[butters]

Morgan not dropped
 

As much as I would have liked to see him dropped it is a question of who you bring in. Bopara has done nothing special in the warm up games to make him a shoe in for the position so might as well make Morgan play for his place on the tour to Sri Lanka. Assuming that he does fail then I suppose Bopara is next in line but whether he is the man for the job is a whole other debate. 

[Plattsy]

A million wickets today and probably a million more tomorrow. A slender lead will be handy I feel, with our only saving grace being, we might have to chase a small total on a 3rd day wicket rather than a fifth day one. Big day tomorrow.

I'm hoping this series is a blip. We'll see.

[butters]

We need as big a lead as possible because I wouldn't trust England to score 100 batting last at the minute and while the bowlers are doing a sterling job the batsmen are far from showing even a shred of confidence. Strangely (or thankfully IMO as it has meant an interesting series) it seems that both team's batsmen are suffering from a lack of confidence out in the middle.

Still curious on peoples opinions re: how SA or Australia would have done had they been playing Pakistan in this series - not sure if either team has played on the sub-continent lately and with DRS in place (which rules out India).   

Aggers discusses the "DRS issues" which I mentioned earlier here in more detail as well.

A big contributor to this is DRS. In the days before it, you could offer a pad as a second line of defence and you would be safe. I'm not saying that is the right way, but it is the way a lot of batsmen were given not out as a result.

Old spin-bowling friends of mine would lament it and wonder if they would ever get an lbw decision.

Now, there is a very different mindset. Umpires are being encouraged to make bolder decisions than they did before, and are giving more batsmen out. Not only that, they are being backed up by the technology. The days of playing with the pad are gone.

[Richie Crouch]

It was a great night out at the mcg last night. I was sat next to 2 stoic Indian fans cheering them on to victory. It almost got a bit too close for comfort when Gambia didn't score off the first 3 of the last over but it was good Craic being the only white Indian in the stadium

Hopefully more of the same tomorrow 

[ksjs]

Put it into perspective then ksjs and tell us where you're from/where your allegiances lie.
Rich

I'm from Northern Ireland and have no particular cricketing allegiances; the West Indies captured my imagination when I started watching cricket. For me they stood (stand) for loads of really positive things and I would always support them. England on the other hand seemed and seem to embody journeyman worthiness, not so easy to like.

Good to see the 'world's best' putting in another classy performance not to mention Swann's prediction of an Australia-style cricketing dynasty starting to evolve...

[GraemeA]

Whats going on. Rubbish in the Tests, when we are supposed to be good at that form of the game.

And then we win the 1st ODI by 130, when we are normally shit at that form of the game.

Can we have a smiley for 'the world has been turned upside down' please

[Plattsy]

Meant to post this a while ago but forgot. Here is a list of Australian cricketers all born overseas.
ENGLAND (10): Charles Bannerman, John Hodges, Tom Kendall, William Midwinter, Percy McDonnell, William Cooper, Henry Musgrove, Hanson Carter, Tony Dell and Andrew Symonds.
SCOTLAND (1): Archie Jackson.
IRELAND (2): Tom Horan, Tom Kelly.
SOUTH AFRICA (1): Kepler Wessels.
NEW ZEALAND (3): Tom Groube, Clarrie Grimmett and Brendon Julian.
INDIA (2): Bransby Cooper and Rex Sellers.
SRI LANKA (1): Dav Whatmore.
PAKISTAN (1): Usman Khawaja

Englands forgeigners (doesn't include Scotland and Ireland)
AUSTRALIA (9): Billy Murdoch, John Ferris, Sammy Woods, Albert Trott, ‘Gubby’ Allen, Adam Hollioake, Ben Hollioake, Jason Gallian, Tim Ambrose.
SOUTH AFRICA (10): Basil D’Oliviera, Tony Greig, Ian Greig, Allan Lamb, Chris Smith, Robin Smith, Andrew Strauss, Kevin Pietersen, Matt Prior, Ian Trott.
WEST INDIES (11): Lord Harris, Pelham Warner, Roland Butcher, Norman Cowans, Wilf Slack, Gladstone Small, Phillip DeFreitas, Devon Malcolm, Chris Lewis, Neil Williams, Joseph Benjamin.
NEW ZEALAND (1): Andy Caddick.
INDIA (16): K.S. Ranjitsinhji (‘Ranji’), Edward Wynyard, Richard Young, Neville Tufnell, Douglas Jardine, K.S. Duleepsinhji (‘Duleep’), Nawab of Pataudi, Sr., Errol Holmes, Norman Mitchell-Innes, George Emmett, Colin Cowdrey, John Jameson, Bob Woolmer, Robin Jackman, Nasser Hussain, Minal Patel.
PAKISTAN (2): Usman Afzaal, Owais Shah.
ZIMBABWE (formerly Rhodesia) (2): Graeme Hick, Paul Parker.
KENYA (1): Derek Pringle.
ZAMBIA (2) : Phil Edmonds, Neil Radford.
GERMANY (2): Donald Carr, Paul Terry.
ITALY (1): Ted Dexter.
PERU (1): Freddie Brown.
HONG KONG (1): Dermot Reeve.
PAPUA NEW GUINEA (1): Geraint Jones.
DENMARK (1): Amjad Khan.

South Africa's
ENGLAND (22): Harold Baumgartner, Richard Dumbrill, Charles Finlason, Cyril Francois, Howard Francis, George Glover, Alfred Hall, Ernest “Baberton” Halliwell, Frank Hearne, George Hearne, Philip Hutchinson, Percy Mansell, James “Bonnor” Middleton, Charles Mills, William Milton, Frank Mitchell, Frank Nicholson, Dave Nourse, Tommy Routledge, Reggie Schwarz, George Thornton and Joseph Willoughby.
SCOTLAND (1): Tom Campbell.
IRELAND (2): Clement Johnson and Robert Poore.
RHODESIA [now Zimbabwe] (8 ): Colin Bland, John du Preez, Steven Elworthy, Geoffrey Lawrence, Joseph Partridge, Anthony Pithey, David Pithey and Denis Tomlinson.
MOZAMBIQUE (1): Dave Ironside.
SWAZILAND (1): Lawrence “Fish” Markham.
INDIA (4): Robert Stewart, Godfrey Cripps, Bob Crisp and Thomas Ward.
BERMUDA (1): Charles Hime.
JAVA [Dutch East Indies] (1): Frederick Cook.
EGYPT (1): John Traicos.
PORTUGAL (1): Richard Westcott

[Grubes]

Better today at least. All the top order got a half century and pietersen got his 150.
Sri lanka are left with 181 to chase and we have two days to bowl them out and make sure we win.

Also thanks to TTT for sorting out today I off to my first test match in August.

[aLICErOBERTSfANkLUB]

Whenever I see many tumbling wickets in a day -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/hi/english/static/cricket/statistics/scorecards/2012/04/o34079/html/scorecard.stm
- and the prospect of Lords' "Wicket Inspectors" being despatched hot-foot from St John's Wood, I can never dispel this image from my mind…

[butters]

Well we finally got a win on the sub continent and manage to stay No 1 in the world for now!  Well deserved if only for the consistent performances put in by the bowlers and while I like to think that the batting unit might have learned something from the two tours I won't be putting my (imaginary) house on a win in India at the end of the year. Still the Windies next and then the big series of the summer against SA.

 

[aLICErOBERTSfANkLUB]

So.

Windies defeated in all forms of the game.

And a match-winnning performance from Alex Hales - in much the same manner Ian Bell did in the ODI last week.


Kevin Who?

[andy_e]

It was pretty close though!

[andy_e]

Good start by England but then they crumbled slightly. Let's hope they can pick up the pace again! More of those powerful Morgan 6s please!

[andy_e]

That's the ticket! Has it come a little too late though?

[Richie Crouch]

Could be a close one.

Was hoping for bopara to do a bit more today seeing as he is likely to stand in for the south Africa test series. Always gets a couple of half decent knocks then disappoints!

[andy_e]

He does seem quite slow to get into the stride once he comes out. Cracking last few overs, I could hardly get any work done!

[GraemeA]

The Cons are 96/2 after 19 overs - 2nd wicket just gone down. next 10 overs wil be crucial

[butters]

Come on Jimmy - two wickets in three balls makes life rather interesting!

[andy_e]

Exciting play at Headingley, can we get a run chase on the cards for the evening session?

[aLICErOBERTSfANkLUB]

And smile, smile, smile while you've a Lucifer to light your fag,
Smile, boys, that's the style.

What's the use of worrying?
It never was worth while,
Sooooo…

[andy_e]

The KP parody account has nothing to do with me. It's obvious, only 1 in 4 are funny.

And it's definitely not @timbresnan as the grammar is far too advanced.

‏

[andy_e]

4 wickets in the opening session, this is shaping up to be an exciting match!

[Richie Crouch]

Not looking too pretty. Can't see our middle order performing anything like the recovery the saffers made. Hope bell can salvage us a respectable score. Wonder how much we need to avoid the follow on

[andy_e]

Fuck me. Thought we were in with a shout here.

[andy_e]

Swann proving he's not a dying duck by twatting two sixes and numerous fours! Exciting play!