*Official* England in South Africa

[Pizzorno]

Haha, just read this gem of an email on the Beebs live text commentary;

From Rob Coleridge, TMS inbox: "(Opening trumpet solo of 2001 A Space Odyssey music) - Swanny lobs a poor one down the track, and Amla hurls his bat at the ball, launching it sky high into the air. Straussy, KP, Prior et al, roll their lips back grinning with their ivory white teeth, the ball soars higher and higher, the chattering and 'catch-it-ing' cries become more insistent. In achingly slow motion the ball breaks through the atmosphere as if to disappear off into space rather than fall to a desperate fielder, but no! (Cue great 2001 Crescendo) - A white gloved hand shoots out to take the catch, the camera pans to mirror visored astronaut, which folds back as he turns from the sun, to reveal Freddie, in his England Cap, saving the day from outer space."

 

[Burgey]

To be expected I suppose. Name me one South African who isn't a cheating scumbag? Exactly. All of them. Especially the eye-gouging, head stamping egg chasing lot. Dirty, dirty swines.

Stephen Pienaar is obviously exempt from this lot. What a beautiful man.

You including Trott, Pietersen, Strauss and Tony Greig in that lot?

What's the story here? Finally get home to Foxtel, England are getting **** on from a great height and it rains ffs. This isn't being played in Cardiff is it?

Now we've got a bunch of 80s matches on the tele here, which would be fun if I hadn't taped them all when they were played back then and knew them all by heart (I was a sad, sad, lonely child). Have they binned the day or what? I want to know whether I can go to bed or not.

 

[Burgey]

'error'

MY ARSE. CHEATS!

Come on Marto, you can do better than that! Hop over to the "Why were Waqar Younis and Azhar Mahmood charged?" thread for enlightenment on how to really put together a baseless conspiracy theory.

 

[Kyle]

You including Trott, Pietersen, Strauss and Tony Greig in that lot?

What's the story here? Finally get home to Foxtel, England are getting **** on from a great height and it rains ffs. This isn't being played in Cardiff is it?

Now we've got a bunch of 80s matches on the tele here, which would be fun if I hadn't taped them all when they were played back then and knew them all by heart (I was a sad, sad, lonely child). Have they binned the day or what? I want to know whether I can go to bed or not.

Ground has been mopped, sun is out, play looks likely.

 

[GIMH]

Come on Marto, you can do better than that! Hop over to the "Why were Waqar Younis and Azhar Mahmood charged?" thread for enlightenment on how to really put together a baseless conspiracy theory.

But don't you get it, it's always the English batsmen that get out so it must be a conspiracy!!!!!!!

 

[Burgey]

Ground has been mopped, sun is out, play looks likely.

Cheers mate

But don't you get it, it's always the English batsmen that get out so it must be a conspiracy!!!!!!!

You shouldn't have dropped Onions - you'll miss your all rounder in this match I tells ya.

 

[zaremba]

Come on Marto

Reminds me of a gem I read on an Aussie cricket website a while back. Someone mis-spelled Marto (referring to Damien Martyn) as "Maro". Which provoked the following exchange:
Q: Who's Maro?
A: Dunno - Jacob Oram's backward brother?

 

[Stapel]

Yes as Neil says, that was the general opinion that was explained in great detail from David Gower.

So we can't blame Darryl Harper on this one, he did nothin wrong here, just wasn't fed the appropriate information.

Is that so?
If he doesn't get the proper info, his conclusion should be: I haven't received the right info yet, sorry guys, but we have to wait a bit longer till that is sorted out.

 

[Prince EWS]

Is that so?
If he doesn't get the proper info, his conclusion should be: I haven't received the right info yet, sorry guys, but we have to wait a bit longer till that is sorted out.

Hmm yeah. Unless there were other sounds coming through (and I can't think of any sounds he'd get other than the stump mic?) then it should have been obvious to him that there was no sound and that he couldn't make a decision yet.

 

[Kyle]

If there'd been no contact, he wouldn't have any sound. Why would he think anything was wrong?

All recent reports are saying that he did have sound, though.

 

[zaremba]

If there'd been no contact, he wouldn't have any sound. Why would he think anything was wrong?

All recent reports are saying that he did have sound, though.

He seems like a nice enough chap but his decision-making is really really poor. He surely can't be as bad as we all think he is - there must be a hidden iceberg of excellent decisions that we just somehow overlook - but it seems to me that he's just completely out of his depth.

(Probably a good decision re the Morkel lbw yesterday, mind you).

 

[Prince EWS]

If there'd been no contact, he wouldn't have any sound.

There's always some sound though. There's a clear difference between dead silence and no edge IMO.

 

[Burgey]

Never mind that Cribbage - you mean to tell me I sat up here all ****ing night waiting for play to get underway, they come back on so I pour myself a nice Scotch and ice and it was all just for that 15 minutes of **** they just put out there? God I hate cricket sometimes. **** this, I've had it. More whiskey in order.

 

[Burgey]

If there'd been no contact, he wouldn't have any sound. Why would he think anything was wrong?

All recent reports are saying that he did have sound, though.

Didn't see it, but that can't follow can it? You might have a noise but no contact. If he'd had the sound, would it have been enough to over turn it anyway? Roach seemed to be given out on sound alone in Perth, yet there was a big sound from an appeal against Clarke today but no other sign like hotspot or the ball's revs changing after it went past the bat, and it wasn't overturned.

 

[Goughy]

God this is a boring England attack.

 

[Kyle]

There's always some sound though. There's a clear difference between dead silence and no edge IMO.

Only very very little when they play the slow motion video. I don't think you'd notice the slight background noise being lost, especially if you were pushing 60.

 

[King Pietersen]

From Ken Griffin, Canton, TMS inbox: "I was really disappointed there was no play all day today. But then I turned my radio volume up to 5."



Harper's incompetence is just laughable. Andy Flower looked pretty fuming, and rightly so. Still don't agree with his reasoning for selecting Sidearse though.

 

[social]

Whilst Eng didnt have much luck and Smith, in particular, had a lot, this has still been an ordinary bowling performance in favourable conditions

I watched about 35 overs at various times today and it swung, seamed and bounced pretty much the whole time so you'd have to think that a minimum return would've been 5-6 wickets not 2

Whenever I was watching, Broad was largely too short, Anderson a bit all over the shop and Sidey looked short of a gallop - all too predictable really

 

[social]

From Ken Griffin, Canton, TMS inbox: "I was really disappointed there was no play all day today. But then I turned my radio volume up to 5."



Harper's incompetence is just laughable. Andy Flower looked pretty fuming, and rightly so. Still don't agree with his reasoning for selecting Sidearse though.

Ian Chappell used to jabber on about how unfair it was that Oz could never be umpired by the world's best umpire because he was an Australian

I think we were friggin lucky not to have Harper at the other end

 

[zaremba]

England are lodging an official complaint, according to the BBC.

They report Andy Flower as saying:

"We had a couple of meetings with the match referee to clarify what went on because it was at a very important stage of the game when this took place. At first he claimed the audio feed was different to Sky and SuperSport. On a subsequent investigation we found that was not the case. I asked him (Mahanama) again and he explained that Daryl Harper had not deemed it necessary to turn the volume up on his microphone, which I find very strange when he's trying to listen for a nick."

Shocking.