Australia v England, 1st Test, Brisbane, Nov 25-29, 2010

And gentlemen in England, still abed ....

Early days yet.... still a long way to go.

260 was disappointing - but I don't think you'll see Strausser chop one to gully again in a hurry, nor will Trottski play all round the Watto's innocuous dross ...
though I have to say that Colly does now begin to cause concern ... Morgan start whitening yer pads lad!

Merlin wrote:Early days yet.... still a long way to go.

260 was disappointing - but I don't think you'll see Strausser chop one to gully again in a hurry, nor will Trottski play all round the Watto's innocuous dross ...
though I have to say that Colly does now begin to cause concern ... Morgan start whitening yer pads lad!

Indeed, though you have to admit it feels all too familiar.

But we were so confident in our 'invincible' top six that we didn't even bother to give Morgan a game in the warm ups. He hasn't played a first class match for three months. We're stuck with this top six until the fourth test, by which time the ashes will probably be already gone.

Don't be so pessimistic Trev.

Like I said - early days yet - and though Vilks has a point re. the all too familiar ring about the 'collapse', I believe England's second dig wont be such a roll over.

Long way to go in this match.

But i'm pretty sure we haven't made 500 in an innings since the Caribbean in early 2009. On the flattest pitches imaginable. Against a County standard attack.

And i'm leaving Bangladesh out of this.

The irritating thing is that the Aussie bowling (until Siddle did his stuff) looked innocuous, and we can't assume that it will be so toothless again.

Still, we've got what we've got and we have to defend it - we can still win this providing we don't concede a lead of more than 50.

A usual managed to avoid most of the coverage. Could be conceivably worse and things might well change but I'm already getting the slightly nauseous and irritable feeling I get every Ashes series. Seems a bit worse this time with all the ridiculous hype.

Bah humbug.

Just seen some of the wickets on the news. Can anybody tell me WTF kind of shot Pietersen was playing? Horrendous.

A drive. He'd been in fine touch and playing the drive as nice as pie up until then.

Was a bit loose, given that they were obviously trying to get him to nick a drive - that seemed to be their only tactic to him - and there were pickings elsewhere, but it was by no means the worst shot he's ever played to get out.

At least it puts in context all of the absolute bollocks that's been written about England's chances of winning the Ashes in the build up. If you believed any of that hype, they just had to turn up.

Their batting's pathetic - how many piss-weak collapses is that in the last 18 months? - and the bowling powder-puff.

Welcome to the real world. Australia are nothing special, but that doesn't automatically mean that England suddenly are.

The Aussies are favourites to take the series because England's batting is more likely to gift them 20 cheap wickets than than their batting is likely to piddle away to England.

It's not a contest of quality - it's who is the least crap.

We are better at being crap, so at least we win at something.

skully wrote:So do we have a new catch cry - "no Victorians to be picked to play for Australia unless they are named Siddle"?

9 of the 10 Test hat-tricks by Australians since 1/1/1901 have been taken by Victorians. It's just a shame that for much of the rest of their careers they bowl absolute tosh.

Basil wrote:The irritating thing is that the Aussie bowling (until Siddle did his stuff) looked innocuous, and we can't assume that it will be so toothless again.

You're forgetting that Captain Drunky will, at some stage, when England look like being completely out of the match, he'll bring on North and Clarke to bowl a dozen overs to improve the over rate. Or Watson will start a spell, be swinging it like crazy and loking dangerous, and Ponting will then take him off for the next 60 overs. Or one of any number of scenarios.

vilkrang wrote:We are better at being crap, so at least we win at something.

Just a suggestion...

Aww, listen: we're not doing as badly as we were 4 years ago - the Aussies had virtually won the game by the end of the first day.
As my reverse woofing worked such a treat this morning I'm going for the Aussies 380 for 1 at the end of the second day.
That should do it..

Dello wrote:A drive. He'd been in fine touch and playing the drive as nice as pie up until then.

Was a bit loose, given that they were obviously trying to get him to nick a drive - that seemed to be their only tactic to him - and there were pickings elsewhere, but it was by no means the worst shot he's ever played to get out.

Looked about as loose and airy a drive as you will see. I play drives like that. Maybe my memory is playing tricks but from my one-time, 4 second view of the shot on the news, it looked all over the place. The ball wasn't even there to drive so what he was stepping down the pitch for, god only knows.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. KP is KP and you don't moan when it comes off but it doesn't seem to be "coming off" very often these days for KP.

Im not laying the blame at Pietersen's door and im sure the whole side was abject but it looked the worst of the wickets I saw.

Jontyh wrote:Aww, listen: we're not doing as badly as we were 4 years ago - the Aussies had virtually won the game by the end of the first day.
As my reverse woofing worked such a treat this morning I'm going for the Aussies 380 for 1 at the end of the second day.
That should do it..

You're just not working hard enough Jon. Get on that feckin reverse-woof bike pronto. Spinning for you!

Zat wrote:

vilkrang wrote:We are better at being crap, so at least we win at something.

Just a suggestion...

Looks like Mark N's special Christmas present.

Hmmm, watched until 2am then went to bed. Woke up about 6am and felt curious so logged on to cricinfo to see 'Siddle Hat-Trick Stuns England' not good. Watched half an hour of Bell batting with the tail.

Bell did a good job of hitting a few boundaries, but I do wish he (and Jimmy) hadn't gone all out attack against Doherty. He's a one day bowler with precious little FC pedigree, if they had been a bit more composed they could have milked him for singles, i'm sure Jimmy could have done that, and carried on attacking the seamers at the other end.

And Jimmy after tonking a reverse sweep and a normal sweep didn't have to go for that crazy slog.

The pitch is slow and taking wickets will be difficult today. Our bowlers need to show Siddle's heart, application and most importantly good to full bowling length.

WideWally wrote:

Mick Sawyer wrote:

WideWally wrote:FFS It doesn't matter if it is the right-hander or the left-hander on strike, Johnson manages to get on their legs & give them easy runs.

Wallace, are you there tomorrow?

There? At the Gabba?

No. I'm not going to the Gabba. I haven't been to a test match there since the 1983/84 series against Pakistan when I saw Hafeez Handmissing in action. I just go to Sheffield Shield matches these days.


Are you going? Hope the weather behaves & you have a good day.

wally is sage in extremis

Wally

Yes, I'm there today (Friday) & tomorrow. Lardy mentioned that you may be gracing the match.

Skies are overcast with a light shower going through here at my place which is 5 or 6 k's from the Gabba.

Well what i'm clinging on to now is that we are always slow starters in ashes series. We got hammered at Lord's in 2005 and were on our way to being hammered at Cardiff last year before Colly and co dug in/Ponting started bowling part timers.

Cardiff first four days-

8 Jul day 1 - England 1st innings 336/7 (JM Anderson 2*, SCJ Broad 4*, 90 ov)
9 Jul day 2 - Australia 1st innings 249/1 (SM Katich 104*, RT Ponting 100*, 71 ov)
10 Jul day 3 - Australia 1st innings 479/5 (MJ North 54*, BJ Haddin 4*, 139 ov)
11 Jul day 4 - England 2nd innings 20/2 (AJ Strauss 6*, KP Pietersen 3*, 7 ov)


And we got out of this with a draw. Make anyone feel better?

Has anyone mentioned Thommo getting it arse up again? He thought the Siddle selection was a big blunder.

Not saying history will repeat itself, and a long way from confident, but England were slow starters in the 06/07 Ashes series as well, Henry.