Am I the only one here who is watching the cricket (well, the highlights anyway)?

[MossletoeAndWine]

Well am I?

Surely one of Strauss and collingwood could get a big score. Strauss owes us and Collingwood is on fire. But so was Bell.

aDadOnAOneHorseOpenSleigh, yeah, you would have thought, wouldn't you? So did I! But it didn't quite pan out that way!!!

Suppose Strauss wasn't too bad to be fair but not nearly as good as expected! KP pulled a stormer and ... way to go Monty!! Hmm. Duncan Fletcher needs to eat a large slice of humble pie methinks!!!

OMG am starting to develop very un cricketing thoughts about Monty.

In a way am quite liking that no huge total has been racked up (touch wood with Aussies being in to bat like but..)
It makes the game so much more playable and competitive.
Why is it that Englands batters can only fire when the bowlers don't and vice versa - if they just came together at the right time, they'd be lethal!

Piffle I'm so glad you said that I thought it was just me!!!!

What went wrong with my festive smiley there?

Yes well hmmm, if we thought we had any hope of even drawing the series yesterday, that's all changed now.

The team just knows it is inferior I think.

BTW my thoughts on monty are strictly cricket related! And good on him for getting 5 wickets and being part of the highest partnership of the innings. Who would have put money on panesar and harmison having the highest partnership?!

aDad..thanks again!

Have just switched on the t.v. for the purposes of watching a cricket match. The first time in my life. Ever. I am a Scot by birth and this is really the Sassenach game... A buddy ahs been talking about nothing else for about a month. So it's either "feck off, mate" (in an Aussie accent)...or......whatch some of it....

quite liked it.....may even wait up with the radio for a bit of commentary...or is that just tooo much???

aDad I know, how impressive! Wonder what's going through Fletcher's mind?

DeepPann, it is addictive isn't it?

my dh is there watching it.
just spoke to him, he sounded depressed. said it was as bad as the last test, but in a different way (??? that probably makes sense to someone who knows their arse from their elbow re cricket)

no problem Pann, looking good. I got it from the joke "How does good Kind Wencleslas like his pizza?".

Anyway, depressing stuff it is. Whereas in previous tests I've done a bit of night time radio listening, this time round I've switched on, heard the score and thought 'no I'd rather be asleep'.

Getting worse...making apoint of switching the radio on first thing to hear the score/latest....

Cricketing buddy reckons at source the English are in mode of playing a 'one day game' when they are playing a 5-day test. Hence dreadful decisions and having no lengthy concenttration.

and when is the next series..??

pommy dh is talking about getting his aussie citizenship sooner rather than later after the cricketing performance of the english

Tell him to hold on till the next series, 2000 miles! Australia's team is brilliant but aged - this will defo be the last Ashes for Warne and McGrath. In fact, most of their key players are well over 30. Don't forget - we won the Ashes last time and apart from the first test, it was a convincing victory. This time, we're over there - always trickier. And Flintoff is off form, which has been a disaster. Give it another two years and I reckon we'll get them back.

Am I wrong to dream that we have an outside chance of batting out the day tomorrow?

The pitch has been getting flatter. Fewer wickets have fallen each day, something like 12, 9, 5, 2. So maybe just the one tomorrow?? And Freddie and one of pietersen or cook give us a day to remember tomorrow.

I should calm down i think.

arrggh you posted that too soon!

damn we just lost 2 wickets since i posted 7 minutes ago.

That'll teach me.

Still it's flintoff and pietersen in

absolutely foxinsocks!

lol

I actually saw a glimmer of hope when they showed the weather this morning on the beeb and a big rain cloud passes quite near to Perth tomorrow but unfortunately, not near enough (it never rains there goddammit!)

rain would be great wouldn't it.

but then we still need to win the last two to win the series. Big ask.

You don't think you actually have a chance do you...?

I can't see us winning or even retaining them tbh. We'll be lucky to salvage a draw from this one (but I am an eternal cricket pessimist probably from years of watching tests like these ).

I'm going to drag the kids to the park now. Ds's first experience of cricket was the Ashes in the UK last year - he can't quite understand why Australia suddenly look so good .

not really no.

staying in bat a whole day? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

I feel quite depressed about it actually, what went wrong for England?

Listening to Radio Fivelive yesterday it seems pretty much everything.

I dont think they were right mentally for this series.

Some of the stars of the last ashes are either out injured (Simon Jones, Vaughan) or not playing like they did last time round (Strauss, Flintoff, Harmison).

Also Australia were hurt after losing last time, and far hungrier.

Since the ashes our record has been average, australia's has been incredible. They also had plenty of time off. We didn't.

Can probably think of some more excuses if you give me long enough!

We. are. not. as. good. as. australia.

I think that sums it up pretty well, I was hoping it might have been a bit more of a fight though, still I'd better not make any 'I think it's all over' statements just yet...