***Official*** Australia in England 2012

[Jacknife]

Yes just catching up with the highlights now. Seems Cook and Bell were very much the right kind of batsmen to open up in today's bowling conditions and battled their way through to a decent start. Bell played some typically sumptuous drives, but was caught plumb by what looked like a very impressive Brett Lee.

I missed the first 30 overs of our inning and my first thought when I watched Bell's dismissal on highlights was that he got a edge on it but nothing more was said and they moved on, I just went and looked at cricinfo's review of the game and apparently he did get a faint edge, he can't have felt it though.

The openers did well to get through those new ball overs because it certainly was excellent fast bowling conditions.

 

[Stumpcam]

The openers did well to get through those new ball overs because it certainly was excellent fast bowling conditions.

The conditions were so different for each team's openers that England did really well to win that game. Going on and off a few times is so much more difficult for batsmen than for bowlers imo, and it is remarkable that both england's openers survivied those difficult conditions for the first hour. Batting in the second inning would have been so much easier with the sun out for most of it.

 

[Redbacks]

A cardboard cutout of Ricky Ponting would have been more useful coming in @6

 

[benchmark00]

Yeah if smitteh isn't going to bowl he shouldn't be playing, simple as.

 

[Pup Clarke]

God knows why Clarke has absolutely no faith in him.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Have always thought of Dussey as a strictly "at home" player, weirdly. Never think of him as a tourist for some reason.

Scored several thousand runs for Notts over the years, tbf. I'd be pretty sure he's got more FC runs in England than any other tourist.

Meanwhile, I'm not convinced bowling Jimmeh into the ground was the best move. Watching the highlights he was obviously feeling his groin (ooer, missus, etc) from quite early on in his spell. Win's nice and all but I'd sooner have him right for the Saffers.

Some serious heat from Finn too. Whether one trusts the speed guns or not he was appreciably more rapid than any of our other bowlers.

 

[Burgey]

Scored several thousand runs for Notts over the years, tbf. I'd be pretty sure he's got more FC runs in England than any other tourist.

Meanwhile, I'm not convinced bowling Jimmeh into the ground was the best move. Watching the highlights he was obviously feeling his groin (ooer, missus, etc) from quite early on in his spell. Win's nice and all but I'd sooner have him right for the Saffers.

Some serious heat from Finn too. Whether one trusts the speed guns or not he was appreciably more rapid than any of our other bowlers.

Yeah I know it's incongruous, but I never think of him as a tourist for us.

It was strange they kept bowling Anderson, but the physio examined him pretty early on. It might have been an injury which he couldn't have made worse by carrying on.

Thought Finn was the pick of England's bowlers by quite a margin actually.

 

[Jacknife]

Yeah I know it's incongruous, but I never think of him as a tourist for us.

It was strange they kept bowling Anderson, but the physio examined him pretty early on. It might have been an injury which he couldn't have made worse by carrying on.

Thought Finn was the pick of England's bowlers by quite a margin actually.

Bowled really well all the way through did the big lad, thing is with him he's not only fast but 6ft 8 and fast.

Thought Swann bowled nice as well, even though he didn't pick up a wicket, kept it tight and was a constant threat.

 

[social]

I missed the first 30 overs of our inning and my first thought when I watched Bell's dismissal on highlights was that he got a edge on it but nothing more was said and they moved on, I just went and looked at cricinfo's review of the game and apparently he did get a faint edge, he can't have felt it though.

The openers did well to get through those new ball overs because it certainly was excellent fast bowling conditions.

Bad defeat for Oz as they had by far the better of the conditions

It would be easy to say that on another day, both Bell and Cooked might have nicked off early and things could have ended up very differently but the fact is that they didnt

Furthermore, most of the English bowlers (Anderson despite getting a couple of wickets, Broad, Bresnan and Swann) were no better than average and we still couldnt put them away despite batting in near perfect conditions

 

[Spark]

We batted like morons tbh. England didn't bowl brilliantly but they did bowl with good discipline, which seems to be more than enough nowadays. We really should have chased that down at 1/96 after 20.

EDIT: Though I'm not surprised. Our openers aren't known for their intellect and the middle order is carried by Clarke to an absurd degree.

 

[uvelocity]

it was letting morgan get away that hurt us. a couple of wickets around that 35-40 over mark would have made a big difference. a couple of full bungers in a row and just general nowhere bowling

123 off the final 15 @ 8.2

well done poms.

 

[Spark]

80 off the last 10 isn't that bad tbh. It should have been less given that Kieswetter was going nowhere, but

 

[uvelocity]

yeah I've seen worse, but still.

And I didn't see our batting so yeah it might have been the bigger part.

 

[Top_Cat]

Couple of bad balls are to be expected, them being so efficiently and regularly punished hurt. Not to mention Morgan finding a way to get maximum over wide-mid a couple of times from almost yorker length balls (FFS).

The Aussies didn't bowl that badly but Morgan was out of this world. Deserved a ton, tbh.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Just watching the highlights (again).

Was a pretty ordinary effort from Wade for the glance Cook tickled down leg off Twatto. Looked to be late getting there, which is hard to believe given the ball was so on-sideish.

His keeping not his stronger suit?

&, loath as I am to agree with Murphy, "soulless accumulator" is pretty apt for Trott's innings. I'd imagine IJL Trott would consider it a compliment too. He's the ultimate bargain basement run maker; no frills, no fuss, no wasted effort.

 

[Spark]

The people here who've watched him domestically over the years say that he's improved a lot with the gloves IIRC - but then those same people said that he basically used to have cymbals for hands and lead weights in his boots.

Draw your own conclusions.

EDIT: Fixed for grammar sticklers

 

[uvelocity]

Have seen wadey make some strange stuff ups on runouts too in the past

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Have to laugh at Watson saying the Aussies have a better balanced side with more batting. That may be so but England don't have a completely useless twonk batting at 6 who isn't good enough as a bat or a bowler but he can field a bit.

Should win the series even without Anderson. Looking forward to the next game more than I expected I would. Seeing Aussies get beaten easily is never hard to watch.

 

[grecian]

Have to laugh at Watson saying the Aussies have a better balanced side with more batting. That may be so but England don't have a completely useless twonk batting at 6 who isn't good enough as a bat or a bowler but he can field a bit.

Should win the series even without Anderson. Looking forward to the next game more than I expected I would. Seeing Aussies get beaten easily is never hard to watch.

Yeah, Watto's comments did seem a bit bizzarre considering the OZ line-up. I know Swann and Broad aren't brilliant at ODIs, but it looks so much stronger than Australia.

Without Anderson there will be Dernbach=runs, I'm afraid

Would rather Bopara bowl.

 

[BoyBrumby]

England don't have a completely useless twonk batting at 6 who isn't good enough as a bat or a bowler but he can field a bit.

Craig says "hi".