If anyone who said test cricket is boring, watch the Ashes now !!

Batsmen need to step up, big time. Watson, Rogers, Clarke, Hughes all need to get decent scores. Particularly Watson, to be honest I am not sure how he's been allowed to be so mediocre for so long.
Harris did as expected, good bowler. Patto and Siddle disappointing, Smith a wonderful surprise. He's not a great bowler, but he's starting to prove handy. Need to finish them off under 300-320 and build a lead, not try to score off every ball but wear their bowlers down, make them bowl to us, punish crap balls etc.

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Originally Posted by asiafever

Batsmen need to step up, big time. Watson, Rogers, Clarke, Hughes all need to get decent scores. Particularly Watson, to be honest I am not sure how he's been allowed to be so mediocre for so long.
Harris did as expected, good bowler. Patto and Siddle disappointing, Smith a wonderful surprise. He's not a great bowler, but he's starting to prove handy. Need to finish them off under 300-320 and build a lead, not try to score off every ball but wear their bowlers down, make them bowl to us, punish crap balls etc.

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Yeap, 320 should be the target and then we need to put on 500! ourselves, it's about bloody time!!

We need to Ian Bell England !!

So Aussie !

I take a quick look at Michael Clarke's batting records in England, he has played in 17 innings with an average of 46.06; with 2 centuries and 4 half centuries.

He played 4 innings at Lords: 11 & 91 and 1 & 136, with an average of 59.75 - that 136 at Lords was also his highest score playing against England in England.

So Michael Clarke should do well at Lords - If History, statistics and batting average means anything in Test Cricket !!

Go Clarkey !!

Bloody Shane Watson, wasted another review! Then Rogers unselfishly didn't review his call but should have, now both openers are gone cheaply!

Can anyone from 3 to 6 please stand up and make a ton ??

C'mon Aussie c'mon !

Hughes gone for 1 !!

No more review left!

Can the Captain make a stand and dig in ??

Khawaja lost his patient and played a rush high shot and got caught in the outfield. Gone for 14 !

Steve Smith now batting with Clarkey, c'mon guys, just hang in there!!

Smith is gone for 2 !!

Gloved a Swann swinger and got caught by Bell !

Now it's up to the Captain and vice captain !!

86 for 5, we are in deep shit !!

Bloody hell, what's going on man!

The wickets are falling quicker than I can post!

Clarke is gone for 28, not happy Jane !!

The wonder kid Agar is back !

We are going to lose by an inning now !

Well, we can't win this now ! Just playing for some pride !!

Need 49 more runs to avoid a follow on !

England won't force follow on they will bat

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Originally Posted by AHLUNGOR

Well, we can't win this now ! Just playing for some pride !!

Need 49 more runs to avoid a follow on !

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Originally Posted by Iloveasian

England won't force follow on they will bat

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At 3-31, we are still in this, can we get England all out inside 100 tomorrow ?

Is there any one still watching the crickets??

Feel sorry for the boys getting smashed around by the English batsmen !

And no sign of Alastair Cook declaring, they are going to bat the Aussies into the ground and destroy whatever confidence or self believe they may still have so that they can't recover from this batting lesson from the opener RIOT oh was it ROOT !!!

Is there an option to throw in the towel ??

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Originally Posted by AHLUNGOR

Is there any one still watching the crickets??

Feel sorry for the boys getting smashed around by the English batsmen !

And no sign of Alastair Cook declaring, they are going to bat the Aussies into the ground and destroy whatever confidence or self believe they may still have so that they can't recover from this batting lesson from the opener RIOT oh was it ROOT !!!

Is there an option to throw in the towel ??

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Well JE Root is the chap that edged a sitter between Haden and Clarke when he was 2 now he is 178 not out and Clarke and Haden just looked at one another, I guess they must be sick of the site of each other now.

Its about time the Aussies got back to playing cricket hopeless fielding, hopeless batting and now the bowling is following suit!

No wonder they were trying to sell tickets to the Tour out here later in the year last week the longer they leave it the harder it will be to get anyone stupid enough to pay to go and watch them.

If we have to blame somebody that has to be David Warner !!

If he was man enough to hit a bigger punch to KO Joe Root, we won't be facing the 178 no out won't we ??

Why wasn't Paul Gallen in that pub ??

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Originally Posted by AHLUNGOR

If we have to blame somebody that has to be David Warner !!

If he was man enough to hit a bigger punch to KO Joe Root, we won't be facing the 178 no out won't we ??

Why wasn't Paul Gallen in that pub ??

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Haha, nice one. Gal would have put him out for a couple of matches.

On a serious note, our upper order batting even with Warner is woeful. It is almost like skills and decision making have been destroyed by all the 20/20 matches that get played. I blame the IPL for stuffing our ability to bat with patience

Justin Langer is probably 45 years old and half-blind but he would still be scoring more than this lot! Get him outta retirement!

Just abysmal. First off, I'm not sayin Shane Watson is a selfish c..t, but Shane Watson is a selfish c..t! You'd think after fucking up his drs in the first test and potentially costing us the test he'd have learned his lesson, but no. He's an average batsman, average bowler and it seems a bit of a self-obsessed prick, so why do we keep picking him?
Our top 6 are all under performing yet we keep rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. Frustrating to watch...

I think having two Ashes series back to back may have given a different mind set for the Aussie, it's a bit like Qld in game 1, knowing they will win game 2 in Suncorp so it wasn't a must win for them! The Blues on the other hand knew if they lost game one, the series is over as very hard to beat Qld in Suncorp.

England knew the Aussie can do better at home so they must win the first series in England to avoid back to back Ashes defeats!

They obviously wanted it more !!

Apparently Simon Katich is batting well in county cricket , bring him back to replace Khawaja, recall Warner to open the batting, move Michael Clarke up to 3!

It's a tradition that our best batsman always batted at 3 !!

Katich
Warner
Hughes
Clarke
Smith
Henriques
Haddin
Agar
Siddle
Pattinson
Harris

Is my team. Katich is still playing well and provides a ready made senior replacement with the ousting of Watson. Henriques was kicking ass recently in the domestic comp and can bowl.

Warner is not my ideal, but is an X factor that we now need to take a risk on. He would compliment Kat's style of play well.

We can't carry Henriques and Smith in the same side. Henriques played one good test and then quickly came back to earth. Smith has bowled well once and batted well 3-4 times. Add to that Hughes is still far from safe in the side, Warner scores nothing or big, Clarke had a purple patch of form but that's not going to be replicated. Katich should never have been dropped but he's no chance of coming back. I guess we're kind of stuck with what we've got, but I would have brought in George Bailey for a start.

Watson just got out LBW AGAIN!!!! Seriously his value to the team is negligible.