3rd Ashes test Old Trafford

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SQUAD

Squad Alastair Cook (capt), Joe Root, Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Jonny Bairstow, James Taylor, Matt Prior, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann, James Anderson, Chris Tremlett, Monty Panesar

Australia really need to get the follow on. Their bowlers might be tired but if they have to bat again they put themselves at risk of letting England win or batting too long themselves and forcing a draw they cannot afford

Ha ha , Hoggy  

I am not expecting a first innings lead ! More a "hanging on on the last day" sort of thing...

May be rough on the old nerves  

Broad, Prior and Swann has to get England over the follow-on line. I think if they save the follow-on, even an England win can't be ruled out altogether, considering the batting issues that Australia have been facing, regardless of the last innings. If England can limit the lead to under 150, and if we get most of the game in, then I feel they can think beyond a draw. But all that has to wait, they first need to get another 36 runs to avoid the follow-on.
Nathan Lyon getting back into the attack.

This will not be Adelaide 2006, then.

Can Australia go for another bowl straight away tomorrow though , msp ? With Harris surely getting close to the red line...and Siddle has done a fair bit of work too...
I guess they have to enforce the follow on if they get the opportunity , in case of weather shortening the game. But it will test their bowlers.

I think this game is still open whatever happens in these last few overs today. Though I think anyone contemplating the chances of an England win is in fantasyland...

What a stupid time to declare for aus though!!

I didnt get it at the time and i still dont get it now..

Even a bit of a wishy washy england(as have been in this innings) is more likly to get to this follow on target!

If they had just batted out they would have maximised there resources and could be pdds on to get us out before the follow on to follow us on again maiximising resources again and giving themsleves the best chance of a win...


Also bear in mind that a draw isnt worth much to aus. It is only about a win at this point in the seires being 2 nil down.. which also makes it even more stupid!!

alfie wrote:Can Australia go for another bowl straight away tomorrow though , msp ?  With Harris surely getting close to the red line...and Siddle has done a fair bit of work too...
I guess they have to enforce the follow on if they get the opportunity , in case of weather shortening the game.  But it will test their bowlers.

I think this game is still open whatever happens in these last few overs today.  Though I think anyone contemplating the chances of an England win is in fantasyland...

Well, Harris cold be a particular concern. He ones again looked classy here, but we all know he has a body that doesn't always cooperate with him. Said that, enforcing the follow-on is Australia's best chance in my view. They are never to far away from a batting collapse these days, and as such not enforcing the foll0ow-on might be giving England an opening.
And as for an England win, it is an unlikely scenario as of now, but I won't rule it out altogether. If Prior, Broad and Swann make some decent contributions with the bat, the Australia lead can be restricted, and Swann should find more life from the track, putting more pressure on a lineup that is suspect against spin.

Yes but then they wouldn't have had a full session to get those two wickets yesterday , roakey .

Who knows , Root might have come out this morning and put on 150 with Cook ...and England might be 320/3 chasing 600 , and the draw virtually in the bag ?

You just never know what "might" have happened.

Reckon Australia will still fancy their chances from here. Though I think the draw is still a good chance too.

Weather might have the final say ?

Was KP out?

Anyway ,another fascinating day of Test cricket.  

Well bowled Australia , and well played KP

...wish they could finish on time though...another half hour sleep lost down in this hemisphere  

'night all

Yes alfie i suppose there is the last 30 mins of the day aspect and all.. It can and did get wickets

Btw surely a headsgone moment for me advocating dropping kp even if he was fit!!!

If it wasnt for him today..... We could have been staring down a deffo loss

msp83 wrote:A fine innings from Kevin Pietersen comes to an end. LBW to Starc, KP reviewed it, but the pitching on line umpire's call and hitting so he has to go.
But a fine effort from KP.

From what I've heard the disregarded technology of hotspot and snicko both showed an edge...

Tbh, I agree. Made more sense for Aus to just put their foot down and try to bat once

 --at the end of D1 i wrote that a KP special can bring Eng at par.

He played well but it wasn't his very special..he needed to kick-on.... whack the bowling out of the park and get to a 180 odd and then England would have been at par.

--Eng still lag but have bridged the gap....and with a lot of discipline and help from weather draw is realistic.

--Aus kept plugging away but the brilliance of KP and fleuncy of Bell..did not let them run through.
This aussie seam attack is quite good..with a lot of varied skills and depth of resources.

--Starc who I had seen consistently hit 90mph and occassionaly mid 90s is clearly a yard below his peak pace and hence not as potent ( inspite of his 3-fer)

--and Nathan Lyon showed why inspite of being in the same craft..he is no where close ot Swann even on a helpful pitch...
to start with he gives a lose hit me ball every other over.

and then he wasted a lot of time going round the wicket...cutting out the angles for lbw and off side edges with starighter ones.....that Swann creates in plenty.
and his confidence crumbled amindst the onsalught from KP.

Lyon's under par show on this pitch is the single biggest reason why Eng has closed the gap.

--Clarke also suffred from the problem i have seen many captains face when they have one bolwer too many....having Watson as a decent 5th bowler meant Lyon also didn't get asa many overs as he should have on this pitch.

-Eng's folly was yet again going in the shell in the last 45 minutes......they needed to make time count for runs....there is still 36 runs to follow-on and last 3 can crumble in a heap.
so tomm morning Prior and Broad and then Swann will have to convert time in the middle to runs.

Interestingly poised game...could go anyway.

PS* goes to yet again DRS drama of the day...

yesterday Bresnan didn't review inspite of being 6 inches away from the ball..for the lack of trust " god knows what the DRS will show or not show and who knows what button umpire might press"
 
and today KP reviewed very well knowing he was a goner thinking
" god knows what the DRS will show or not show and who knows what button umpire might press"...let's take a chance and see if I get a lucky break


the joke continues to be on DRS

Evening all.

Have only been sporadically watching, but an excellent day's cricket from what I saw. Australia's seamers bowled their socks off (I thought Starc had a couple of really good spells, but Siddle and Harris were very good too) on a pitch which is still fairly flat.

Pietersen wasn't at his best and had the odd slice of fortune, but in some ways that makes the innings just as good - a really gutsy battling effort, and should England avoid the follow-on then obviously he has been a key part of that. Suggestions that he should have been rested to see what Taylor could do have been shown up for the ridiculousities that they always were.

Prior must have done something good in a past life, because he played and missed more times than I can remember.

Clarke marshalled his troupes fairly well, and came up with some interesting plans (including the Cook dismissal). His field settings were pretty good throughout, and never allowed England to get away, whilst never really missing out on catching opportunities.

Lyon was the main disappointment, and in the end not more effective than Agar (although I accept he looked more dangerous, but mainly to the left-handers). Pietersen, Bell and even Bairstow played him with a fair amount of ease; for me he was a bit one paced and flat (there wasn't any loop on the ball) so little chance of beating the batsmen in the air, and thus relying on beating them off the pitch - this is hard for an orthodox finger spinner.

Haddin kept really well - as well as the screamer to get Cook out, he took several leg-side takes late in the day which could be crucial in the context of saving runs. Australia's fielding in general was good, with very good energy levels throughout.

The draw is still favourite, because England should still avoid the follow-on (there is Swann to come, and Anderson is no rabbit) and it's hard to see Australia winning from there particularly if the weather closes in. However should Australia go bang-bang-bang tomorrow morning, then it is really wide open. I don't think they've got a choice - they have to enforce the follow-on if they can, because they are chasing the series and this pitch is not deteriorating that quickly that batting on the last day will be a minefield. They have 4 seam bowling options and plenty of part-time options should it get to the stage where a draw is a certainty and they don't wish to overbowl their bowlers.

ChequeredJersey wrote:

msp83 wrote:A fine innings from Kevin Pietersen comes to an end. LBW to Starc, KP reviewed it, but the pitching on line umpire's call and hitting so he has to go.
But a fine effort from KP.

From what I've heard the disregarded technology of hotspot and snicko both showed an edge...

Didn't see anything on hotspot. Snicko picked up a sound which didn't seem like an edge (not sharp enough) but was exactly as the ball passed the bat. Could have been something like his gloves slipping or the bat handle being loose.

Don't think KP thought he hit it, I think he thought he was out, but reviewed because of the situation out of hope that maybe it had pitched outside leg.

Geoffrey Boycott, Ex-England batsman on BBC Test Match Special
"The review system is there for the howler, but the teams aren't using it for that. The third umpire clearly has a tiny TV that doesn't show Hotspots that people do on their tellies at home. It's quite clear from this series that the ICC are going to have to rethink Hotspot and Snicko which I don't think are as reliable as the ball-tracker. The ICC doesn't use Snicko in the DRS, and I don't think it should be used on television either if it's not reliable."

Exactly Mike, Snicko picks up any noise, not just bat to ball. That's why you can't use it, except as a cool entertainment tool.

Mike Selig wrote:

ChequeredJersey wrote:

msp83 wrote:A fine innings from Kevin Pietersen comes to an end. LBW to Starc, KP reviewed it, but the pitching on line umpire's call and hitting so he has to go.
But a fine effort from KP.

From what I've heard the disregarded technology of hotspot and snicko both showed an edge...

Didn't see anything on hotspot. Snicko picked up a sound which didn't seem like an edge (not sharp enough) but was exactly as the ball passed the bat. Could have been something like his gloves slipping or the bat handle being loose.

Don't think KP thought he hit it, I think he thought he was out, but reviewed because of the situation out of hope that maybe it had pitched outside leg.

Pietersen on getting a century: "It only means something if we get a draw or a win. Standing here it means absolutely nothing."
On his dismissal: "There were definitely two sounds and I thought it might have been pitched outside leg."


From the bbc feed:

Nice touch from Mitchell Starc, patting Kevin Pietersen on the back as he made his way off the ground. Stuart Broad is the new batsman. His usual instinct is to attack. How will he play this? Hmmm...Snicko suggests a hint of a noise as the ball passed Pietersen's bat. Is there a tiny, tiny mark on Hot Spot? Very inconclusive. No DRS controversy, just an eyebrow-raiser.

I'm not making any conclusions until I can watch the highlights but it's clearly not clear cut and I trust Erasmus and this 3 rd umpire exactly 0% right now

I said if England bat the day, the Ashes were ours! England nearly there then. There's little chance of play over the next 2 days, so Australia's hopes will evaporate if England get 34 more runs.

 

Yeah they were two sounds, but the sound picked up by snicko didn't look like bat on ball (despite being at the same time as any edge would have occurred). I wasn't listening live, so can't comment on what it sounded like at the time, but as I say from KP's reaction he didn't seem to think he'd hit it - didn't review straight away and seemed prepared/happy to walk off.

It was Hill what gave it out in any case.

Why did they drop Bowden, out of interest?

KP_fan wrote: --at the end of D1 i wrote that a KP special can bring Eng at par.

He played well but it wasn't his very special..he needed to kick-on.... whack the bowling out of the park and get to a 180 odd and then England would have been at par.

--Eng still lag but have bridged the gap....and with a lot of discipline and help from weather draw is realistic.

--Aus kept plugging away but the brilliance of KP and fleuncy of Bell..did not let them run through.
This aussie seam attack is quite good..with a lot of varied skills and depth of resources.

--Starc who I had seen consistently hit 90mph and occassionaly mid 90s is clearly a yard below his peak pace and hence not as potent ( inspite of his 3-fer)

--and Nathan Lyon showed why inspite of being in the same craft..he is no where close ot Swann even on a helpful pitch...
to start with he gives a lose hit me ball every other over.

and then he wasted a lot of time going round the wicket...cutting out the angles for lbw and off side edges with starighter ones.....that Swann creates in plenty.
and his confidence  crumbled amindst the onsalught from KP.

Lyon's under par show on this pitch is the single biggest reason why Eng has closed the gap.

--Clarke also suffred from the problem i have seen many captains face when they have one bolwer too many....having Watson as a decent 5th bowler  meant  Lyon also didn't get asa many overs as he should have on this pitch.

-Eng's folly was yet again going in the shell in the last 45 minutes......they needed to make time count for runs....there is still 36 runs to follow-on and last 3 can crumble in a heap.
so tomm morning Prior and Broad and then Swann will have to convert time in the middle to runs.

Interestingly poised game...could go anyway.

PS* goes to yet again DRS drama of the day...

yesterday Bresnan didn't review inspite of  being 6 inches away from the ball..for the lack of trust " god knows what the DRS will show or not show and who knows what button umpire might press"
  
and today KP reviewed very well knowing he was a goner thinking
" god knows what the DRS will show or not show and who knows what button umpire might press"...let's take a chance and see if I get a lucky break


the joke continues to be on DRS

The way KP took lyne on made a significant difference in my view. Had Lyon been allowed to settle, he could have created more problems than he actually managed. It was a calculated targeting of a bowler who could have created serious problems that undermined his confidence, thanks to that man, Kevin Pietersen!.

The feed implied that Bell and KP smashed Lyon out of the attack

Well KP smacked him for 2 sixes then Bell repeated the treatment next over. Hasn't bowled badly Lyon though. More threatening than Agar ever looked really.

ChequeredJersey wrote:Why did they drop Bowden, out of interest?

I did wonder at that time. The decision became all the more obnoxious and ridiculous when they promoted Hill in place of Billy B.

I missed this evenings disaster was I was out paddling but I did turn on BBC TMS whilst in the car grabbing some food and there were two Aussie chaps and all the talk was of whether to enforce the follow on and winning by Monday afternoon so I knew England had blown it.
 
Is it a worry that their bowlers found life in this pitch and ours none? or is it simply it really was a match winning toss to win because the pitch has livened up?
 
as for the batting.  it's what we've come to expect when under pressure.  By no means is it Athers bad, they'd have been out for less than 100 probably, but it's bad none the less.

Duty281 wrote:I said if England bat the day, the Ashes were ours! England nearly there then. There's little chance of play over the next 2 days, so Australia's hopes will evaporate if England get 34 more runs.

 

 
 they've been totally wrong about the weather for the last three days so don't get excited,
 
and we should not be relying on the weather to cling on if we're supposed to be favourites.

As long as the weather behaves itself, an enthralling start awaits all in the morning. A game within a game.  

I think we have enough ability and experience to avoid the follow on but am not accepting bets.

Probably not worth speculating further until that is decided ....

so you are happy to speculate once you know half the story.. take a frieking guess mate. Live a little!!

guildfordbat wrote:As long as the weather behaves itself, an enthralling start awaits all in the morning. A game within a game.  

I think we have enough ability and experience to avoid the follow on but am not accepting bets.

Probably not worth speculating further until that is decided ....

yeah true.

Good to see KP back to his best today.

Hopefully Prior will find some form tomorrow morning, and Broad and co can stick around with him for a bit

Will the Aussies promote Warner to open to give it a bash?

Olly wrote:Good to see KP back to his best today.

Hopefully Prior will find some form tomorrow morning, and Broad and co can stick around with him for a bit

Will the Aussies promote Warner to open to give it a bash?

 You serious? 

I recon Prior will get his classic 50 up and then get out, Broad and Swann will add a small chunk. Never know what to expect of Jimmy with the bat!!!

NickisBHAFC wrote:

Olly wrote:Good to see KP back to his best today.

Hopefully Prior will find some form tomorrow morning, and Broad and co can stick around with him for a bit

Will the Aussies promote Warner to open to give it a bash?

 You serious? 

Yes.

If the Aussies are going to win this game (presuming we avoid the follow on), they're going to need to score very quick runs, so they are bowling again by the end of the day.

Warner would be better than Rogers in that regard

I agree with your theory Olly. However Rogers was going at some rate in innings 1- he had a decent SR for the first 30 odd(around 100)

Not seen the play today, just read through the comments on here and watched the highlights on Sky.

Jonny Bairstow looked like a walking wicket and a half today. If he doesn't get runs in the 2nd innings, surely his place must come under threat?

As GSC said earlier "Players have had far less chances than Bairstow has wasted."

I think he deserves to stay- because he is the future and young.. and looks much better (in terms of his potential TEST ability) than the likes of mogs or bops..

It is sinking in IMO.. Its just a shame that we cant get taylor in yet.. But he will be in soon for one of the older lads.

However I am not going to be gutted if taylor knicks his spot , I think he is the better talent- But i want him higher up the order

Australia won't get to enforce the follow on. I'm less worried about losing this test as it stands now than I was in T1

I think Olly has a good point that Warner should be pushed up the order if Australia bat again, because they will want to score 200odd in 45-50 overs. Whilst Rogers did score freely, I suspect England will have fewer catchers and a couple more boundary riders 2nd time around which will limit his scoring more.

Bairstow to me looked uncertain and short of confidence. His dismissal was a good piece of bowling (Starc had brought a couple back and then slid one across him) but typical of his innings: indecisive footwork and his shot neither a solid defensive nor a committed attacking stroke. I think England have to stick with him for the time being, because he has made a few starts and hasn't looked completely out of sorts, but with Taylor's hundred it's fair to say we are probably approaching last chance. Certainly he needs either a big 50 or a century before this series is finished.

I have read some criticism in the press of Clarke's decision not to review the Watson LBW shout. I think that is criticism in hindsight: at the time KP had wandered a long way down and across and it wasn't one that screamed "out" at you, indeed I don't believe that's the kind of decision which DRS is meant to overturn. Had KP been a few more centimetres down the wicket it would have remained not out on the basis of being too far down. I don't think many captains would have reviewed that TBH, and I don't think it's further controversy for DRS.

Bell probably nicked the one where Haddin was the only one to go up, but that wouldn't have been overturned.

And the KP dismissal is projected as a poor decision now, as it seems there was a faint edge on that and there was a small mark on hotspot and an additional sound as well. Another poor decision in the account of Kumar Dharmasena?

"indeed I don't believe that's the kind of decision which DRS is meant to overturn"

We cannot have a pop at the aussies for not reviewing it- He got to far down the pitch and no umprie on the face of the earth would have risked calling it out!

However it was out- it should have been out..

I cannot get over your lack of logic though, What in hells name to you mean by "that isnt the kind of decsion DRS is meant to overturn"

It is exactly the type of bad decison that should be getting overturned! Just because we have had such limitations on umpiring in the past and umpires are to scared to give that out!(fair enough they dont have the ability to call that out-Humans are 100% not good enough to guess correctly in a split second) doesnt mean we cant improve and start becoming fairer!!!!

"Whilst Rogers did score freely, I suspect England will have fewer catchers and a couple more boundary riders 2nd time around which will limit his scoring more. "

Firstly you only as good as your last innings. Rogers scored the freest out of anyone..Rogers and clarke will 100% open- I would put my house on it. The aus team may be a bit dim sometimes but they are not that dim!

mystiroakey wrote:"Whilst Rogers did score freely, I suspect England will have fewer catchers and a couple more boundary riders 2nd time around which will limit his scoring more. "

Firstly you only as good as your last innings. Rogers scored the freest out of anyone..Rogers and clarke will 100% open- I would put my house on it. The aus team may be a bit dim sometimes but they are not that dim!

Where is Fists when you need him? I am sure he could eat his hat if Michael Clarke opens!!. Just not going to happen!.

doh!!!

Sorry I didnt mean clarke I off course meant watson!

msp83 wrote:And the KP dismissal is projected as a poor decision now, as it seems there was a faint edge on that and there was a small mark on hotspot and an additional sound as well. Another poor decision in the account of Kumar Dharmasena?

Personally I don't think so. I haven't seen the hotspot apart from on a fairly small computer screen, but am not convinced the snicko or the sound were at all conclusive, as the noise wasn't as sharp as you would expect an edge to be. Besides which I don't think Pietersen thought he'd hit it (else he'd have reviewed straight away - his demeanor was more that of someone who thought he was out, but was reviewing just in case). Now of course I have argued several times on here that contrary to what people seem to believe there are a few circumstances under which a batsman might not know he hit it, so that in itself is not conclusive.

However all this 'Pietersen hit it' talk is being wise after the event, and mostly based on the inconclusive snicko. At the time everybody seemed perfectly happy with the decision. I think a lot of it is people trying to be controversial for the sake of it.

Its simple Mike- if he hit it its In, if he didnt he should be out. If there was any suggestion that he did - Batter should get the benefit of the doubt to remain consitant. It is surely the only way to get some fairness, logic and calm into the game.

I think people need to really start thinking that it doesnt matter what the players think. They dont know if they are in or out half the time.. It really is pot luck. How they react could be more about there mood at the time over there true feelings..

Mysti you place too much faith in technology.

I don't claim to be an expert (my technical expertise lies in mathematics, which plays a part in Hawk-eye I'm sure, but I can't claim to understand how) but I have spoken to guys who are.

Hawk-eye is a brilliant piece of technology, but it is not perfect. It doesn't tell you definitively where the ball is going to end up, all it does is make a projection based on all the information it has available. The further away you are from the stumps, the more uncertain this projection is, and this is an exponential rather than a polynomial equation (which in layman's terms means the uncertainty increases dramatically rather than gradually).

Currently in order to make it understandable to the layman, the ICC have, mistakenly in my view, stuck to the same 50% criteria regardless of how far out the impact is. In fact, to use the technology optimally this should change depending on where the impact is, how much swing/spin there was prior to the impact etc. The guys who made and implement Hawk-eye know this, but to maintain a degree of clarity, the ICC has stuck to the same criteria for all decisions.

Because once you get far enough away from the stumps with the impact, even the 50% rule becomes too aleatory, the ICC have further introduced a distance from the stumps beyond which any not out decision can be maintained regardless. Again this is an oversimplification of the problem, as a ball hitting the base of middle is still undoubtedly hitting the stumps, but it was done for the sake of clarity. Before the 2011 WC, the distance at which the level of uncertainty became too high was 2.5 m from the stumps, now because Hawk-eye have improved their system (according to themselves, but according to a couple of guys I've spoken to it is plausible) it is 3m.

But that does not mean that a ball which strikes the batsman 2.8 metres out carries the same degree of uncertainty as the one which strikes him half a metre out (e.g. Smith to Swann on day 1) - far from it. the reason the distance is 3m is because on tests conducted in laboratory conditions (which is obviously very different from real conditions) that was close enough to the distance which came up. But laboratory conditions don't take into account things like various bounce, and crucially in England where the ball can swing after it passes the bat.

In an ideal world the degree of uncertainty should reflect the actual degree, and Hawk-eye themselves admit that beyond 2.5 metres they are only really certain if a good part of the ball is predicted to hit middle.

Similarly Hawk-eye has different degrees of certainty depending on how close the ball pitches to the pad - the close the bounce the more uncertain the prediction, because the amount of spin/movement is unclear.

KP was out to Watson, according to Hawk-eye, but Hawk-eye can get these things wrong, and in this case was less certain of that fact than it was for the Smith vs Swann decision for example, because of the degrees of certainty relative to the distance. In my view, there was too much unpredictability involved, particularly with the ball swinging (and so could have swung further down the leg-side). For that reason, those kind of decisions are not the kind I wish to see given out. A human can't be sure, but neither can Hawk-eye.

mystiroakey wrote:If there was any suggestion that he did - Batter should get the benefit of the doubt to remain consitant. It is surely the only way to get some fairness, logic and calm into the game.

I know this is how you want it to be but it is not how I want it to be for reasons explained at length, and it is not how it currently is. Therefore with the guidelines as they stand, the KP was not a bad decision. IMO.