Finally made it,

After countless days on the sofa, or down the pub, and many, many pints, i've actually made it to the Oval to watch a day live, and what a day it could turn out to be. Despite my pessimism yesterday, it seems the experts might have been right about the pitch yesterday. And yet, my natural English pessimism about all things related to the English cricket team says it could all in wrong. It's much easier watching when we are rubbish, you can just relax and enjoy the day. When there's a chance of winning, it's entirely different, we are just not used to it. Anyway. Strauss and Trott are looking good so far. But perhaps that just means that the wicket isn't as bad ah the Aussie's made it look yesterday. Only time will tell.

Final test - day2

Well, yesterday didn't really go according to plan - so much for batting through 2 days on a docile Oval pitch. There's the usual blind optimism that perhaps the pitch will break up, and it will start to turn, but we'll see. Apparently the Aussies are "in the box-seat"

For some perspective, here's Lawrence Booth's excellent column "The Spin"
which I think says it all about how hype and expectation always come to the fore then playing for the Ashes.

But where there's life, there's hope, perhaps it will all turn out better today...
And at least there's still beers in the fridge.

Check out the cricinfo review of the Ssx game:

http://www.cricinfo.com/countycricket2009/content/story/420561.html

1st line:
"This was a statistician's delight."

Who was getting their playfair out the check the stats all afternoon?

2nd line:
"the talk was not so much of records broken but what to do about a Taunton square"

what have we been talking about this afternoon?

How come Jeremy James has been listening to our conversations when he's supposed to be in Taunton?

Well, it's been a while,

Funnily enough, i wasn't in the mood to update during the last test as Eng were getting hammered. Lots of beer had to be consumed to numb the pain. Still, new week, new test, so have to be optimistic, and given the start Eng have made, perhaps something special can happen. Am currently in a pub in Colchester - came here yesterday to watch Essex play - beautiful ground by the river, great weather, and Spitfire on tap - what more could you ask for? Briefly debated going back to the ground this morning, but chose finding a pub showing the test, so 2 pints of Green king and a decent morning's play - not too bad so far - and not an XR3i in sight ;-)

Finally,

well that was hard work, Aus finally out for 445, so all left to do for England.
Realistically, they will struggle just to make Australia bat again, so looks like it will be 1 - 1 at the Oval, with the Aussies having the momentum going into the final match.

Oh well, at least the footy has now started - but looks like the mighty Barno are picking up where they left off last season: 2 - 0 down to Sheffield bloody Wednesday.

At this rate, I won't be able to watch any sport - might even have to get a job ;-(

At least the sun's still shining - for the moment...

102 all out

that's not part of the script.

Terrible performance from England - the ball didn't seem to be doing too much, most of the wickets seemed to be given away.

Oh well, see how England manage to bowl - surely it can't be worse than they batted - can it.

Need to go down the pub to recover

Not the start

I was anticipating / hoping for - I'm not going to make any more predictions. Time to dig in and see what happens this morning.

For some reason, Shane Warne thinks Australia have made a mistake not going with a spinner - can't imagine why he'd be saying that...

Bumble has just said it's time for drinks, so I'm going to open from the fridge end with some Black Sheep ale.
Could be a long day.

Morning everyone,

so, 4th test, day 1.
Weather looks good today, as does the forecast for the rest of the match.
England have won the toss, and will bat first, which looks a good choice given that it's forecast to be sunny this afternoon, and will give Matty Prior more time to recover from the back spasm he suffered in the warm up.

In terms of yesterday's questions, we now know that:
Flintoff isn't fit, and that Harmison comes in as a straight replacement - so much for the theory that Trott would come in as England play defensively with an extra batsman - given the forecast, looks like this game could end in a result.
Brett Lee also doesn't play, but Stuart Clark is in, so Australia have no main spinner.

I have some bottles of Black Sheep chilling in the fridge, and the cricket has just started - hopefully we can hit lunch with England untroubled.

Been a while...

since I added anything new.
The last test was a bit of a washout, so there wasn't a lot to say, and I got sidetracked by a stag do that involved lots of Harvey's, shots and fishing, and required a fair bit of recovery - hence the lack of updates.
Pretty much recovered now and am looking forward to the Headingly test tomorrow.

Some key questions:
Will Flintoff be fit?
Will Brett Lee play?

Will the crowd boo Ricky Ponting again?
Will various commentators get in a flip over the behaviour of the Barmy Army?

Will it rain?
Will we get a result?


Was at Horsham yesterday for Sussex vs Notts. Beautiful ground, beautiful day, lots of beer - for a change. For some strange reason, we managed to create a fair bit of space around us - seems not everyone wanted to join our witty banter.
Cricket wasn't up to much tho - I got there for 12ish, and Sussex had already lost 2 wickets. By the time we got back from the pub they were 6 down for not a lot, but fortunately Ed Joyce continued his fantastic form since joining with 183 out of what turned out to be a total of 309. So thank goodness for Ed Joyce - imagine what carnage it could have been.

Bring on tomorrow and the Ashes.