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.