Ashes 2013/14

[OzVilla]

KP throws up in the middle.

Will he guts it out or Give in to it with a loose shot - what happens next might be quite telling.

[OzVilla]

Att: 91,092.

New world record for a day at the Test Match.

[Villan For Life]

Cook really has been a useless tosser in this series.

[eastie]

Root really struggled and the run rate was alarming when he and kp were together - bell really must come in at 3.
Kp had his luck twice but battled through and deserves some credit when way below his best for hanging on in there .

[Dante Lavelli]

Any idea what the significance was of the fingers on lips celebration from australia team?
They strike me as a bit like spurs fans, more interested in arsenal than actually enjoying their successes.

[OzVilla]

Any idea what the significance was of the fingers on lips celebration from australia team?
They strike me as a bit like spurs fans, more interested in arsenal than actually enjoying their successes.

The Barmy Army had struck up a few verses of the "bowls to the left...." song to Johnson after Bairstow put him away for a couple of boundaries.

I agree though, they seem quite sensetive considering everything.  Warner acted like the c$@! he is again I noticed.

[PaulWinch again]

Well done KP that innings has shown he can still do it and he showed grit. Other than that same old story of loads of players getting starts and not going on. Bairstow clearly has a fundamental issue, because you shouldn't get bowled so often. He shouldn't be our second choice wicketkeeper.

[PaulWinch again]

Oh and Bresnan has to get runs because he's not good enough as a threatening first change bowler.

[taylorsworkrate]

I went to sleep as Bell and Pietersen were boring me to tears after Root had done the same. It was completely inevitable that this ridiculous negative batting was going to fail badly again, and it has.

Australia have batted at around 1 run an over quicker than we have all series, and that seems a pretty staggering statistic. You'd think looking at our slower bowlers, the one thing they could do better would be to control the run rate, so it's pretty clear which team is playing the more aggressive, dynamic brand of cricket.

Pietersen gets a lot of stick for the way he gets out at times, but the biggest problem is he bats at a snails pace currently, putting pressure on himself and pretty much forcing him into playing a reckless shot in order to release the shackles. I don't think that this has been a good innings from him. Really he deserves to have got out to that cretinous hook shot after batting himself into a corner.

[taylorsworkrate]

Root really struggled and the run rate was alarming when he and kp were together - bell really must come in at 3.
Kp had his luck twice but battled through and deserves some credit when way below his best for hanging on in there .

[/quote

No, he's good as gold Eastie. He's batting as well as he ever has.

[paul_e]

Most of KPs best innings have come when he's had to grit it out for a while like this, if bres and broad can support him I think he can lead us to 350ish from here, he just needs to be sensible for the first 10 and we need the lower order to support him.

Bairstow is totally out of his depth, I have no idea how he's ahead of Buttler right now.

[taylorsworkrate]

Oh, i'll be more than willing to revise my opinion if Pietersen can play well and get a massive score tomorrow. Problem is firstly he doesn't look capable at the moment, and secondly our lower order have been worse than pathetic with the bat all series.

[paul_e]

it just seems strange to focus your anger on the one guy who's actually managed to hang around and get a half-century.  Bairstow being clean bowled and Cook playing such a poor shot after we'd started decently are the 2 I'm most upset with personally.

[taylorsworkrate]

it just seems strange to focus your anger on the one guy who's actually managed to hang around and get a half-century.  Bairstow being clean bowled and Cook playing such a poor shot after we'd started decently are the 2 I'm most upset with personally.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm hugely pissed off again with pretty much all the batsmen. Bell and Root being the biggest offenders in my opinion so far this innings for the way they went about their innings.

It's just annoyed me that Pietersen seems to be getting praise when if a fielder wouldn't have thrown the ball into a stand, it would have been up there with one of his worst ever innings. The way that he, Root and Bell batted left the late collapse inevitable.

I'm not surprised at how negatively Pietersen and Root played, but Bell was a bit of a shock considering how fluent he has looked the last few months. Maybe the pitch is really slow. Although I'm willing to bet it will look a lot easier to score freely on when the Aussies bat.

[eastie]

it just seems strange to focus your anger on the one guy who's actually managed to hang around and get a half-century.  Bairstow being clean bowled and Cook playing such a poor shot after we'd started decently are the 2 I'm most upset with personally.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm hugely pissed off again with pretty much all the batsmen. Bell and Root being the biggest offenders in my opinion so far this innings for the way they went about their innings.

It's just annoyed me that Pietersen seems to be getting praise when if a fielder wouldn't have thrown the ball into a stand, it would have been up there with one of his worst ever innings. The way that he, Root and Bell batted left the late collapse inevitable.

I'm not surprised at how negatively Pietersen and Root played, but Bell was a bit of a shock considering how fluent he has looked the last few months. Maybe the pitch is really slow. Although I'm willing to bet it will look a lot easier to score freely on when the Aussies bat.

The Aussies bowl pretty accurately but even so England are very negative in our batting - I loved seeing stokes take on Lyon and despatch him for 6 - bell must bat at 3 instead of root.