*Official* First Test at Swalec Stadium, Cardiff

[zaremba]

If you're assuming that Malcolm Conn has any credibility whatsoever within the Oz cricket community, then you'd be wrong

Ah, I get it, those writers whom you don't like (even though their work is syndicated across the Australian press) are not part of the Australian media.

In fact as I understand it Malcolm Conn is actually secretly part of the English media, trying to distract attention from England's performance.

 

[social]

22 English batsmen = 7 Australians

Congrats, you've improved

 

[zaremba]

22 English batsmen = 7 Australians

Congrats, you've improved

Ah, having conclusively won your "this is all the doing of the English media" point, you're now really taking the debate to a more elevated level.

 

[tooextracool]

In all honesty, Fred deserves some credit as well - not his natural game and he lasted an hour and a half, more than 4 of the top 6 put together.

Wouldnt give him much credit for that knock tbh, was poor knock from start to finish and it didnt look like he knew whether to stick or twist eventually poking at a ball that he could have just left alone.

id give him more credit for his 1st inning knock than his 2nd.

 

[social]

Ah, having conclusively won your "this is all the doing of the English media" point, you're now really taking the debate to a more elevated level.

Why do you think that this has been brought up?

Gee, I wonder!

But maybe it has something to do with it sounding better than "Eng are a really bad team that has no hope whatsoever of beating a team that we told you were crap and so we have to inject some controversy into things"

As I said, I'm no Ponting fan-boy but I do feel sympathy for him in this case as it's all about deflecting attention away from reality

 

[tooextracool]

Ponting and the Oz fieldsmen were over the top in the last session but so were Monty, Prior, etc who "appealed" for every delivery that came within 2 feet of the stumps and took the bails off to boot and all whilst conceding approx 700 runs

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember Monty or Prior ever claiming that they were saints or were keeping with the spirits of the game.

 

[social]

Ah, I get it, those writers whom you don't like (even though their work is syndicated across the Australian press) are not part of the Australian media.

In fact as I understand it Malcolm Conn is actually secretly part of the English media, trying to distract attention from England's performance.

Malcolm Conn has no respect amongst the Oz cricket community and if you really think that the general public in Oz thinks that we drew because a batsman asked for 2 pairs of gloves then ........

 

[zaremba]

Malcolm Conn has no respect amongst the Oz cricket community and if you really think that the general public in Oz thinks that we drew because a batsman asked for 2 pairs of gloves then ........

You're slipping away from the point. You said this was all about the English media trying to deflect attention from England's performance. Four_or_six and I have simply pointed out that in fact this issue is playing bigger in the Aussie media than the English. Neither of us has offered any opinion about whether Conn is respected (and having read some of his crap I wouldn't imagine that he is) or what the Oz public's views are.

 

[social]

You're slipping away from the point. You said this was all about the English media trying to deflect attention from England's performance. Four_or_six and I have simply pointed out that in fact this issue is playing bigger in the Aussie media than the English. Neither of us has offered any opinion about whether Conn is respected (and having read some of his crap I wouldn't imagine that he is) or what the Oz public's views are.

Who brought it up?

The English media after the game

From that point on it was simply a way for journalists to fill column space around the globe

As I watched the post-game conference, my only thought was "way to deflect attention from a mismatch boys!"

 

[Scaly piscine]

Utter nonsense

The umpires handled it perfectly adequately on the field and everyone has moved on - bar the the Eng supporters

Getting away with it doesn't mean he did nothing wrong - same as if happens with England's time-wasting. Lots of players have been getting away with excessive and overzealous appealing, Australia is and has always been one of the biggest culprits. Warne worked over the umpire throughout his career. Ponting went beyond all of that with his aggressive tantrum directed at the umpire. Only you could think that doesn't make him a complete hypocrite when shortly after he again trots out his "spirit of cricket" mantra.

Players get fined and worse for far less. Dissent after wrongly being given out for instance. This was the right decision and he still had a hissy fit.

 

[zaremba]

Who brought it up?

The English media after the game

I think it's a bit unrealistic to describe the reporter who asked the question as "the English media". But hey.

I'm amazed that you could convince yourself that the English media would ask that sort of question in an attempt to deflect attention from England's performance. All they are after is a story, good or bad. England's poor performance is one good story; the tail-end defiance of England's lower order was another. To think that the press are somehow trying to hide England's performance behind some kind of smokescreen suggests that you don't really know what the English press is all about.

Besides, it wouldn't have been a story if Ponting had dead-batted the question, as he could so easily have done.

 

[GIMH]

Hi social

 

[Matt79]

Don't get Gimh's pic-joke there.

Actually find myself in complete agreement with Social here. Whether or not the issue is the 'invention' of the Ebglish media, the alacrity with which that media and some fans here have seized upon it as the discussion point to come out of the match suggests it provided a welcome distraction from the fact your hyped bowling unit produced one of the very worst bowling efforts in Ashes history, or that Collingwood aside that your batsmen appeared gutless and/or diffident. That your two best players are physically broken down or a lone wolf who doesn't care about his team as much as he cares about being "KP". That Strauss was utterly out captained and appears to be having the galvanizing effect of a wet lettuce leaf on his team. That you were utterly outplayed for four and a half days.

But **** that Ponting is a hypocrite because he pays lip service to playing in the spirit of cricket.

Give yourself an uppercut boys. And not the good CW sort.

 

[PhoenixFire]

Meh, you won't find any half sane English fan that doesn't agree with what you've just said in regards to how utterly ****e England (apart from Collingwood) were. I mean, we say that England were **** and then move on to what myself and others thought was some pretty poor form from Ponting. Not sure why that is so much of a problem.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Don't get Gimh's pic-joke there.

Actually find myself in complete agreement with Social here. Whether or not the issue is the 'invention' of the Ebglish media, the alacrity with which that media and some fans here have seized upon it as the discussion point to come out of the match suggests it provided a welcome distraction from the fact your hyped bowling unit produced one of the very worst bowling efforts in Ashes history, or that Collingwood aside that your batsmen appeared gutless and/or diffident. That your two best players are physically broken down or a lone wolf who doesn't care about his team as much as he cares about being "KP". That Strauss was utterly out captained and appears to be having the galvanizing effect of a wet lettuce leaf on his team. That you were utterly outplayed for four and a half days.

But **** that Ponting is a hypocrite because he pays lip service to playing in the spirit of cricket.

Give yourself an uppercut boys. And not the good CW sort.

You'll get no argument from me about any of the points you make about our performance and I don't think anyone else has used Ponting's hypocrisy as a figleaf for it either. I was respending to Uppercut's point about him being a "decent bloke". He might well be for all I know, but that doesn't mean he's not a humbug either.

 

[Scaly piscine]

I've also already said how gutless and brainless England's batting was. I said during and after the first innings before Australia racked up a huge score. There is no shortage of England supporters here who will quite happily rip into their own players.

It's ironic a few of the raving Australia supporters are going on about deflecting attention from England, when it's them that's deflecting every argument away from Ponting behaving like an enraged chimp. Seems like people don't want to bother trying to justify or deny his behaviour.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Yep as I say it was the blatant intimidation.

Ponting's appealing when they went up for a lbw and then caught when Collingwood was batting was aggressive and confrontational. It was the sort of thing you'd expect from the footballers and he's the captain. You have to stamp down on things like that, otherwise you're just condoning it and next time the whole lot of them will be acting like an enraged chimp.

Didn't see a great deal in that either to be honest (similar to english fans and the time-wasting I suppose). I originally thought he went on with the appeal for so long because he was indicating to the umpire that he was appealing for caught and not LBW like Hauritz. I might have missed something though.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Handbags at dawn, ladies.

**** me dead.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Haha, I don't get what the fuss is about when the Indian fans get cranky regarding Ponting either. He wasn't given a crucial decision and got mildly annoyed? By God, what a horrible man.

Yeah, calling it 'blatant dissent' and saying he 'chased the umpire down' seems contrary to what I saw on TV, but then as I said I may have missed something. Hasn't been this much hoo-ha over something from the Poms since we dared to say 'bloody' in a tv ad a couple of years back and the country went into meltdown.

 

[Son Of Coco]

And thank goodness the Australian press isn't trying to deflect from Australia's failure to bowl out England's numbers 10 and 11 in 11.3 overs.

11.3 overs of failure is a marked improvement on 4 and 3/4 days to be honest. I think if the Australian media wrote about that as a failure we really would have problems.