game go beyond 7.30pm

A number of players including Stuart Broad, Kevin Pietersen and Jimmy Anderson took it in turns urinating on the pitch to the cheers of their team mates.

A fitting tribute to Monty?

G.Wood wrote:Just saw footage of Clarke arguing with the umpires at the end.  Who does he think he is - Ricky Ponting?

Leena Kapoor

When Clarke was whingeing to the umpires about the light towards the end, I was screaming out for Ian Bell to have a counter-whinge, reminding the umpires of the occasion, the state of the match, the umpiring controversies that had already occurred in the series, the abuse they would cop from 20,000 people if they called off the game at that time, and the chance for them to redeem themselves by doing what was best for the game of cricket. I suspect if KP had been at the crease, he would have said that. Bell just rested on his bat and said nothing.....

Oh well  

Bell is gentlemanly enough to realise that it is the umpire's job to uphold the laws of the game regardless of the state of the match and also that making another error would be a silly way to attempt to redeem previous mistakes.

the players have no say. its pretty clear that the reading they go off the field for the first time in the test is the base for the rest of the days. this leaves no room for complaints of bias

The players have no official say in the matter, but you could see Dar and Dharmasena were shitting themselves, based on what had already happened in the series in regards to umpiring. If England had used a bit of psychology, they may have decided to stay out there until the end.

so you're saying the english should have bullied the umps into going against the rules?

Well look at it the BCCI way - You can have your 'revenge' if you guys beat Pommies in the coming deluge of one dayers and mighty T20s..... 

The One wrote:so you're saying the english should have bullied the umps into going against the rules?

It's worked for India over the years.

of course. can you cite a few of the numerous examples?

I'm not certain where all this vitriol is coming from - at least for Dar-masena. They applied the law as it is mandated. Just because England were close doesn't mean that the light reading they took was acceptable to continue under.

It's a stupid rule, IMO. But one that is in place and all they did was enforce it.

Funny that Ali Cook's '11 overs per hour' side finish 4 overs short

Won't teach them a lesson, though.

I feel quite sick and embarrassed to be a test cricket fan after watching that.

I was having a debate with someone only a week ago saying how test cricket is the best because you invest so much more in a 5 day test (or 25 day series) and it makes the amazing moments all the more precious. He was saying that he quite likes 20/20 but test cricket is shit because you can play for 5 days and it can still end in a draw. I countered that you can get exciting draws.

But after yesterday if I see the bloke again I don't think I'll be able to look him in the eye and still argue my point.

England wouldn't have behaved any differently to Australia of course so I don't feel in the least bit sorry for the players, but when 20,000 people and millions watching are 10-15 minutes away from witnessing a historic and famous win that would be remembered and cherished for years, it's an absolute travesty to take the players off, with the reasoning being that's it's a danger to the players.

The rule is shite, but I don't agree that the umpires are blameless. Was there really any point during the match where they had to come off because of bad light when "there is obvious and foreseeable risk to the safety of any player or umpire, so that it would be unreasonable or dangerous for play to take place"?

Of course not. The umpires deserved to be booed.

And also it wasn't a "sporting declaration" by Michael Clarke, it was a positive declaration. He didn't think "let's give the poms a chance", he thought he had enough runs and didn't think England would be able to chase them (or even try to chase them). If he was doing it in good sportsmanship then he wouldn't have behaved like he did at the end of the match (again, I know England wouldn't have been any different).

I suppose we have the "momentum" again now at least  .

4-0 would have been incredibly harsh on Australia though so I suppose I shouldn't be too sour about it, but yesterday felt almost as crushing as a loss, perhaps more so as it wasn't great cricket that lead to the finish, it was terrible administrating.