5th Test - Oval, Weds 21st August

First topic message reminder :

KP_fan wrote:Aus has made something out of nothing.
Moment of Truth for Eng
Rubber meets the road

if they fail to get close....i.e within 30 runs of winning..then they are as many believe simply lucky and going down the hill.

If they even for once think they will get bowled out in 40 odd overs......then it's already a moral defeat.

What a load of old rubbish.

If they fail to get close in a test match because Aussie don't give them anything and have good fields it means nothing of the sort

1/10. Troll harder.

GSC wrote:As disappointing as it is, no one would be complaining if England were 9 down. Such is life

if we were 9 down aus would have stayed on and played spin!!!

mystiroakey wrote:"msp83 wrote:
Bad light and they are off.
poetic justice perhaps? A team that never wanted to win by day 2 should not get away with it eventually."


Nonsense

Really? What were the chances for an England win at the start of day 3? And how they played 'sensible and great cricket' playing for the draw?

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

WE WUZ ROBBED!!

STUPID UMPIRES...GRRRR!!

It's alright, Australia still have the momentum...

mystiroakey wrote:

GSC wrote:As disappointing as it is, no one would be complaining if England were 9 down. Such is life

if we were 9 down aus would have stayed on and played spin!!!

And the batsmen would've been fist bumping after every delivery etc.

Maybe England shouldn't have wasted so much time day 3

I got more pleasure from seeing Clarke and his boys squirreling off with their tails between their legs than I would have from a win

Well, I was right that England would fall short by an agonisingly close margin...but I didn't expect it to be because of the umpires.

Still, I think England can take comfort in the knowledge that, if the match had been allowed to continue, they would probably have just squeaked home with a few balls to spare.

msp83 wrote:

mystiroakey wrote:"msp83 wrote:
Bad light and they are off.
poetic justice perhaps? A team that never wanted to win by day 2 should not get away with it eventually."


Nonsense

Really? What were the chances for an England win at the start of day 3? And how they played 'sensible and great cricket' playing for the draw?

I have explained to you so many times.

I will try once more.

You play to the situation. Thats proper test cricket- you PLAY TO THE SITUATION at hand!

chances of a win at the start of day 3 would have been beyond 1 in 100(if not more- only 6 times has it happened in the history of the game from the aussies first innings score), an aus win evens and a draw evens..

We prided wickets over runs- clearly - thats what you do and we only lost 4 wickets.

Today we also played to the situation.

Clarke gave us a sniff at victory and we took it to the fullest. Great batting under the circumstances.. The light failed..

England's decision making was spot on!! PERFECT TEST CRICKET IMO. PLAY to the situation at hand..

Long wait is over now. A month back we all were going with different scorelines, but ultimately 3-0 in favor of England. Congrats to all English fans and hard luck Aussies, your team let you down.

GSC wrote:

mystiroakey wrote:

GSC wrote:As disappointing as it is, no one would be complaining if England were 9 down. Such is life

if we were 9 down aus would have stayed on and played spin!!!

And the batsmen would've been fist bumping after every delivery etc.

Maybe England shouldn't have wasted so much time day 3

what difference would that have made?]]

do you think Aus would have given a target of 220 in 80 overs instead o0f 40??? no they would have given us a target of 280 in 60 or something like that, but hey we may have also been followed on as well! and lost the game if we had upped the rate day 3!

England played this Test perfectly. Friday was the day in which they took the sting out of Australia. Not sure why people are criticising them for that. Situations reversed, Australia would have done the same thing, and it would be the right thing to do.

Michael Vaughan is rather on the fence, judging by his twitter account:

"What a F###ing joke ... #Ashes. I hope the ICC are realising they are ruining the game !!!!!!"

Bet he didn't say that on TMS!

subhranshu.kumar.5 wrote:Long wait is over now. A month back we all were going with different scorelines, but ultimately 3-0 in favor of England. Congrats to all English fans and hard luck Aussies, your team let you down.

That is to be called reactive cricket.
Had England played with any posivitism, they could have managed to get close to the Australian score earlier. England lost only 4 wickets by playing dud cricket on day 3 on a track that had no real concerns for the batsman. On a day 5 track, while scoring ODI style 5 an over, they lost only 5 wickets. So can't say they lost only 4 wickets by playing dud cricket on day 3. Had it been say 2 wickets then there could have been a point. 4 wickets was standards for that track. How many did England take on day one and how many did Australia score??

Olly wrote:It's alright, Australia still have the momentum...

yeah that worked out didn't it for them.

bowling looked vulnerable and they were getting battered.  not so good for them

"Michael Clarke gets a few boos."
Instead people should thank him for giving such an interesting match when everything was going boring.

msp83 wrote:

subhranshu.kumar.5 wrote:Long wait is over now. A month back we all were going with different scorelines, but ultimately 3-0 in favor of England. Congrats to all English fans and hard luck Aussies, your team let you down.

That is to be called reactive cricket.
Had England played with any posivitism,  they could have managed to get close to the Australian score earlier. England lost only 4 wickets by playing dud cricket on day 3 on a track that had no real concerns for the batsman. On a day 5 track, while scoring ODI style 5 an over, they lost only 5 wickets. So can't say they lost only 4 wickets by playing dud cricket on day 3. Had it been say 2 wickets then there could have been a point. 4 wickets was standards for that track. How many did England take on day one and how many did Australia score??

they bat first on a bat first and win track and they nearly lost.

Blowers was majestic.

msp83 wrote:

subhranshu.kumar.5 wrote:Long wait is over now. A month back we all were going with different scorelines, but ultimately 3-0 in favor of England. Congrats to all English fans and hard luck Aussies, your team let you down.

That is to be called reactive cricket.
Had England played with any posivitism,  they could have managed to get close to the Australian score earlier. England lost only 4 wickets by playing dud cricket on day 3 on a track that had no real concerns for the batsman. On a day 5 track, while scoring ODI style 5 an over, they lost only 5 wickets. So can't say they lost only 4 wickets by playing dud cricket on day 3. Had it been say 2 wickets then there could have been a point. 4 wickets was standards for that track. How many did England take on day one and how many did Australia score??

England were down by around 450 on Friday, and Australia were bowling aggressively, making it very difficult to score. The situation put England under pressure.

Fast forward to today, and England had a target to aim for in a limited amount of overs. They knew they could shut up shop if everything went wrong. It didn't, and Australia were on the defensive, trying to limit run-scoring rather than taking wickets.

The situations are a total opposite.

Situations.

Sport is all about how you react to different situations.

Whatever sport it is.

It's something England generally do pretty well

Exactly Olly. Probably why England haven't lost in 13 Tests.

msp83 wrote:

subhranshu.kumar.5 wrote:Long wait is over now. A month back we all were going with different scorelines, but ultimately 3-0 in favor of England. Congrats to all English fans and hard luck Aussies, your team let you down.

That is to be called reactive cricket.
Had England played with any posivitism,  they could have managed to get close to the Australian score earlier. England lost only 4 wickets by playing dud cricket on day 3 on a track that had no real concerns for the batsman. On a day 5 track, while scoring ODI style 5 an over, they lost only 5 wickets. So can't say they lost only 4 wickets by playing dud cricket on day 3. Had it been say 2 wickets then there could have been a point. 4 wickets was standards for that track. How many did England take on day one and how many did Australia score??

Not just looking into this test match. if we go on watching the whole series, Aussies too delivered, many a time luck and many a time their non-impact game let them down.
First match was really close, unfortunate for Australia, and hard work gain for England.
Second match England Outplayed Australia.
Third match, Rain Saved England.
Fourth match. From 170-2, 120 more to get and still you lose, its your fault.
Fifth match, bit negative batting from England on day three and a total competitive cricket from Australia. I can expect this type of guts from an Aussies only and no one else. I back Clarke for his guts that he prompted for a result.

Dave. wrote:Blowers was majestic.

amazing,  I was out on the water listening to him,.  made a stunning evening on the Carrick Roads even better.

msp83 wrote:

subhranshu.kumar.5 wrote:Long wait is over now. A month back we all were going with different scorelines, but ultimately 3-0 in favor of England. Congrats to all English fans and hard luck Aussies, your team let you down.

That is to be called reactive cricket.
Had England played with any posivitism,  they could have managed to get close to the Australian score earlier.

And??
What would that have meant?
That Australia batted more cautiously in their second innings and set England a higher target to chase?
Truth is that England's slow first innings (plus the rain of course), led to the situation as played out today. In a sense, taking time out of the game was England's best chance of forcing victory as, as we saw, if Australia wanted to win, they needed to leave a target that was gettable. If England had got the same score more quickly in their first innings, Australia would have had more time to set a target and more time to bowl England out. The pacing of England's first inning was, therefore, nigh on perfect, as it not only decreased the chance of a loss, but probably also increased the chance of victory.

shame for aussie their best bat and bowler are so old.  they looked good.

love it from flower "more to captaincy than funky field settings".

eat that Shane Warne, so down on eng during this series.

Another stupid ICC rule that's gonna bite them in the ass is the banning of runners...

Olly wrote:Another stupid ICC rule that's gonna bite them in the ass is the banning of runners...

Banning of runners in my opinion is correct.

I am happy for warne to go on about how aus are improving and that clarke has been good. TBH clarke performed ok.

What I don't want to here is his hyperbole over cook. He needs to stop banging this cray clarke beat cook 5-0 as a captain- blah blah.

No England played every single important phase in this match better than Aus.

We are the better team. Cook outperforms clarke as a captain every test match. Just because clarke may had the occasional better field placement. does not mean he has picked the better bowlers at key times, used DRS better(lets be honest clarke just doesn't understand it full stop), chose the better batting approach, led the players better, allowed the players to shine.. Sometimes you pick field placements which make your bowlers happier- You can't do everything perfect. But it all culminates that cook is by far the better performing captain..Thats all we can judge them on

I think everyone will agree that we actually underperformed yet still won convincingly.

And cook certainly didn't hinder us and only aided us//.. I don't like warnes comments on him. He is being grossly unfair. A captain that hasn't lost in 13 and he wants to have a pop.. Jesus - show some respect warne!!

mystiroakey wrote:I am happy for warne to go on about how aus are improving and that clarke has been good. TBH clarke performed ok.

What I don't want to here is his hyperbole over cook. He needs to stop banging this cray clarke beat cook 5-0 as a captain- blah blah.

No England played every single important phase in this match better than Aus.

We are the better team. Cook outperforms clarke as a captain every test match. Just because clarke may had the occasional better field placement. does not mean he has picked the better bowlers at key times, used DRS better(lets be honest clarke just doesn't understand it full stop), chose the better batting approach, led the players better, allowed the players to shine.. Sometimes you pick field placements which make your bowlers happier- You can't do everything perfect. But it all culminates that cook is by far the better performing captain..Thats all we can judge them on

I think everyone will agree that we actually underperformed yet still won convincingly.

And cook certainly didn't hinder us and only aided us//.. I don't like warnes comments on him. He is being grossly unfair. A captain that hasn't lost in 13 and he wants to have a pop.. Jesus - show some respect warne!!

Agree. Clarke is also a good captained but eventually continous loss has made him bit out of order. His team also didn't supported him, neither in India nor here. For Cook a splendid Captain.
At Last Ignore Warne.

mystiroakey wrote:I am happy for warne to go on about how aus are improving and that clarke has been good. TBH clarke performed ok.

What I don't want to here is his hyperbole over cook. He needs to stop banging this cray clarke beat cook 5-0 as a captain- blah blah.

No England played every single important phase in this match better than Aus.

We are the better team. Cook outperforms clarke as a captain every test match. Just because clarke may had the occasional better field placement. does not mean he has picked the better bowlers at key times, used DRS better(lets be honest clarke just doesn't understand it full stop), chose the better batting approach, led the players better, allowed the players to shine.. Sometimes you pick field placements which make your bowlers happier- You can't do everything perfect. But it all culminates that cook is by far the better performing captain..Thats all we can judge them on

I think everyone will agree that we actually underperformed yet still won convincingly.

And cook certainly didn't hinder us and only aided us//.. I don't like warnes comments on him. He is being grossly unfair. A captain that hasn't lost in 13 and he wants to have a pop.. Jesus - show some respect warne!!

Cook's decision to choose Bresnan and Broad to bowl in that session at Durham to win the match and not Anderson or Swann, was great captaincy.

mystiroakey wrote:I am happy for warne to go on about how aus are improving and that clarke has been good. TBH clarke performed ok.

What I don't want to here is his hyperbole over cook. He needs to stop banging this cray clarke beat cook 5-0 as a captain- blah blah.

No England played every single important phase in this match better than Aus.

We are the better team. Cook outperforms clarke as a captain every test match. Just because clarke may had the occasional better field placement. does not mean he has picked the better bowlers at key times, used DRS better(lets be honest clarke just doesn't understand it full stop), chose the better batting approach, led the players better, allowed the players to shine.. Sometimes you pick field placements which make your bowlers happier- You can't do everything perfect. But it all culminates that cook is by far the better performing captain..Thats all we can judge them on

I think everyone will agree that we actually underperformed yet still won convincingly.

And cook certainly didn't hinder us and only aided us//.. I don't like warnes comments on him. He is being grossly unfair. A captain that hasn't lost in 13 and he wants to have a pop.. Jesus - show some respect warne!!

Ah Mysti!. We are beginning to get back to agreeing more rather than disagreeing. Clarke mighe be  a more proactive leader on field. But Cook is a much, much better man-manager. Kevin Pietersen, among the brightest batting tallents to have played for England in recent times could have been lost to England cricket last year. It was captain Cook who took the lead in bringing him back to the fold and keeping the side united. Clarke on the other hand got embroiled too much in internal politics within the side and played an active role in ousting Simon Katich who was Australia's most consistent batsman in the last 2 years of his career. Even Michael Hussey, it was speculated at the time of his retirement, didn't quite get the team management's back to stay on longer. Shane Watson and Clarke don't see eye to eye either.
Cook has led the way with the bat in difficult away tours in particular and won difficult away assignments like the one in India. Also to be remembered is the way he prompted the likes of Broad to find that something extra to turn around the last test.

chris Woakes finishes the series with a batting average of 42

Hoggy_Bear wrote:

msp83 wrote:

subhranshu.kumar.5 wrote:Long wait is over now. A month back we all were going with different scorelines, but ultimately 3-0 in favor of England. Congrats to all English fans and hard luck Aussies, your team let you down.

That is to be called reactive cricket.
Had England played with any posivitism,  they could have managed to get close to the Australian score earlier.

And??
What would that have meant?
That Australia batted more cautiously in their second innings and set England a higher target to chase?
Truth is that England's slow first innings (plus the rain of course), led to the situation as played out today. In a sense, taking time out of the game was England's best chance of forcing victory as, as we saw, if Australia wanted to win, they needed to leave a target that was gettable. If England had got the same score more quickly in their first innings, Australia would have had more time to set a target and more time to bowl England out. The pacing of England's first inning was, therefore, nigh on perfect, as it not only decreased the chance of a loss, but probably also increased the chance of victory.

Thank you , Hoggy...saved me a lot of typing. Agree completely...in fact the only way England was going to have a winning chance on this pitch , after the first two days , was for Australia to be forced into offering a realistic target - as happened in the end. Not suggesting they planned it   - just lucky the way it played out : but the approach was essentially quite logical.

In the end the draw was probably the "right" result.

Australia didn't really deserve to lose , though they could have had no complaints if England had run them down , which they certainly would if not for the light meters.  I certainly don't blame them for resorting to leg side wide bowling and a spot of canny time wasting : but I would like to think that in future they might refrain from criticizing England when they behave in a similar manner...the holier than thou attitude is perhaps the least attractive feature of their game.

Clarke does deserve credit for pushing for the win. He could easily have just batted out time , but he had a go , and I applaud him for it.  Also the Australian fielding was outstanding.  In truth bowling England out in 44 overs was never really on , and they did enough to prevent KP and friends from carrying off a bit of a steal...

Such a pity that the rigid light rules should impact the finish though - to non-cricket people it seems incomprehensible that a five day contest should be abandoned with about fifteen minutes left because the light is deemed too poor , even while the combatants at most risk are keen to continue ! I do in fact dislike the new rules , have always felt if batsmen were prepared to play in it then the fielding team shouldn't have much to complain about ; but the rules are well enough known and obviously cannot be changed on a day because they unfortunately spoil a dramatic finish.  Might be looked at again for the future , though ?  Pity the poor umpires , who just did their job , and did not deserve to be booed , any more than did Clarke.

Despite their eventual disappointment , the crowd should reflect on the fact that they ended up seeing a terrific day of Test Cricket.  We wouldn't want this sort of blaze away batting every day  - at least I wouldn't : I think one of the charms of the five day game is the way it encompasses days like this , and grim attritional battles like Friday , sometimes in the same match.  But this was a good way to finish a series which had plenty of highlights , and in my view has been rather talked down lately ...not sure why ?  Some English media types are getting bored with winning ?  

I do hope , by the way , that England's bold attempt to win this game at the end might put an end - or at least a pause - to all the bagging of Cook and Flower for their supposed "negative" attitudes. As usual , the media has mistaken sensible caution for cowardice. Cook now has a 9 W 1 L 6 D record as captain , and has not lost in five series. Just saying...

Anyway , I enjoyed it.

Alfie. Very good summing up, if you don't mind my saying so. Terrific entertainment for the last-day crowd who, after their initial disappointment, will probably come to realise they were there on a special day.
I would have loved to see England win but accept that defeat would have been tough on Australia who made nearly all the running. Agree that it's surprising that there has been so much negativity. Just what do people want? For England to play more entertainingly and lose? Of course, what everyone wants is for England to play entertainingly and win. But it aint always possible.
Well, November in Brisbane will now come round fairly quickly. Here we go again!

Yeah nice alfie..

I think england positive batting will actually be spun into clarkes positive declaration..

but there you go.

From an england pov that game was very decent.

We proved we could shut up shop and only lose a few wickets in a day and a bit when we had to and we also proved we can attack when the situation reversed and allowed us to win..

The last day was very telling really- Aus go on attack and they lose 6 wickets for 111 , we go on attack but a measured attack yet still hit a higher RR(an rr good enough to win) yet only lost 5 wickets for 200 odd..(the rate never got above 7 from what i can remeber)

The game also highlighted that maybe Aus are willing to lose to win(well maybe not at the bitter end!!) but just don't have the minerals to carry it out. England go with the flow more, but with quality cricketers you don't always have to force- just let the other team make a mess for you.

I can't see a big turnaround in form for the aussies. It seems like a load of hot air tbh.

At least win a game first.. The aussie media and fans are worse than the england media when it comes to England football. Its all faith over reality. But then England football do actually win the odd game!!

This annoys me http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/23829587
 
its the constant negativity and desire to suck up to oz and slate England from him and Fordyce that makes them "unloved" in their view.
 
They then use the same rubbish they have stirred up to justify their position here.  Absolute tosh.  Most fans I know are more than happy.

trebellbobaggins wrote:This annoys me http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/23829587
 
its the constant negativity and desire to suck up to oz and slate England from him and Fordyce that makes them "unloved" in their view.
 
They then use the same rubbish they have stirred up to justify their position here.  Absolute tosh.  Most fans I know are more than happy.

An utter load of contradictory, England bashing rubbish from Agnew as usual - he really hasn't got over his bowling Test average of 97 - let it go Jonathan, its all in the past.

The comments around England not knowing their best team compared to Aus being settled are particularly laughable. Bar 2 positions the England team is certain. Australia have a better idea now of their batting order but it wont take more than a couple of failures for them to be chopping and changing again.

Agnew must really have a problem with some of the current English team or coaching staff. His reports and opinion pieces have gone beyond being neutral to something like a vendetta against them...fair enough criticise poor performances , express reservations about players...but the relentlessly negative slant he has been giving everything they have done recently is becoming seriously boring..

agreed, it's sad and bitter.

Maybe he is a fan of the reverse jinx..

Have just read Aggers' article. Can't see why people are getting worked up about it too much. I think his perspective is not really incorrect. He has certainly overestimated Australia, Shane Watson has had one successful innings at 3, and by no means can it be deduced that he has made his home at number 3. Lyon and Smith has had pretty decent series and the Australian seam bowling unit is good. But that doesn't mean Australia are a very settled side as such.
But at the same time, the concerns he raised regarding England are not all nonsense I would say.

"England are hard-nosed, but not in a flattering way. Even when you are playing hard, you have to give something back to the game. Results are clearly paramount. Equally, the style in which you achieve them matters too.

"England will still go to Australia as slight favourites to win the forthcoming Ashes series down under. "

"It's a strange thing, but a team that has won the series 3-0 will end it with more problems to solve than they had before it all began."

   

Always good for a laugh is Aggers.

Only that last bit is problematic I'd say. Number 6 had become a problem the moment they decided Joe Root has to move up. On form, Steven Finn has to be the third seamser. But Tim Bresnan is a very handy reserve, and a fully fit and on form Chris Tremlett can easily step in to the seam bowling unit. England new it all at the start of the series. Finn's loss of form and Bresnan injury are concerns, but then Tremlett is getting back on track, and Finn himself found some county form and now has the ODIs to get going at the international level. Bresnan could also be ready by the time of the next series.