Yes but it was a fluent, stylish 4, full of promise of better double figure scores to come.
Well single figure at least.
I should tell you that I heard around the traps that Dean Jones was dropped because of his State captain. Batting at the SCG Deano was asked to go out and knock up a quick score so that Victoria could declare. DJ, in his inimitable fashion, chose to play for himself and caused the game to be drawn. Immediately after this event I heard that he had been engaged in a heated debate with his captain and would never play for Australia again and that’s how it turned out.
You have to remember that Deano has the dubious distinction of having given the shortest motivational talk ever. When invited to address the (I believe) Essendon team, he turned up in the dressing room and said, “G’Day I’m Dean Jones but you can call me ‘Legend’.”
No one listened to another word he said.
And Panesar takes a fivefer on his first Test appearance in Australia!
Smart money says it’s a Test or two too late, but that’s quite an entrance.
Oh good lord! what a weak, incompetent, pathetic mess. The Australians go out and bat like millionaires, then bowl like amateurs.
A very poor performance. After Adelaide nothing is impossible, but Hussey apart there are no excuses for anyone.
Should be a gripping day tomorrow…
It’s funny how Test cricket really tests everyone. It finds you out. Warne dropped another important catch whilst thinking about bowling.
Today was a good day’s cricket. We have a bowlers’ wicket just for a change. And the WACA looked at least a little bit like itself.
And Harmison’s lack of bowling before Brisbane and the failure to select Panesar before the third Test look worse and worse.
There they go again. This is like last year’s First Test all over again, with the added excitement of England already being 2-0 down. Australia a hundred ahead with nine wickets in hand on a low-scoring track. Harmy and Monty gave England’s score a touch of respectability, but it’s not enough. The Ashes aren’t coming home.
Another shocker for Strauss. :mad:
I think it is like last year again, in that plenty of excitement is being generated by the closeness of the scores but in reality the cricket is pretty poor. The English tail and Ponting and Hayden have showed that it is not a low scoring wicket, it has done very little except bounce and turn slowly, it is just that most of the batting has been pretty ordinary.
It could be like the other last year. A few posts ago I linked to the great India win over Australia at Adelaide. We don’t have to go back so far for something that resembles this contest - just last year when Sth Africa held out for a draw at the WACA, losing only three wickets on the fifth day. Both first innings scores were sub-300 then too.
The pitch has flattened out. It may well be that wickets are hard to come by from here. The draw is still in play.
In a way, that makes the morning session even worse for England. The sun on the pitch meant that everyone knew batting was going to get easier as the day went on. Just a little more application and England could have been looking at a big lead. The fact that the tenth wicket partnership went so well for England is a sign that England have gifted Australia the best batting conditions of the match - as well as being a good effort that further enhances the burgeoning Monty mystique. [Aside - there’s been discussion of an appropriate nickname for Panesar on the Guardian’s over-by-over coverage. The best one, IMHO, is “Amazing Grace” ie I once was lost, but now am found]
The unfortunate thing for England is that they do look like they have got the goods to be really competitive - if only they were battle ready and selected right at the start of the series. Harmison looked pretty menacing. Hoggard is dependably good. Flintoff is overdrawn but bowling well. Panesar looks the goods (with a fair bit to spare). Australia’s plan for getting Pieterson out seems to be to wait until his head is so big that he overbalances - although it has worked in the last two innings.
It’s a muggin’ out there! This is the most bizarre, most violent humilation I have ever seen in 36 years.
This is so sweet.
mm
Imagine what it would be like if Gilchrist wasn’t out of form.
Yes, it must have really hurt being deprived of the Ashes for a whole 15 months. :rolleyes: I see Gilchrist has remembered how to bat again, I thought we’d worked him out. Oh well.
I also see that while Strauss can be caught out if his bat’s within a foot of the ball, Hussey can hit the fucking cover off it and be let off. Might’ve looked a little different if he’d gone for 15.
Yes it did. It was more the sheer impertinence of the Englishmen that was most painful. It seems they had forgotten that their role in life, their raison d ete, their whole call to being was simply to assume the position and allow the Australian side to wallop the living daylights out of them. That is, after all, the proper order of nature. 
We seem to have remembered now, at any rate. Inevitable they’d be one down cheaply by the close, not that I’d bet the change in my pocket on them lasting two more days anyway.
Oh well, again. Right now I wouldn’t be South African, at any rate - even though there’s still time for England to be all out for 84 as well. :smack:
I don’t feel that sorry for Strauss. Live, I thought he’d hit it in the first dig, well before the ball was taken. Tech hasn’t shown that he hit it, but I haven’t seen a replay that shows daylight between bat and ball. And if you pad up to a fullish ball on middle you don’t get to complain. If he’d been playing a stroke he wouldn’t have got fired.
England bowled OK today. The pitch - just as I said - flattened out and batting was easy. Gilchrist was just a fantasy today. I did like the fact that Panesar was still raring to go after being spanked for 24 off one over.
How many does Jones need to save his place? I reckon 50 in red or 80 if they lose, at least 50 if they don’t.
Come again? Unless the point of interception is outside off it doesn’t make any difference whether the batsman’s playing a stroke or not. Or shouldn’t. If this means that Strauss has been harshed the last three times out of four then allow me a small :rolleyes: .
Anyway today’s been less abject than I’d feared. There’s precious little light at the end of the tunnel but at least they managed not to get rolled over within the day. You have to feel for Cook getting out two overs from the end though.
England are getting arseholed…again. 
I’m sick of this
That is all
Oh, you’re quite right on the law. What I was saying is (i) that I don’t have much sympathy for a bloke who pads up. It’s called batting, not padding; and (ii) this mentality clearly affects umpires. They are more inclined to give people out if they are not playing a shot, even though that’s not what he law says.
Both sides did well today. The pitch is gradually deteriorating, but was almost as good for batting today as it was yesterday. England’s collapse on the second morning was very costly. As is always the way in these situations you look at the play and say history says no, but England are playing well on a good pitch and could still win this - the asking rate is not high. It goes on and on until you are just about ready to say that the Pomgolians are a real show tomorrow, then history weighs in.
Cook was superb today. But he looked very tired once he got into the mid-80s. At least he got out to a genuinely good ball rather than playing a dumb big shot.
Apparently the game situation is partly due to a miscommunication amongst the Australians. It seems that when Clarke got his ton, Gilchrist sent a message to the dressing room saying “Do you want us to go the tonk so as we can get them in before the close of play?” Ponting sent back a message saying “no” (presumably thinking of declaring before lunch on the fourth day), but it was interpreted as “yes”.
On the plus side, it’s finally somewhat tolerable to be an Indian cricket fan once more. 
Then it’s piss-poor umpiring - it’s not as if fourth ball even counts as persistently padding up.
Re: that last point, there was a case on record where the captain sent out a message to “give it a go”, by which he meant that the batsmen should appeal against the light (in the days when that was how it was done) - but the message was slightly misinterpreted, with amusing results.
I personally do not rate England’s chances of making another 250-odd, though if the bookies were quoting 500-1 against again I’d punt a spare fiver, just because. It’s something to the point that one of the five down was the night watchman, but as much or more that Flintoff’s not been batting well and one more wicket is likely to be thank you and goodnight. Like you say, too bad England didn’t make another 125 first knock when it was there for the taking.