Footnote: There’s a potential Ian Botham-style “who writes your scripts?” moment for tomorrow; Warne to take four of the remaining five, including the last, and so regain the Ashes with his 700th Test wicket. I’d bet higher on that than an England win. 
Malacandra, almost a good call, but the next best thing happened (and we expect will happen)! Winning the Ashes with his 699th wicket, and then taking his 700th in front of his home crowd next week. Curiously, he used the same line as you about scripts in his post match interview.
Great match, and great win. Can’t wait for Melbourne, but I wish I had tickets.
463 days and they are back!!
I hope, I really sincerely with all my heart and soul hope that the Australians are focussed on 5-0. We have a nasty habit of giving up charity wins in dead rubbers, but on this occasion that is just not on. Now the work for 2009 begins.
mm
Between now and then I hope the pie-eating cunt steps in a rabbit-hole and breaks his ankle. :mad:
No, not really. Last year the crowds over here were singing “We wish you were English” and that about wraps it up.
Naturally. 
I just wish people would not get carried away with the "great " tag on this Australian side. Their achievements are fine, but I think in a lot of cases the opposition has not been strong.
If they’re better than all of the opposition, they’re good. If they’ve been better than all of the opposition for the better part of 15 years, surely they’re great, no?
There’s a lot to be said for both views. I heard on the radio coming home from work that Australia holds every piece of silverware/ woodwork for which they play. I dunno whether that’s right, but it sounds right:
Ashes. Border-Gavaskar (Aus/Ind). Sir Frank Worrell (WI-Aus). Trans Tasman (Aus/NZ). ICC Test champions. Domestic one day series holders. Champions’ Trophy. World Cup. And series wins against countries where there is as yet no trophy.
You can’t do more than that.* And yet, imagine a helmetless Justin Langer facing up to Andy Roberts.
*[sub]Aside from beating a good, well prepared side in 2005 when a few decent players are not at their best, that is. The great WI sides never would have allowed that.[/sub]
The records here are fairly interesting. The unquestionably great West Indies teams of the 80s leads the most tests in a row without a defeat and series without defeat. The recent Australian sides lead the consecutive wins (and are one test away from being first and second) and are first and second in consecutive tests without a draw.
Of all the sides that I have had the priveledge of watching in my lifetime, the West Indies of the 80s were the most imposing and powerful. I loved watching Viv Richards batting with his powerful hitting and cool demeanour, and their fast bowling attacks were unmatched.
If you’re going to call that side great, you’d be hard pressed not to call the current crop of Australian teams great also. After the SCG new years Ashes test, Australia don’t play another test for 11 months. I expect we’ll see a few retirements following the world cup next year, and when we’re again searching for a third seamer, an opening pair, a keeper, and an attacking spinner, I think any Australian fan will look back at this era with fondness.
I would have to say this Australian side would be tested out by the great West Indian Line Up - the Roberts/Garner/Marshall/Croft era onwards.
However, Australia’s production line and it’s capacity to learn from it’s experiences (and that has been the shocking failure of England this time around) means that we will be top dog for a long while to come. And what Ponting (who will oversee the retirement of this generation and the blooding and ascendency of the next) has instilled in the Australian cricketing culture is this notion of bloody cruelty - of pounding a team until it is down and not just broken as a team but as individuals. No more 3 day wins and then some golf, but 500+ targets and grinding them down to paste. Starting winning the retunr series even before they have limped away from this one.
I like that!
mm
I find it difficult to say it is a great Australian side because it has been on top for 15 years. It has not been the same side- there have been many sides- and coaches.
Just like our football team…crap.
We only have to win one game (Germany1 England5) and we are world beaters…my arse.
Honestly the mind boggles at the ineptitude of the England sportsmen, one win and they get all orgasmic, then the withdrawal symptoms and they once more are brought down to earth with a resounding thud.
Bollocks
England learnt a lesson from their win, but the wrong one. They thought they’d proved they were a better team, and all they had to do was turn up and they’d at least be in with a chance (exactly as Australia did when they arrived in England 15 months ago). They completely failed to take into account that 1/ Australia were without McGrath for most of the tests 2/ it was a damn close-run thing despite that, and 3/ Australia were going to go away and get better still; if England didn’t match that improvement they were always going to be done like dinners this time round.
Mind you, how you win the Ashes with what you think is a better team then change half the team, I can’t begin to understand. I have a theory that it’s to do with the selectors feeling like they haven’t done their job unless they make changes - you don’t need selectors if you’re not going to change any selections!
I don’t know if this is getting much play outside of Melbourne, but hot news/rumour tonight is that Warne and McGrath are on the edge of announcing their retirements (Shane seems the stronger rumour), presumably at the end of this Ashes series.
It was on the morning news over here. I had a fleeting thought that Warne ought to take no more wickets this series, and sign off on a poignant note, like Hobbs narrowly missing out on 200 first-class centuries, or Bradman ending with a Test average of 99.96. 
That’s exactly right. The 2005 win was an overachievement for that side and they took it as the new stauts quo. They underestimated the standards Australia sets on it’s performance and the genuine desire to avenege the defeat that would be generated.
Oh and thank God none of the Aussie players were photographed looking like Andrew Flintoff did after his Ashes celebrations!!!
this 5-0 talk from the players is intensifying and it’s very very gratifying to hear. Stay the course boys! Send 'em back home in pieces!!
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Well, that’s Melbourne done with. For me, the magic moment was that point, on the second day, while Collingwood was bowling. When we finally saw Andrew Flinthoff realise it was all hopeless - you could see him slump, his whole body language changed to that of a man at his wit’s end, who would give anything to be anywhere but there. While it didn’t match Nasser Hussain’s meltdown at Brisbane 2002, it was another one of those “mission accomplished” signposts for the tour.
I can’t imagine a worse performance for England - right down to the farce of losing their bowling plans and all the desperate conspiracy theory which accompanied that - for 5/84 they once again could not impose any form of will on the Australians, their Captain broken, Pietrsen stomping off petunlantly when sent up the order to 4 (I suspect he knows batting at 5 with that enormous tail allows him to bat for red ink) and bereft of any sort of hope for anything better come Sydney. Has this been the worst performance by an England team in an Ashes series in living memory? is there anything they can cling to?
Damn, I was hoping to pop in tomorrow. I’ve been busy moving and stuff and day four was really the first chance I had to get along.
That was an abject performance from England today. The situation and the Australians got to Pieterson - he’s been rubbish the last few innings. I don’t suppose he’d like the Figjam nickname either. It’s not original, but it’s apt.
Symonds has his chance now. He just might believe he can take it now. And somebody should lead Rudi Koetzen off to retirement. He’s had a couple of shocking games. The LB he failed to give to McGrath today was the plumbest I’ve ever seen not given.
England seem to be able to win a session but not a days play. Flintoff should not have been captain: he just has two much on his plate. It’s difficult to see it getting turned around in Sydney,
There’s a fifth Test, you know.
At stumps on day three, England are in deep shit. Batting third, they lead by 12 with five wickets remaining. After a fine start in Brisbane, the umpires have had a poor series. Warne should have been given early in his innings, Gilchrist was given out despite missing by miles.
Warne continues to amaze. He top scored for Australia, and for a while it looked like a swan-song ton was a goer. (Even now, you can’t quite say it won’t happen.) He looks like a man who’s been in a tremendous paddock since Perth. He bowled like he’s told his body it’s all over - but still managed to get Flintoff stumped at the death. And he’s sledging nineteen to the dozen.
I am pissed off that I told people he would top score - he got his highest MCG score last test, and they bet 80/1 about it. He has the greatest ego resources of anyone I have ever known about. No matter how badly his life is going off the field, no matter his physical health, no matter the state of the game he is just 110% committed to what needs to be done…and does it.
And do matter what an idiot he has been he has never been a hypocrite, he accepts his failings and offers no excuses.