Got up at 2.28 to watch “the first over”. Stayed up till 3.30 and then gotup again at 5.45 to get to work.. will be tired later!

FINISH THEM!!

Well, although they stuck about 208 on after being 60 or 5 I wont be so devastated if we end up 208 for 4 as we could hit 400+, if that makes sense!

All done at 268

Need to weather the new ball, and play sensibly. A couple of early wickets for Oz after a decent performance from the tail and the balance of confidence could swing. We need our batsmen to show what a nice pitch this is.

in an hour we’ll know how good/bad 268 is

did anyone else used to be a scorer at school. I did. Bet you’d never have guessed eh?

I would love it if there was a website that populated an old-skool score sheet with hieroglyphics live as the match progressed.

totally and utterly England’s day

Chapeau to England!

Good day for England. Bravo. 🙂

Yep, very happy.

all those of years of us being so rubbish it is just so satisfying to see the Aussies play like this.
Nothing can go wrong now 😉

Nothing can go wrong now

:S

Will be tuning into the channel 9 coverage on itv4 tonight, really enjoy the aussy commentators ripping into their team.

did anyone else used to be a scorer at school. I did. Bet you’d never have guessed eh?

I would love it if there was a website that populated an old-skool score sheet with hieroglyphics live as the match progressed.
Yeah, me too. I used to do the scorebook regularly when I played in the local Thursday evening league, and then again for one season with a Saturday league team. Great fun in a fastidious kind of way, though I never reached the Bearded Wonder level of using umpteen different coloured pens.

Stoner – that scorecard brings back many memories. Mostly bad, cos if you were scoring you weren’t playing and as the 16 year at my club I used to get the scorebook to often, but it was great fun

I did the ‘scoring’ for our 20ov evening pub league. Given that most people were fielding whilst holding a beer, there weren’t many out Caught! That said, it was quite a bizarre score card anyway, as everyone had to have a bowl…

OUCH! Best you all stay in bed – Johnson’s on fire…

ouch indeed!

Here we go….

Bell gone.

71 run lead 😯

bummer. i bet johnson enjoyed that.

A bit of sloppiness letting their tail end bat on is what may sink us here. We’ve skittled them out before, just bowl line and length to tail enders who won’t go away and they’ll soon get bored and do something stupid!

Yeah.. their tail wagged and our middle order sagged. Good for the series but I was hoping we would stomp all over them 🙁

Trying to be positive here.

To win this game we had to bowl them out twice anyway, and in turn that means tearing through the top order with the new ball. We’ll then have a bigger target than we wanted but I think we’re far from out of it…… at the moment.

Great – England to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

I think we’re far from out of it…… at the moment.

No, not at all, they have their noses in front, but only their noses. It could still go either way, and even if they look to be able to bat us out of the match, I still think we have the batting to stand its ground and grind out a close result.

Bye bye Ricky 🙂

I havent seen the TV, but Im guessing Ponting is going to be the grumpiest looking bastard in Oz right now 🙂

Pity had to wake up to such a lousy england innings score though….

🙂 so true Stoner.

Ha ha ha ponting gone again. Miserable little kangaroo man.

pretty bloody happy to wake up to this position, great to see MJ finally finding form, he IS a talented swing bowler, the Fremantle Doctor was his friend today! Ponting should’ve walked really, looked pretty clear cut that he brushed it… he needs to drop down the order a touch I reckon, still one of the great Batsman, but reflexes are perhaps a little slower then they once were…

love that montage of the ‘chat’ they just showed, good to see some passion and fire, from both teams!

loving it, you should be able to access the stump mics so you can hear it all. I would pay extra for that.

Ah, psychle is back 😉

Wayhey, Mitchell is showing some spirit. England will have to fight now. Come on England!!!!

See ya Clarke!

😀

Bad luck for Clarke, but not a great execution of the cut shot… little bit of ball movement back into him did it.

Have to admit, when I woke up and first saw we were batting and the score showing a lead, I assumed it was England in front, took me an over and a coffee to realise it was our lead!

Nice of the Aussies to make a bit of a go of it, it was looking too easy for a while. 🙂

Ponting should’ve walked really, looked pretty clear cut that he brushed it… he needs to drop down the order a touch I reckon

Yeah – about 9 places lower on current form!

England are going to need an exceptional performance to avoid defeat now. Having said that, I think that if any England team can pull something out of the hat it’s this one.

Hopefully….

Nothing makes me happier than to see Ponting having his nose rubbed in it on the field. But please separate out the cricket from the man; outside of the game I think he is an outstanding person and ambassador for the game. His post match interviews after last week’s drubbing were excellent and then there was an article about this in the paper this morning as well.

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There was a time when I wouldn’t have weed on him if he was on fire but over the past few years, he’s reversed that opinion.

I’ll still be happy if he doesn’t score another run against us ever.