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Starts Wednesday, can't wait. Fearful but quietly optimistic that we can take the urn back. Would be happy to go into the final test drawn tbh. Anyway here's something to get the juices flowing;
Welsh Guards, in this case, Brian. A lot of nonsense really, but I suspect that the only reason the military were present is that it is in Cardiff and there is such a thing as the Welsh Guards, there aren't any Welsh miners left, and you can't train a sheep to carry a flag. If the Welsh Guards get disbanded it'll be either Blob or a hen party from Cardiff.
Just as well that you always shout for England in the cricket, since we steal all your best players anyway. Maybe it's gratitude that makes England usually rubbish when we play your lot.
Deserved payback for the Jack Charlton era, Cider.
I do shout for Ireland when we play you in the one-days, mind you. But the Ashes...well, the Ashes is just different!
"The opposite of love, after all, is not hate, but indifference."
As you will see in my earlier post in the thread I am firmly in that camp. I was probably a couple of sheets to the wind when I posted the other night however.
But (I think cider) made some factual reposts to my rant and we should at least give him more than one innings. Im sure he will score some runs.
However as you rightly point out, for some reason he has more than his fair share of apologists in the media etc.
I'm hoping this series will be the making of Ballance as he is a classy batsman.
FWIW I agree with your idea about Rashid, I just think you're unfair on Bell. I don't think he's in the side due to favouritism, I think over a long career he's been technically our best player and he has played tough innings, but because he looks like a choirboy people forget them.
But if you don't think of it as dropping Bell and more as finding space for Rashid (like when Thorpe was dropped to bring in Pietersen in 2005) then you are dead right. We've potentially got yhree genuine all-rounders in Stokes, Ali and Rashid and if you've got a real all-rounder you've got to pick him, it makes such a difference. We'd have off-spin (Ali) leg-spin (Rashid) conventional and reverse swing (Anderson) pace (Wood or Plunkett/Foottit and Stokes) and height and bounce (Broad or Finn.) Australia's strength is their bowling but it would be excellent but one-dimensional in comparison. Apart from the variety (and ability to pick the same team in all conditions including India) you could let the quicks really go for short bursts, knowing you've got plenty of options to rest them. You could manage Jimmy's workload (which has been scandalous) and so extend his career, without having to rest him for whole matches or series. It'd be harder to get after the spinners, because you can swap them around (and give Root a few overs) to give them a break.
And you'd still have a batting order that left the top three unchanged and then went Root [4], Stokes [5], Buttler [6], Ali [7], Rashid [8], Broad [9] Wood [10]. I don't think any of those look over-promoted, in fact Ali I think would benefit from batting at 7 where he's less likely to run out of partners or have to change his game to shepherd the tailender. Frankly, the way that Bell and, until today, Ballance have been getting out, Root and Stokes might as well have been coming in one higher anyway.
Of course it all depends on Rashid and Ali proving they can bowl spin at test level, but we won't know unless we give both of them a decent go.
First Australian century of the summer. Congratulations Mitchell Johnson. Ripper effort.
[Post edited 9 Jul 2015 12:45]
'I'm 18 with a bullet.Got my finger on the trigger,I'm gonna pull it.."
Love,Peace and Fook Chelski!
More like 20StoneOfHoop now.
Let's face it I'm not getting any thinner.
Pass the cake and pies please.
This test is currently running very close to the 2009 Cardiff Test when England batted first and were 336-7 at the close and then were all out for 435 before lunch - Oz were 34-0 at lunch and eventually declared at 674-6.
Wed, 8 Jul - day 1 - England 1st innings 336/7 (JM Anderson 2*, SCJ Broad 4*, 90 ov) Thu, 9 Jul - day 2 - Australia 1st innings 249/1 (SM Katich 104*, RT Ponting 100*, 71 ov) Fri, 10 Jul - day 3 - Australia 1st innings 479/5 (MJ North 54*, BJ Haddin 4*, 139 ov) Sat, 11 Jul - day 4 - England 2nd innings 20/2 (AJ Strauss 6*, KP Pietersen 3*, 7 ov) Sun, 12 Jul - day 5 - England 2nd innings 252/9 (105 ov) - end of match
Did the whole of that series out in Oz. We terrorised Super Mitch in Melbourne and Sydney. One of the highlights was buying up every single Mitchell Johnson badge on sale at the SCG and wearing them with pride on our Barmy Army shirts
Hope to be proven wrong but I think we are just too toothless in attack.
Have always thought our biggest problem this series will be taking 20 wickets. Probably need to find a way to fit Rashid in, however that may be. Time will tell......
Big session coming up now. Smith was a big wicket. Another wicket will open up a somewhat vulnerable looking middle/lower order - I think that it will come down to whether Wood can start getting the older ball to reverse swing. If he can then we could close the day with them being 5 or 6 down which would be well on the way to victory.
key day tomorrow, if England can bowl them out and have a lead we stand a very good chance of winning this but game could turn quickly if the Aussies get a lead and our top order fails again
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