Good morning session for us. Grats to Hussey for the well-timed century and Haddin has hung in there with some accelerated scoring from mid-session onwards. With a lead of 69 runs and five wickets in hand, I think this session has definitely turned the match in our favour. We just need some consolidation in the lunch to tea session.
Stumps day 3 - England 2nd innings 19/0 (Strauss 11*, Cook 6*)
England 260 & 19/0 (15.0 ov)
Australia 481
Aust: Hussey 195, Haddin 136
Eng: Finn 6-125
Didn’t see much of play, as my Saturdays are taken up by having three kids playing cricket.
Sounds like the opening session was a tight battle where the Poms couldn’t get the break they needed and a great partnership of 307 has set up the game for Aust. Great persistence by Finn to get his wickets.
With Aust leading by 220, Eng are going to need to score 400+ to set Aust a difficult chase, or bat for the next 5 sessions. Tough ask.
Oy vey. We’d bowled ourselves back into the game and then got batted right back out of it. Props to Hussey and Haddin, damn the pair of them. We’re asking for a lot here.
Ouch.
Bet the Australia selectors are feeling vindicated right now, and some pundits are feeling pretty silly. Hussey may have struggled for a while, but class does tend to show eventually. Is that his highest test score? And Haddin may not be Gilchrist, but he’s been a very solid replacement.
Really shows up the contrast with England’s batting line up. Over the last few series, we’ve rarely put together the big partnerships when it counts.
Yes, back firmly in the Aussies hands I think.
Doesn’t seem like we bowled badly, merely a touch unlucky and a couple of batsmen finding their form.
The task now seems clear, bat through tomorrow and set a target of 200+ from lunchtime on day 5.
Holy crap, what a scoreline to wake up to! Strauss, Cook and Trott respond in kind for England, the day ends at one down for 309 which means the smart money is firmly on a draw for this one but it’s emphatically game on for the series.
Decent knock
Stumps, day 4
England 260 & 309/1
Strauss 110, Cook 132 no, Trott 54no
Australia 481
England lead by 88 runs with 9 wickets remaining
Now we certainly have a series contest. Difficult to see how (rank incompetence excluded) a result can be obtained in this Test. Given how well they’ve got back in the game, Strauss isn’t going to give a declaration with the slightest chance of an Aussie win. So you’d expect he’ll bat until tea, with a 250+ lead and give his bowlers a chance to bank some wickets and confidence boost for the rest of the series.
If he gave Australia 3 hours to chase less than 200, then ODI experience would suggest that would be advantage Australia.
hooooooo baby! great stuff.
There’s no feeling quite like that first flick of the radio switch at around 6:50. Hearing the test match special commentators and trying to discern what mood they are in and extrapolating England’s performance from that before finally hearing the current score.
I confess I wasn’t expecting that
I suggested, as the best option, setting a target of 200+ at lunchtime. I’d just like to make it clear that I wasn’t expecting that to be a declaration at lunch. Merely that it was about as long as we could be expected to bat.
As it stands , if we get anywhere near tea with wickets in hand I’d expect the lead to be nearer 300.
If so I reckon Strauss will declare with about 15 mins before tea and let slip the dogs of war. (Anderson and Finn)
And for those unacquainted with the glorious game, I’d suggest this as a really good example of how a game can go on for five days with no outright winner and yet still provide wonderful entertainment.
(with perhaps more to come)
Much better scorecard to wake up to this morning. Cook’s vindicated the England selectors and coach who stuck with him. He’s had a dreadful run in the last year, now he’s scored nearly 200 runs in this match for once out.
Indeed. These are the first blows in a contest that’s going to runs for another 6 weeks. The 2005 Ashes series was decided on the last day of the series, the 2009 series on the penultimate day, and this one look uncallable to me.
My daughter was born on 31st July 2005 and so I had the pleasure of most of August off on paternity leave. Result!
[Richie Benaud] What a marvellous delivery that was[/Richie Benaud]
Solid batting from both teams over the weekend. I must confess England have done better then I expected.
Stumps, day 5
England 260 & 517/1 declared
Strauss 110, Cook 235 no, Trott 135no
Australia 481 & 107/1 (26.0 ov)
Ponting 51 no
Match drawn with 1365 runs scored and both sides taking just 11 wickets.
Apart from a hattrick, the leather flingers collective had a pretty hard go of it all.
If Collingwood had held onto that catch from Watson of Swan, I’d have given the point decision to England. As it stands, all even.
While the pitch was too slow, and a bit low, you’d have to raise a question over the slow bowling options available to both sides, unless conditions were favourable.
They won’t be much different for the first 3 days at Adelaide at least. Les Burdett like his pitches to be very good for batting first up and slightly breaking up favouring the spinners late day four and five.
Maybe but he isn’t there any more. New curator Damian Hough is hoping to produce a result getting pitch.
Well, after a couple of difficult days, we got off the canvas and fought back pretty well. No result, but I suspect that England will be the happier of the two sides.
The nits to pick: I still think we bowled too short at times. We fed an awful lot of cross batted shots to Hussey on days 2 and 3. We fed Ponting stuff on the wrong length today too. I know that there is a perception that Ponting is suspect against the short ball but it’s got to be well directed. Letting him pull his way into form by not getting the thing up at chest or throat level is not the way to go. Also Swann didn’t look all that great it has to be said - perhaps conditions weren’t favourable but still, he’s worked without decent conditions before and kept it reasonably tight, something which did nto happen here.
Still, all told, a good performance in the end from England and I’d rather have England’s bowling attack than Australia’s at the minute. Surely Mitchell Johnson is going to be dropped?
An Australian team with a batting all-rounder (Watson) and a bowling all-rounder (Johnson) is what selectors have been looking for, well probably since Benaud and Davidson retired. Both capable of bowling 150km, both clean hitting and fast scoring. In form, and they have never been in form together, you’d quickly build a world class team around them
Bollinger is a “bang 'em in, all day” type of bowler who’d not be out of place, but apart from being left arm he’d have done nothing that Siddle didn’t try. The selectors made their call on Doherty, so he’ll play. There is no better swing bowler either in or out of form in Australia than Hilfenhaus. I don’t think they’ll change the team.
“New curator Damian Hough”, much obliged - aparently he’s been an apprentice to Les for 14 years, so you wouldn’t expect either a green-top or a turner for his first test pitch!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/dec/02/mitchell-johnson-dropped-australia-ashes
Mitchell Johnson has been dropped for tomorrow’s 2nd Test. This is not much of a surprise, as his form since Mohali has been woeful.
No real team news for England at the moment. Mike Selvey in The Guardian is advocating Shazad for Finn but I doubt England will make any changes beyond that, if they make any changes at all.
I’m going to be in France from Saturday for a week for work - not all that pleased. Would be happiest at home, sleep depriving myself to watch another 5 days.
But it is snowing Cumbrian, surely the inclement weather will come to your aid?
It may well. Meant to be going by Eurostar on Saturday and they have been cancelling trains left and right today - so getting out there might be a problem.
I have a feeling I will get out there though - it is a work thing after all. It will just make life more difficult. Still, the hotel supposedly has Sky News, so I should at least get to see the very limited highlights there and stay in touch with the game.