The Ashes 2013(4)

Mike

You have been waiting to do that for ages haven't you!

Naturellement Bruce

Panthera rosea  -  Watch out next weekend around Chester le Street,  might be a few in the crowd.  

Whats the local wisdom on the pitch - will it hold or change over the 5 days, good toss to win etc..

Carefull Mike !!

I was was born and grew up in Chester-le-Street.

Our school football pitches were dug up to create the County cricket ground and I used to live in Homelands Park (3rd bungalow in from Ropery Lane) with pleasant views across the local park and football pitches toward Lumley Castle.

Not everybody in Chester-le-Street was enthusiastic about the new cricket ground or the associated crowds.

However, its no longer in my back yard, so to speak, but every time the ground is mentioned, it brings back youthful memories.

Cheers

Don

Here we go again. I reckon Australia will swap Lyon for Bird if Harris is fit and go all seam attack. England always want to play Swann but I would not mind them doing the same.

Onions for Broad or Bresnan maybe more likely.

Bruce

So England unchanged, win the toss and bat. Aussies replace Starc with Bird.

Lots of cloud but no rain forecast. Slow start. 

"Onions for Broad or Bresnan maybe more likely."

Nope!

Trott and Cook settling in for the weekend by the look of things. A dispiriting sight for the Aussies.

Bruce

That scuppered it! I'm keeping quiet now

At less than 3 runs per over I wonder whether England are already playing for a draw?  

You can say that again, Eng 168/5 !!!!!

Can't see anything in the pitch or the bowlers,  so it must be the batting.  

Bairstow & Prior need to bat the innings of their life  .....  Bairstow especially needs to justify his selection with his first notable innings of the series

195/7  !!!!

Can they hold out until the close

New ball available,  question is will/do they need a new ball

Whoops  198/8

Dear oh, dear. 197 for 8.  Aussie bowling looks nothing special. This is truly woeful batting performance by England. 

Poor stuff, really seem to have several players losing their way. Trott seems to be all over the crease, others casual or just muddled. Australia bowled with patience and discipline.

Does not look like a 250 first innings wicket I reckon.

Bruce

I agree, Bruce. Apart from the delivery that dismissed Cook I thought the rest were cheap. Bell's chip to mid-off was particularly poor. Even though the pitch seems a bit slow I would have expected a good batting side prepared to apply themselves to achieve 400 or so.  Looks like we're going to ask our attack to dig the batsman out of a hole again. 

Australia 12 for 2

Michael Vaughan 'Australia need 14 to avoid the follow on' 

Bruce

34/2 

Broad seems to be firing on all 12

He's got both this morning 4overs 2maidens 19 for 2

Khawaja for a duck was handy  !!!!

When are you going Bruce ???

A day of 2 halves

A great morning for England with Auz on 75/3 at lunch

Broad did the damage with 4 wickets 

The afternoon let them off the hook with 222/5 at stumps

Maiden century for Rogers - great innings & still n.o.

Eng need some quick & cheap wickets tomorrow morning  but even so its all set for a tight match 

Good knock so far by Rodgers.

But gee, Broad did trouble him all day and the DRS confusion again caught behind, LBW which is it!  

Watson finally stumped up for some runs as well.

crackie,  that "not out" has us all confused, many attempts in the press have tried to explain it have not helped.  e.g.  "Rogers went to DRS to correctly overturn a caught-behind decision, even though replays showed he could have been out lbw if England had gone down that route instead"  ehhh????England appealed - but as in all appeals no one says howzat catch,  the umpire assumed it was for a catch & went upstairs for a catch replay, the 3rd umpire said no catch = umpires error (IMO)

That’s it,  all out for 270  a lead of 32

Thinking about that Rogers “Not Out” on 20, & the single digits on the Aus score sheets,  it puts another perspective on the England innings. 

Given there's two days to go I'd like England to have a lead of 300 but that might be a tad optimistic unless Bell carries his wicket through the innings.  In any event tomorrow looks set to be another fascinating day  

Had a good day in Durham yesterday-and no rain!

Feels like the momentum has shifted a bit but the pitch is slow rather than evil. Need 300+ to be safe I think, Australia will chase positively and have a bit of a go with nothing to lose and a good positive couple of innings could swing it for them

Bruce