England v Pakistan, 3rd Test , The Oval, Aug 18-22, 2010

Strauss's decision to bat first needs to be looked at carefully as well. In a bowler-dominated series you have to get wickets on the board first to get the momentum.

Too much emphasis on the toss here...

In the 1st test match England batted 1st fully knowledgeable about the fact that Pakistan had just bowled AUS out for 88 AND YET they went on to win the test match very COMFORTABLY.

England should have batted better. But when you have an opposing batting side so short of confidence, when you've bowled them out for less than 100 a couple of times, and reduced them to bugger all for 6 before the tailenders rescued them on a couple of other occasions, then you stick them in. Whatever the situation.

if you say it like that then i cant really disagree.

Interesting to see how it matched Pakistan's previous come-back effort against Australia at Headingley. England can no longer feel superior with not one, but two separate batting collapses. If you could amalgamate Pakistan's bowling attack with Sri Lanka's batting you would probably have the strongest side in world cricket.

England's complacency after playing the Bangers away and home and an initially weakened Pakistan has been brutally exposed, especially in the batting. KP is still struggling to return to the glory days of old or even a consistent batsman, Collingwood is a long way from his "Brigadier Block" persona and Morgan is finding that Test cricket isn't as easy as he might have thought it was. Even Cook has scored 4 centuries since Strauss has made his last one for England.

Only Prior has had a renaissance, both in his 'keeping and his batting. Meanwhile the England bowling is heavily reliant on Anderson and Swann as the "go-to" men when wickets are hard to come by. At the risk of a lese-majeste comparison they are the equivalent of McGrath and Warne of old. How long can England maintain a 4-man bowling attack? Apart from Bell, could outside players be easily integrated into the side in the event of injury or loss of form?

No doubt we shall discover the answer to these and many other questions in the forthcoming months.

Probably the most entertaining part of today's play was England's sledging led by Prior.

There was nothing overly insulting just one witty comment after another which is FAR better than hearing Shabash Saeed Shabash about 100 times/day. I guess the Pakistani players are handicapped due to the language barrier but i think once Haider gets in to the side he will be a more interesting character than Akmal

PlanetPakistan wrote:Probably the most entertaining part of today's play was England's sledging led by Prior.

There was nothing overly insulting just one witty comment after another which is FAR better than hearing Shabash Saeed Shabash about 100 times/day. I guess the Pakistani players are handicapped due to the language barrier but i think once Haider gets in to the side he will be a more interesting character than Akmal

How do you hear him? I rarely hear Prior on the Sky coverage.

i was watching the sky coverage as well and you could clearly hear every word

Hmm. I struggle to pick it up. Shame, because I love a good sledging...

It's even better when you're not playing cricket.

Best response to a sledge:

England player: Warnie, why are you so fat?

SW (for 'twas he): 'Cos every time I f**k your wife she gives me a biscuit!

I didn't realise chicken-farming in Zimbabwe was among Warney's diverse accomplishments.

I thought Ronnie Sarwan's response to Pidge and King Richards' response to some English lower talent were supposed to be joint top.

PeterCS wrote:I thought Ronnie Sarwan's response to Pidge and King Richards' response to some English lower talent were supposed to be joint top.

I thought this was:

Rod Marsh: How's your wife and my kids?

"Beefy" Botham: The wife's ok, the kids are retarded.

Allan D wrote:Best response to a sledge:

England player: Warnie, why are you so fat?

SW (for 'twas he): 'Cos every time I f**k your wife she gives me a biscuit!

I thought that was Eddo Brandes to tgm?

Probably right, presumably he gave the same response to Brandes as he gave to Sarwan?

Prior has been very quiet/selective/cleverer since the ridicule he received for his abysmal "what sort of car do you drive? I drive a Porsche" sledge in a home series v India a couple of years back. It was during the series that featured the jelly bean incident with Zaheer Khan.

Allan D wrote:Best response to a sledge:

England player: Warnie, why are you so fat?

SW (for 'twas he): 'Cos every time I f**k your wife she gives me a biscuit!

I thought that involved Glenn McGrath and Sarwan and was the reason he went ballistic because at the time she was quite ill.

No, the Mcgrath-Sarwan incident went like this-

Mcgrath- What does Brian Lara's c*ck taste like?

Sarwan- I dunno. Ask your wife.

Mcgrath- If you mention my wife again, i'll f*cking rip your f*cking throat out!



It was a brilliant comeback from Sarwan, but Mcgrath overreacted because his wife was struggling with her breast cancer at the time. Probably should have kept his mouth shut in the first place. Glass houses etc....

Again, you think wrong, Red. If you bothered to read the thread you would see that it was Brandes . . . fark me, but maybe it is better dead than Red . . .

tac wrote:Again, you think wrong, Red. If you bothered to read the thread you would see that it was Brandes . . . fark me, but maybe it is better dead than Red . . .

Ok so I'm wrong - big deal. Why does being wrong always have to end in vituperative invective?

I just thought that the wife that AD originally raised was attached to McGrath, not Warnie.

In any cases some of these sledges are habitually misreported and the original one is variously attributed to a variety of cricketers.

It's not because you're wrong, Red, we're all used to you being so .. . it's because you're such a smarmy litlte sh1te when someone else makes even a simple typo . .then you go waving your tiny c0ck around (no wonder you pretend to be a chick) and bigging yourself up . . .

tac wrote:It's not because you're wrong, Red, we're all used to you being so .. . it's because you're such a smarmy litlte sh1te when someone else makes even a simple typo . .then you go waving your tiny c0ck around (no wonder you pretend to be a chick) and bigging yourself up . . .

Actually I ignore most of the typos/spellos these days. Think you'll find it's Taipan who pounces on them, especially any I might make.

The "How's you wife and my kids?" line is used by John Candy in Brewster's Millions (1985) . He's a catcher for a minor league baseball team.

I loved that movie.

Red wrote:

tac wrote:It's not because you're wrong, Red, we're all used to you being so .. . it's because you're such a smarmy litlte sh1te when someone else makes even a simple typo . .then you go waving your tiny c0ck around (no wonder you pretend to be a chick) and bigging yourself up . . .

Actually I ignore most of the typos/spellos these days. Think you'll find it's Taipan who pounces on them, especially any I might make.

Um Red, you might find all of these "quotes" have been mentioned many times on this forum.

And yes, I did pounce on your Collngwood typo, as I found it quite funny that you profess to support the team.