***Official*** Australia in England (The Ashes)

[SJS]

I am appalled at this Australian side.

However big a supporter you may be of the Aussies,
however little difference you my think it made,
whatever may be the final result of this test
there is no way to justify Australian batsmen walking off the field at least twice on being offered the light !!

If it was their personal decision, I would have expected the skipper to be screaming himself blue in the face from the balcony if not running on to the field in desperation but to do it two days in a row ????

For this alone, I will not cry for them if they come within a whisker of winning this test and dont.
and for this alone Ponting should be axed.

Sorry for the strong words but I am furious.

 

[sqwerty]

I am appalled at this Australian side.

However big a supporter you may be of the Aussies,
however little difference you my think it made,
whatever may be the final result of this test
there is no way to justify Australian batsmen walking off the field at least twice on being offered the light !!

If it was their personal decision, I would have expected the skipper to be screaming himself blue in the face from the balcony if not running on to the field in desperation but to do it two days in a row ????

For this alone, I will not cry for them if they come within a whisker of winning this test and dont.
and for this alone Ponting should be axed.

Sorry for the strong words but I am furious.

I'd say yesterday proved that the decision to come off wasn't altogether such a bad one. Good bowling by Hoggard and Flintoff wasn't the only reason Australia lost 8-90. I'd say the light played a fair part as well. At 0-112 Australia were still miles behind. Now losing 8-90 at that stage wouldn't look (as Geoff Boycott would say) too clever.

Ponting has copped way too much flak on this tour. I agree he has his shortcomings in some aspects of his captaincy but do you REALLY think he is making all these decisions on his own?? Just look at the way he consults his teammates on the field. He always takes input from his players and has always stated that that's the way he captains.

I'd say alot of his decisions are made by him AND his team so I guess you better start axing the rest of them as well.

 

[honestbharani]

Uhh, more like Warne manages it virtually every time.

That shot by Strauss, and the shot by Tresco in the first innings were extremely ordinary. Even Tendulkar would get them out if they bat this way against leg spin.

 

[honestbharani]

Inexplicable that.

Why? The commentators kept saying how, under normal conditions, even Australia would not have batted in the light that they were batting in earlier. If the light is bad (and Langer and Hayden didn't help their cause by going off on day 2,)so if the light is at that reading or poorer, the England batsmen have every right to go off.

 

[honestbharani]

No it's not, it's called trying to win, Aussie used to do it but as soon as they're losing, spirit of cricket is more important.

Gimme a H, Gimme a Y, Gimme a P, Gimme an O, Gimme a C, Gimme a R, Gimme an I, Gimme a T, Gimme an E.


What'd'ya get?

Aussie captain.

 

[sqwerty]

That shot by Strauss, and the shot by Tresco in the first innings were extremely ordinary. Even Tendulkar would get them out if they bat this way against leg spin.

Was I watching a different game or something???

Strauss was 120 odd and got out playing a forward defensive didn't he.....ordinary?? it's not as if he was playing a reverse cover drive?!?!?

I must be missing something from the start of this conversation.

 

[honestbharani]

Quite right, I think Ponting would have gone off too, although I don't think Taylor or Waugh would have.

That's not the point though, with spin from both ends the light shouldn't have been offered.

If one of the spinners is Shane Warne, whose bowling England have problems picking in broad daylight, there certainly is "danger" of losing their wicket. The only thing that can be done is try and get a consensus amongst all cricketing captains around the world and change the rules somewhat. But according to the existing rules, what they did was right. There is no way any batsman in the world would be able to play Warne well in that dark.

 

[honestbharani]

Was I watching a different game or something???

Strauss was 120 odd and got out playing a forward defensive didn't he.....ordinary?? it's not as if he was playing a reverse cover drive?!?!?

I must be missing something from the start of this conversation.

Strauss in the second innings. Planting your front foot down with your bat alongside the pad is the worst way to play a spinner who is getting the ball to turn and bounce. That was a line from Rahul Dravid.

 

[honestbharani]

Yes, God help the poor bugger who gets struck by those vicious beamers that Warney is able to produce...

He did produce a fair few of them to Laxman when he was not able to get him out during that Eden epic. Why do you think he will be against doing it now?

 

[honestbharani]

What makes you think Australia are in a good position? They are very much in the game, but AFAIC, the game is even.

 

[honestbharani]

I believe that they've only lasted that long once all series.

That is why so much credit should be given to England. But even against them, if the Aussie batters apply themselves as they should and allow themselves time to settle in and play normal test cricket, I just cannot see all of them failing so badly as to get all out in a day.

 

[honestbharani]

I'm not sure how many Australians watch 'Today', or for that matter are even up at 6 am (God bless Law essays) but there was an interview with Brett Lee on the show, and obviously the light issue was brought up. I think he stated exactly what many on this board were saying once Vaughan went off, as he mentioned the fact that though its frustrating that the light is going against Australia, you have to put yourself in the opposition's shoes before you criticise them, and Australia would have most likely done the same as what England did.

He also answered regarding the death threats, stating there's a 'specialist' handling the situation or something similar to that.

Brett Lee is a class act. I, for one, am genuinely pleased to see him do reasonably well in this series.

 

[honestbharani]

No worries Eddie.will do m8,he will most likely read all the threads when he returns as he enjoys it more than newspapers because most journalist's either support one team or tother or have favouites and can sometimes be biased. At least on threads people tell it as they see it,good or bad,
You have prob read it but just in case here is something he has been working on each night after play. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/england/4225692.stm

Kwek i didnt think we would get the laptop back from telstra but we did on return home as they have a series against rest of world in melb,and sydney to come i think its after 1st week in october.
The weather in brit was fine ,unless your playing cricket or something haha just gets dark early and would have liked to see it scheduled when Bangladesh were playing. Very proud of jl ,he didnt have the series he would have liked but ,IMHO , he placed a heavy value on his wicket and against that fantastic bowling line up England posses i guess thats the best we could hope to do. As he said they have been outplayed,and to win in the last would be robbery but he will take it hahaha And you can be sure they will throw the kitchen sink at England tonight. However they hold the upperhand but will they hold there nerve?
Heres hoping from my side of fence anyway,i think thier may be one more twist in this great series we have seen. CHEERS

Great to see you back, mate. My cousin and me went to the test at Chennai against Australia. Your dad was at the fine leg boundary right in front of us. My cousin kept shouting out that he will get only 0 in the second innings (in good fun, though ) and your dad just nodded NO again and again and put his thumbs up and said he would do well in the second dig. He was the most fun amongst the boundary riders in that game. Tell him that I enjoyed it very much.

 

[howardj]

I am appalled at this Australian side.

However big a supporter you may be of the Aussies,
however little difference you my think it made,
whatever may be the final result of this test
there is no way to justify Australian batsmen walking off the field at least twice on being offered the light !!

If it was their personal decision, I would have expected the skipper to be screaming himself blue in the face from the balcony if not running on to the field in desperation but to do it two days in a row ????

For this alone, I will not cry for them if they come within a whisker of winning this test and dont.
and for this alone Ponting should be axed.

Sorry for the strong words but I am furious.

Here's some more pearls of wisdom (more likely weirdness) from John Buchanan, on the decision to accept the offer of bad light on day two, which cost Australia the best part of a session before the rains came and made play impossible.

""Even with the chance of bad weather intervening, I reckoned there was plenty of time to capitalise on the position we were in at the start of day three," "I've always said we have to control the controllables".

What about ditching the fancy theories and focus on winning the cricket match, John? Is that theory not fancy enough?

 

[greg]

Strauss in the second innings. Planting your front foot down with your bat alongside the pad is the worst way to play a spinner who is getting the ball to turn and bounce. That was a line from Rahul Dravid.

Except his bat wasn't alongside the pad. It was infront of it. The ball turned more than expected (and he probably didn't get quite far enough forward to cover it - which was the problem), took the inside edge and was unfortunate to balloon off the pad. Rahul Dravid is talking about playing with bat and pad together. You should either lead with your pad (if you're confident that the umpire won't give you out LBW) or with your bat (as Strauss did, and how Rahul plays eg. Murali). Leading with the bat is actually a lot rarer than in the past, and has probably only recently come back into fashion, which is why you less often see positions like legslip in favour of men in front of the bat (short leg, silly point etc).

 

[greg]

Here's some more pearls of wisdom (more likely weirdness) from John Buchanan, on the decision to accept the offer of bad light on day two, which cost Australia the best part of a session before the rains came and made play impossible.

""Even with the chance of bad weather intervening, I reckoned there was plenty of time to capitalise on the position we were in at the start of day three," "I've always said we have to control the controllables".

What about ditching the fancy theories and focus on winning the cricket match, John? Is that theory not fancy enough?

The most glaring error was the message sent out by Stuart MacGill, apparently to start slogging. After an initial burst (and good luck with Flintoff's drop) it sent the innings downhill rapidly. Their original plan was to get as many as they could in the first innings. They wouldn't have chosen the "hitting" approach in swinging conditions on the first day of the test match (I assume, maybe I'm wrong) so why now? It looked like they were panicked by their slow run rate, didn't think they would get quite as many as they hoped, and on a whim completely changed their approach.

 

[marc71178]

This whole situation is very typical of the old traditional England. If Michael Vaughan was simply being offered light and taking it, then I could understand that. Who wouldn't take it. But the constant nagging of the umpires that he's been doing while batting and fielding shows a lack of confidence in his team's abilities

What cobblers.

England had everything to lose by staying out there.

And as already said, if the boot was on the other foot, Ponting wouldve been straight off.

 

[Steulen]

I'd say yesterday proved that the decision to come off wasn't altogether such a bad one. Good bowling by Hoggard and Flintoff wasn't the only reason Australia lost 8-90. I'd say the light played a fair part as well. At 0-112 Australia were still miles behind. Now losing 8-90 at that stage wouldn't look (as Geoff Boycott would say) too clever.

Ponting has copped way too much flak on this tour. I agree he has his shortcomings in some aspects of his captaincy but do you REALLY think he is making all these decisions on his own?? Just look at the way he consults his teammates on the field. He always takes input from his players and has always stated that that's the way he captains.

I'd say alot of his decisions are made by him AND his team so I guess you better start axing the rest of them as well.

Which might just happen .

But seriously, i think the decision to go off was taken on the assumption that a small cloud was responsible for the bad light and that it just had to float by. In the end it cost them the session.

I think a number of decisions made by the Aussie think tank this series have gone as horribly wrong as they possibly could. They may not have been wonderful decisions in the first place, but once made, conditions, coincidences and last but not least a superb England side (which seems able to capitalise on everything) have made them much worse than they actually were.

 

[marc71178]

Very much so, I would say he is the Aussies 5th bowling option and not having him avaliable this series has been detrimental at times.

Of all the excuses I've heard, this has to be the maddest one yet!

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

What cobblers.

England had everything to lose by staying out there.

And as already said, if the boot was on the other foot, Ponting wouldve been straight off.

I actually think Ponting would have refrained from the "I can't see the ball!" "gee, it's a bit dark out here!" routine after every over personally. He certainly would have taken the light if offered though.