*Official* Fifth Test at The Oval

[TumTum]

Warney trolling England on commentary followed by the final despair and hypocritical moaning of the English after all series they played negatively. Loving it

 

[grecian]

Aha I actually quite like this in a way. Makes the Aussies look like nobs, and all this 'lose to win' stuff is proven false. Clarke time wasted exactly as England did. 3-0 is a great win and I am delighted.

Agreed totally, look awful hypocrites.

 

[Burgey]

Yeah, won't see us moaning or our coach acting like a **** on radio.

You act like a **** on here every day tbf.

 

[Furball]

You can't be robbed when it was your teams idea to play for a draw in the first innings

How are you still not getting this?

England weren't playing for a draw, they were playing in a manner that would give them the best shot of a result. Throwing wickets away on day 3 wasn't going to achieve that.

 

[silentstriker]

Planned, weather on day 4 denied us. Bat for as long as possible then wait for the Aussie lollapse as usual.

Please. I saw the first innings. There is no way anyone from that camp can possibly blame Australia for playing negatively. If anything, they tried to make a game of it until the end. Australia tried to push the game ahead for 90% of its duration while England didn't - so they don't get to complain about the final 10% when the roles were reversed.

 

[Prince EWS]

In all honesty, it needs to be bans. Fines aren't going to get the point across; most captains would take a bit of a hit to the wallet to avoid a lose.

For me there has to be some way of differentiating between deliberately slowing the game down and just - what happens sometimes - the overs naturally being bowled a bit slower. Having a rule like that dictate team selection or, worse still, create the absolute farce Ponting went through in India is even worse than captains time wasting IMO.

They talk about the fans getting their money's worth for 90 overs a day etc, but if I was at the cricket I'd rather see 80 overs of cricket in which the captain made his bowling changes based entirely on merit for the situation than 75 overs of that and 15 overs of contrived rubbish where pie-chuckers rush through overs to make sure the captain doesn't get banned. Obviously what we saw twice during this game from Cook and then Clarke was a bit different but we do need a way of differentiating to make the rule workable.

 

[Isura]

In all honesty, it needs to be bans. Fines aren't going to get the point across; most captains would take a bit of a hit to the wallet to avoid a lose.

I meant run penalties. They would hurt more than $

 

[NUFAN]

Planned, weather on day 4 denied us. Bat for as long as possible then wait for the Aussie lollapse as usual.

This is the exact type of response which makes Australia's tactics today annoying. We outplayed England for the majority of this Test match. We then go all innovative with our batting lineup, England's main bowlers bowl well but get some easy wickets and then England feel as though they were the better team when clearly Australia were the dominant team for most of the match. We find a way to lose or almost lose from any possible situation these days, its just bizarre.

 

[Burgey]

It's one thing to get hammered because you're not good enough, but it's another thing entirely to have your coach call a guy a cheat for walking and debutant whining about England playing negatively... then you follow it up with this. What a spineless, gutless, whining, pathetic bunch of crybabies that are a disgrace to cricket. Clarke makes Twatto look like the epitome of manliness. He should be banned for today, and if not Australian cricket should try and find a shred of dignity and drop him themselves.

Notice how Scaly has only posted now the natural light has gone? Just confirms the aversion to sunshine.

 

[grecian]

Warney trolling England on commentary followed by the final despair and hypocritical moaning of the English after all series they played negatively. Loving it

Yeah we're the hypocrites.

Well done mate sure your delighted with how it's gone

 

[Jamee999]

Aleem Dar might want to sit the **** down.

 

[Isura]

For me there has to be some way of differentiating between deliberately slowing the game down and just - what happens sometimes - the overs naturally being bowled a bit slower. Having a rule like that dictate team selection or, worse still, create the absolute farce Ponting went through in India is even worse than captains time wasting IMO.

They talk about the fans getting their money's worth for 90 overs a day etc, but if I was at the cricket I'd rather see 80 overs of cricket whereby the batsman made his bowling changes based entirely on merit for the situation than 75 overs of that and 15 overs of contrived rubbish where pie-chuckers rush through overs to make sure the captain doesn't get banned. Obviously what we saw twice during this game from Cook and then Clarke was a bit different but we do need a way of differentiating to make the rule workable.

15 overs an hour is not some humanely impossible task. England bowled 30 overs on the first morning without using a spinner.

 

[Isura]

This is the exact type of response which makes Australia's tactics today annoying. We outplayed England for the majority of this Test match. We then go all innovative with our batting lineup, England's main bowlers bowl well but get some easy wickets and then England feel as though they were the better team when clearly Australia were the dominant team for most of the match. We find a way to lose or almost lose from any possible situation these days, its just bizarre.

England were never really under pressure batting in the first innings. Australia dominated the 1st innings but that's it.

 

[Furball]

I knew it was a mistake to play the 5th Test so far south.

 

[andyc]

Well, bed time for me. Hopefully I can get to sleep before the birds come out. An exciting end at least. Basically what this Test has shown is that, surprise surprise, a captain will try to do what's best for his team - slowing down the game, or trying to get it sped up when it suits you. That's something that every Test captain in the world does, and probably should do.

I'm fairly confident, though, that Clarke and maybe Graeme Smith are the only two that would at least try to force a win here today with that declaration. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing on Clarke's behalf, I'm not too sure. But if he'd kept batting, I wouldn't have bothered with this last session, so purely from a fan's perspective, I like it. It may not be the best attitude for Australian cricket at the moment, as people here have said, but so be it.

 

[Burgey]

15 overs an hour is not some humanely impossible task. England bowled 30 overs on the first morning without using a spinner.

Yes but they bowled 5 in half an hour with a spinner bowling two of them on day two.

 

[TumTum]

Yeah we're the hypocrites.

Well done mate sure your delighted with how it's gone

I am. Take a pinch of salt with your Ashes celebrations. That is all your team deserves.

 

[Pothas]

Harris a bit of a hero it has to be said.

 

[Ruckus]

How are you still not getting this?

England weren't playing for a draw, they were playing in a manner that would give them the best shot of a result. Throwing wickets away on day 3 wasn't going to achieve that.

Sorry I didn't realize that having half your batsmen playing at SR's of 25 was the perfect balance between not throwing your wicket away and putting runs on the board. The wicket clearly was uber difficult to score runs on too.

 

[Prince EWS]

15 overs an hour is not some humanely impossible task. England bowled 30 overs on the first morning without using a spinner.

Well I agree, but it just doesn't work out that way, as we've seen. Captains don't just make their bowlers get through their overs when they're in danger of getting banned; they just let the game drift and then make it up with contrived bowling changes. It's the reality of the matter.