Cricket - bloody hell

- (with apologies to Sir Alex)

What a day (again) - would be the most jingoistic the complain about a debut 98 from a number 11 - what a fantastic story.

The only problem is that it leaves England in a bit of a hole - will take lots of patient batting to get back on top - but there's lots of time, the weather's looking good, and we've got Swany on the final day - still all to play for.

England 215
Australia 280
CLOSE OF PLAY- Eng 80-2 (Cook 37*, Pietersen 35*)

What a rollercoaster

low scoring games are always more fun, but this one's not going as predicted

How often is number 11 the highest scorer - can't be too often

LUNCH - Aus 229-9 (Hughes 63*, Agar 69*)

What a great day's cricket

well, great if you're bowling / fielding, not so good if you're trying to bat, but that's really set up the series - not sure I could cope if every day was like that.

Just feel sorry for anyone with tickets for day 5 (or even day 4)

England 215
Australia 75/4 (21.0 ov)

Pretty even so far

- which hopefuly bodes well for the rest of the series
Maybe the sun will come out and KP will show us what we've been missing

LUNCH - Eng 98-2 (Trott 37*, Pietersen 10*)

So here we are again

- sun's shining, beers cooling in the fridge and the start of an Ashes marathon.

We'll have to see if my theory that whoever wins the first session wins the series. Ooh the excitement. 

Anyway, the news:
England win the toss and will bat

England: A Cook (capt), J Root, J Trott, K Pietersen, I Bell, J Bairstow, M Prior, S Broad, G Swann, S Finn, J Anderson.
Australia: S Watson, C Rogers, E Cowan, M Clarke (capt), P Hughes, S Smith, B Haddin, P Siddle, J Pattinson, M Starc, A Agar.

Not as bad as day1

Well it couldn't have been a lot worse:
Eng 260, Aus 220/5

is it just me, or is it starting to resemble a match between the 4th and 5th best teams in the world?

Off to cope with the cold cold weather with an afternoon in a warm pub, lots of cricket talk and beer - hopefully not too depressing.

Well that was dissapointing...

... so, normal service resumed.

Let's just hope that the theory of whoever wins the first day wins the
series is a load of balls. Still - there's 24 days to go.

At least we competed beyond the 1st ball this time - it was the 3rd one where it
all started to go wrong - at this rate we might start winning in a few hundred
years.

Now what time is 'Murder She Wrote' on? At least that always has a happy
ending.

Bloody cricket