For context, Anderson on this one ground is a fair match for no less a light than S. F. Barnes (taking the latter over his whole Test career) in terms of wickets per match, average, and strike rate. Of course Barnes played relatively little Test cricket and spent fully half his career as a league professional, in which his bowling average was 6.03 (sic).
Shaun Marsh for Mitchell Marsh - assumption is Clarke to 5. Wood for Anderson as expected. England won the toss and will bowl.
Fucking hell. Good toss to win this one. 10-3. Stuart Broad with 2 in his first over. Wood then takes Warner in his first.
Four down now - and it’s not even half past eleven. Extraordinary stuff…
15-4. Broad is right on the money this morning. It’s nipping about, he’s bowling well, all wickets caught either at wk or in the slip cordon. A real belter of a toss to win for England.
Wonderful catch by Stokes. Will the Aussies stay in until lunch?
You have to say, that catch by Stokes is magnificent. Right there with the Strauss catch on Gilchrist from 2005.
The picture on the TV following that wicket with half the screen England fans going absolutely mental and the other half all the Aussies sat with their arms folded tells its own story.
Still, England have hardly been solid with the bat themselves in this series. If England do shoot them out, there’s no guarantee that England don’t collapse themselves on this deck. If thy do them by lunch, I’d be half tempted to do a Bradman and reverse the order in the hope that the wicket dries out and flattens a bit.
30-6 after 8 overs, and what must surely be the fastest Test 5 for to Broad. I’m following at work, and am a bit dazed.
33-7. Finn bowls Nevill through the gate.
We’ve been good but some of the Aussie batting has been abject too. Nevill and Clarke in particular, pretty poor.
I was thinking that Nevil and Johnson might put on a stubborn half decent partnership, but Nevil’s gone. 33-7.
The lad Extras might well end up as the Aussies top scorer…
Am I the only person that forgot it started today and missed the first four wickets?
47-9. It’s just slip catching practice at the minute.
Mitchell Johnson threatened extras as top scorer for the innings but the latter may well come through for Australia now.
60 all out. Broad 8-15.
Now we’ll see whether it was the pitch or not, I guess.
As I mentioned before I’m on hols and at least this time I remembered the game started today. I’m up an Austrian mountain this morning with no phone signal but hey, no problem, back down for lunch…boot up the laptop and see how the morning went.
Wow, 8-15! six slips, 60 all out! and I missed the bugger…Arse!
I went into a meeting just before the toss. Came out and saw England at 30/0. Thought they were a bit slow. Then I saw the cricinfo feed.
:eek:
WTF happened?
England won the toss. The pitch was a little damp and green; the overhead conditions were a little cloudy. Cook decided to bowl. Broad then proceeded to bowl the most accurate spell of his career and a few of the Aussies played some false shots. England took every catch going in the slips, including one screamer from Stokes.
Now the sun has come out and the cloud cover is rapidly disappearing. This should also help dry the pitch out a bit. England capitalised on their own good fortune at the toss, with a bit of help from Australia.
32-1 now. Adam Lyth needs to get a cricket ball and spend some time carving his name into it - as if he owns the ball with his name on it, he won’t ever nick it off. In fairness, the ball he got from Starc here was bloody good with late movement.
I’m still catching up the same as you are and it seems like Australia imploded. Looks like the England attacked bowled well, on a length and with *some *movement but not 60-all-out-movement.
Pretty incredible. Broad has the joint fastest 5-fer in test history and* the* fastest 5-fer from the start of the innings.
Well, bugger me. After all the dissing Broad has had to put up with over the years - from the Aussies not least - there he is, England’s fifth-highest wicket-taker and with Trueman’s record squarely in his sights. Just as well for Australia that Anderson wasn’t fit to play or they would have been all out for about minus five by the looks of it.
Tell you what, after the last series Down Under, not to mention the horrible hiding in the Second Test, I wasn’t expecting this one bit.
Notts County police is taking potshots at the Aussies.
Root has now faced more deliveries than the whole of the Australian side thus far in this match. He’s also scored 50% more runs than the whole Australian side (including extras). It has got quite a bit easier to bat on this pitch by the looks of things.