The Ashes Tour of Australia 2025/26

I'm sure many of you will join me in sending condolences to former England Captain (and an Ashes winning one) Michael Vaughan who flew home midway through the Third Test to be with his father who has now sadly passed away.

A chaotic start to the Fourth Test

England win the toss and field and bowl Australia out for 152 with Tongue taking a five wicket haul...
Australia bowl and England (being England) are bowled out for..110 with Brook top scoring (41) and Neser on his debut (I think) taking 4 wickets..
Australia extend lead to 46 at Stumps
and many are now probably questioning the pitch, which includes Michael Vaughan - saying the pitch has 'done too much' and is not producing 'a fair contest between bat and ball'
This could be a two day Test if we are not careful...

Absolute madness...

^^ This was Neser's 4th Test, although his 3 previous were pink ball Tests, so his debut Test with a red ball.

Very surprising that with a Boxing Day Test & the expected high attendance that they have served up a green wicket. Clearly this has been a directive & the administrators can't be that bothered about giving the paying public anything substantial or any sort of a contest they have made a lottery out of the match & just gone all in on ensuring that England's under pressure & out of form batsmen will struggle yet again & that they will be out performed by the Aussie batters. The decision of the pitch is a clear sign that they are going all out for a 5-0 series win & they are not bothered how they achieve that goal.

I wouldn't be happy with that pitch if I had a ticket for all five days and travelled from England

apparently there's something between 7 & 10mm of grass on it..

Thanks for correcting me about Neser, I hadn't realised that he'd played in 3 pink ball tests.. and if we can even snatch victory from jaws of defeat in this one, it'll be a good morale booster and ram the administrators' directive, whatever it is - back down their throats..

(24-12-2025 19:40 )lovebabes56 Wrote:  I'm sure many of you will join me in sending condolences to former England Captain (and an Ashes winning one) Michael Vaughan who flew home midway through the Third Test to be with his father who has now sadly passed away.

Losing a parent is the worst having lost my Mum.

Eventful day one of the fourth Ashes Test with 20 wickets falling. Australia batting first all out for 152 then England 110 all out. England were 8-3 and 16-4. The 20 wickets to fall is the most on the opening day of an Ashes Test since 1909 and surpassed the 19 of the first day of the first Test of this series in Perth.

England vs. Australia: Day two of the Fourth Test. Legit LOL from me in the early hours of morning at Brydon Carse batting at #3. Alex Hartley couldn't stop laughing. Jonathan Agnew couldn't believe it either.

England needing 175 for their first win in Australia in 19 attempts get it done in the Fourth Ashes Test by four wickets. 14 years ago was their last win there. The Fourth Test only lasted two days. Feel for the Australia and England fans who bought their Fourth Ashes Test tickets a while ago for Day 3, 4 and 5 to get fuck all cricket.

ENGLAND WIN!!!
First test win in Aussie since 2011!!
While I an happy with the result, what I am not happy about is the test finishing in two days as feel a lot of people may not be happy with it if they had tickets for the other days, It was a spectacle, but also at the same time not a great advertisement for Test cricket. Whatever the directive was, I will say that pitch as it turns out probably wasn't the best for an Ashes Test. The Aussie Cricket Board have seen their directive spectacularly backfire in their faces. We should now demand an extra Test to square the series!

Been up all night watching. Off to bed. Cheers.