The Ashes and Cricket World Cup Discussion Thread

Not too good a start but Ive known worse.

Need to bowl tight tomorrow and trust Swanny can get amongst them.

I understand the concern about Pieterson but he can be a match winner and todays score is an improvement on recent innings which may give him more confidence. Slightly concerned about Trott who seems to be slipping of late and the failures of Prior & Broad do not help.

We need the bowlers to perform as they have all been in good form of late and hope we get an early breakthrough tomorrow, especially Mr. Ponting - don't want him to give him the opportunity of shouting his mouth off.

The fact remains is that KP is still technically poor. His mental state has always been in question since been deprived of the captaincy.He has not improved his form since being dropped in the summer and what has Eoin Morgan done to deservee such disrespect. I think if Strauss was not as unlucky as he was with that shot they may have got close to 350 that and a hat trick they did well to get to 260 in the end.

If they can restrict Australia to about 320-350 they are still in the game.Plenty to play for.

Sporting Index have Australia 1st Inns score at 385-400. SpreadEx similar at 380-395.

monty magic

Not the best of starts i must say but credit to Peter Siddle for bowling a good line and length keeping to the basics. But they is still 4 days to go in this 1st test and anything can happen.

Basically the reason why Australia have not been playing well in the last 12 months is due to the absence of Siddell. If he were not playing England would be coasting on 300 odd for 2. It was old school bowling which got him the rewards. ie line and length. If England do the same we can still still get an innings lead if we dont bowl line and length the best we can hope for is a one sided draw

Lets look at the positives. Pietersen, Bell, Cooke looked in good nick and could easily gone on to big scores so for the series its not all doom and gloom

Siddle bowled well, what he did on the 1st day won't happen every time we bat and the rest of the Aussie attack is nothing.

So far, I think we are doing just about okay, a real shame we didn't get a go with the new ball at the end of day 2 and then tonight (D 3 Morn) but still hopefully if they do get a lead it doesn't go above 50.

Over the batting line up of the side I would swap Bell and Collingwood. Really with Colly at 5 we have just KP in terms of taking the game away from the oppostion and with the form that Bell is in and the style he has then him at 5 would be good in my eyes and then of course Colly can bat with the aggression of Prior, Broad and Swann at the other end if it all goes pear shaped.

This Morning session tonight is pivotal to the game.

Note from the Performance Squad - Hildreth got a double hundred

I would say England are still in this game as the Aussies have only 5 wickets in hand and are trailing by 40 runs. If the Aussies were to get a lead i don't think it will be that sufficient though.

I now predict a Cardiff-esque draw or something like we get 150-200 ahead and the Aussies have a session and a half or so to get there but fail. Could be heavy rain in Brisbane on Monday.

How many lives did Hussey have? Hardly a chanceless knock of 190 odd from him

Bottom line: England batted poorly and too many dismissals were self inflicted. 260 on that wicket after winning the toss was well below par and left the bowlers in a hole. I said in my first post on this thread that England hopes rested with the batting and I maintain that. There has to be an improvement and fast or the Aussies will have their tails up and things will get much harder. I trust our bowling but I always worry the next flurry of self inflicted England dismissals is just around the corner.