The Ashes

andy

England won the toss and are batting.

I love the idea that we're going to win this at a canter, but a drawn series seems pretty likely.

Views?

Ian

England are slightly the better team, but Australia will be pretty tough to beat at home. Australia have a poor attack I think and it will be interesting to see how the spinner works out but then we are a bit variable (e.g. Broad has never convinced me). I would say Australia just will take it, but let's see how the first day goes ...

Ian

As to the toss, I'm with the old dictum of always bat first but it seems there is some concern that there is a bit of moisture, in which case England's only Lancastrian would have mopped up.

andy

Listening to Vaughn, I was surprised how bullish he was about taking this test and the series.

Boycott, playing to type, was just saying 'don't mess it up'.

Simon Hughes on Twitter is saying 367 as a first innings total for England.

andy

Strauss caught third ball.

Bloody hell. It's going to be like this, isn't it.

Ian

Yup. Nonsense shot from a captain in a first over with no runs on the board.

Ian

Are you not watching on Sky then Andy?

andy

Listening to TMS. I got rid of Sky Sports because I was watching it too much. I felt I had to choose between following the promotion battle for the Segunda División or getting a life.

Ian

As we sit swapping messages on a website about a cricket game best enjoyed by watching it live I wonder out loud how the life getting bit of that has been going?

sincers

cock it!

andy

@Ian - Good point, well made

sincers

Nice one Cookie!

nick_m

Typical. We break these records: - Englands highest total ever in an Ashes Test at the Gabba - Cook: Highest individual total at the Gabba, beating previous record holder Sir Don Bradman - Cook and Trott: highest partnership for England in Australia - Cook and Trott: highest partnership for any team at the Gabba, including Australia and still draw.

sincers

Australia were breaking batting records as well though. Its just the wicket massively favoured the batsmen.

nick_m

Yep - the last record broken beat the record established by Haddin and Hussey just two days before! Maybe a record was broken for the number of records broken in a test.

Alex

Run out in first over. Get in!

Alex

Ponting golden duck!

Ian

2-3 wow... @Andy are you still glad you cancelled that subscription?

sincers

Great start, but not far off our first innings total for the first test. We just need to figure out how to bowl them all out again.

andy

@ian - what? is there some cricket on?

WillM

Look, it's all great and that, but it's only made the headlines (on, say, the BBC homepage) when we're losing. When we do great, it disappears.

#hatestheliberalmediacrickethaters

sincers

GET IN!!!

andy

The player ratings from the Sydney Morning Herald are classic: <http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/second-ashes-test-player-ratings-20101207-18o71.html>; Doug Bollinger: Pietersen gave more respect to the guy driving the inflatable drinks cart. Alistair Cook: Plenty of natives thought he was Joe Average, a beige English compiler with as much batting charisma as a bag of wood. As it happens, he's possibly the best player in the history of cricket.

sincers

I like this: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tomfordyce/2010/12/time_is_right_for_happy_englan.html>;

Ali

Just bought tickets to go to the 4th test !

sincers

Jelly! (as the missus would say) I'm going over in Feb - entirely too late! Hopefully I'll have plenty to gloat about when I arrive though.

nick_m

trott sledge to doug the rug - "keep your hair on"

Ed B

I haven't missed a ball so far and as a result am a tad knackered! Fantastic win in Adelaide - more than makes up for four years ago. It's a complere role reversal: England settled, Aus making panic changes (that so far haven't had any affect.)

Real shame about Broad. Hope they go for Tremlett at Perth.

Also, my money would have been on Beefy in the car park!

nick_m

To be fair, Chappell is 67. Not much of a contest.

Ed B

@nick_m Fair dinkum point!

David

If kreuzkav can spam the site with street noise rants can I start spamming the site with topical Roots Manuva videos?

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