New Ashes thread

[Nails]

Graham: "We have to thank Joe Root and his chin for this series, if Warner had played from the start I think it would have been very different. He has added much needed energy into the field for Australia and pretty handy contribution with the bat as well."

I like this guy on cricinfo.

[Bill Manspeaker]

flower a bit of trampoline bounce there and it catches Warner's edge. great innings Warner.

3 down, need 131 more

[Bill Manspeaker]

flower Clarke gone. cops another pearler first ball after drinks.
4 down, 125 to go

[Nails]

6 down now

120 runs to go.

Finally we have the tail at the crease so we can have the run scoring potential to win this match.

[stew42]

Flower.
We were 168 for 2. Now we're 216 for 9.

[BratPack]

We must rise up, dust ourselves off and do the only thing we as Aussies can do...

Blame Michael Clarke and Nathan Lyon

[fidou]

Spent the night on the couch drifting in and out of sleep watching the cricket now I have to go to work tired and PISSED OFF

[GoLions]

Went to bed when we were about 1-120.
WHAT THE ACTUAL flower???!!!

[Jukes]

Broady <3 best bowler in the world

3-0 hahahahaha

[Ringo]

The way we are playing we would be flat out beating the Womens Team.  At least they are bringing some joy to us.

Warner and Clarke got pearlers of a ball and well done to the bowlers.

Beats me why when the ball is swinging in the Batsmen walk across the crease to try and turn the ball to the leg side where the field is strong. They would be much better taking guard on leg stump and driving the ball through the covers. It was obvious this was the Poms attack method and we did absolutely nothing to counter as can be seen by the 3 LBW decisions which I may add were all out. Shocking technique.

Changes need to be made for the next test but not a lot of options.  Selectors imo lost us this test with Bird not giving the support to Harris when Englands tail added 80 runs for the last 3 wickets, Starc would have kept the pressure up.

[Capper]

Speaking of Watson, someone has updated the Shane Watson wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane_Watson
hilarious

Nicknames -LBW and Plumb. Classic

Shane Robert Watson (born 17 June 1981) is an Australian cricketer. He is a right-handed LBW candidate and a right-handed fast medium bowler. He announced his retirement due to injury after the 4th 2013 Ashes Test Match citing deep vein thrombosis, caused by being repeatedly hit in the same spot on his front leg.

[Capper]

Speaking of Watson, someone has updated the Shane Watson wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane_Watson
hilarious

Nicknames -LBW and Plumb. Classic

Shane Robert Watson (born 17 June 1981) is an Australian cricketer. He is a right-handed LBW candidate and a right-handed fast medium bowler. He announced his retirement due to injury after the 4th 2013 Ashes Test Match citing deep vein thrombosis, caused by being repeatedly hit in the same spot on his front leg.

Batting style - Left Leg forwards.

[me]

a few thoughts after just waking up after pulling nearly an all nighter watching this debacle:

the umpiring remains a massive joke and nothing short of an abomination on the game of cricket ... how bresnan could be given not out lbw when not offering a shot to bird (which looked pretty plumb) is beyond me when contrasted with watson/haddin immediately given lbw when the balls were shown to be barely scratching their leg stumps is beyond me    ----    i only hope australia gets the same volume of home ground decisions which england have received this series

that said, umpiring didn't affect the result here, as they would've got out probably next ball if they had survived those decisions.

also, australia's batting sucks ass and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. khawaja/hughes/smith/watson are not part of australia's short or long term future and have deep mental scars to go with their fragile and disgraceful batting techniques ... as for haddin, i can't believe he was even selected for this tour as he has always been an underachieving yet overrated flog

also, even though warner punched the douchebag root, he should have been played in the first test without a doubt... definitely did england a great service by not playing him ... unfathomable that scrubs like cowan/hughes/khawaja/smith got a go ahead of him

our seam bowling has been pretty good and we've pretty much broken even with england ... but you can't win if your batsmen don't make runs ... additionally our bowlers have made half our runs this series so they've been doing the batsmen's job for them

finally, not for one second did i think we were going to win last night, ever since 2005 @ the oval (langer and hayden both got tons and yet we got skittled for 367 and subsequently drew the final test) our batting has always tended to collapse like a sack of shower against england... just check the scorecards from 2009 where australia were routinely bundled out for nothing despite watson/katich making a lot of good opening partnerships...  in fact i remember broad ripping through us in a very similar fashion to last night at the oval in 2009 ...  i was just waiting for that first wicket to fall and it was pretty obvious the rest would follow

to summarize... australian cricket is as weak as piss.

[Cicjose]

Australia losing their last 9 for 77 8)

[j959]

Australia losing their last 9 for 77 8)

that's ridiculous for a national 'professional' sporting team ...