*Official* Fifth Test at The Oval

[Burgey]

And with the declaration, what if England collapsed heavily? Then Clarke would've been seen as a genius.

Yes it's one of those 'if my aunt had balls' issues now, but I imagine Clarke would've been thinking like that when he declared.

Of course he did. There's also the fact that Australia was in the position of striving to salvage something out of the series by virtue io their own ineptitude in earlier matches combined with England's good bowling. Both sides were playing te state of the match and the state of the series.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

Wow. This is simply incredible.

 

[Ruckus]

Because they were throwing the bat, ie. taking serious risks. What if one of the many thick edges off Prior had went to gully?

You can do that when it's Day 5 and you probably won't lose the game. You can't that on Day 3 when you're 250, 300, 400 runs behind.

None of the main batsmen except Pietersen were taking excessive risks in the second innings, they were pretty much playing normally. And that was their game plan - they were trying to go along at a pretty standard rate, and then would try and go for the chase when they knew wickets were in hand. Funnily enough as well I actually think Eng looked all the better for it.

 

[MW1304]

I really think that getting bowled out in a session was much less likely than a fairly typical 40-over chase. Especially on that wicket.

On the evidence of the wicket, and the way we batting in the previous innings, I'm not sure you could say it looked particularly likely from all the evidence. Although I agree bowling us out looked even more unlikely.

 

[Burgey]

It seems from the post match celebrations that England players have expressed their disappointment at the state of the pitch.

 

[Howe_zat]

Meanwhile, in more important news

I feel a bit funny

 

[Burgey]

Wow. This is simply incredible.

Thanks mate. I thought it was a decent post too.

 

[Ruckus]

It seems from the post match celebrations that England players have expressed their disappointment at the state of the pitch.

I'm not sure if it was a joke article or not, but apparently Eng gave monty panesar a bit of a post match tribute.

 

[Adders]

It seems from the post match celebrations that England players have expressed their disappointment at the state of the pitch.

Not like a steak that you can send back when not served as ordered eh

 

[Flem274*]

Ruckus on day whatever it was England took their time because when you have 500 sitting on you, it becomes very hard to win the game because not only do you have to compile a huge total to win the game, you have to do that with scoreboard pressure weighing on you. In that situation, smart teams take their time and have a look at the pitch and bowling they're facing with the aim of setting a platform so players lower down the order can cash in from 200/2 or something similarly nice. Unless you have a Sehwag in your team you won't be throwing the bat from ball one because 30/3 in reply to 500 equals death.

England had their look and found the pitch to be relatively easy to survive on but hard to score on, and they found the bowling to be good. That means they took it easy because they wanted that big platform for the middle order.

This is pretty straightforward stuff.

 

[Burgey]

Not like a steak that you can send back when not served as ordered eh

Will be having a steak tonight tbh.

 

[Ruckus]

Ruckus on day whatever it was England took their time because when you have 500 sitting on you, it becomes very hard to win the game because not only do you have to compile a huge total to win the game, you have to do that with scoreboard pressure weighing on you. In that situation, smart teams take their time and have a look at the pitch and bowling they're facing with the aim of setting a platform so players lower down the order can cash in from 200/2 or something similarly nice. Unless you have a Sehwag in your team you won't be throwing the bat from ball one because 30/3 in reply to 500 equals death.

England had their look and found the pitch to be relatively easy to survive on but hard to score on, and they found the bowling to be good. That means they took it easy because they wanted that big platform for the middle order.

This is pretty straightforward stuff.

I cbf anymore honestly, this has never been the argument.

 

[Spark]

Ruckus on day whatever it was England took their time because when you have 500 sitting on you, it becomes very hard to win the game because not only do you have to compile a huge total to win the game, you have to do that with scoreboard pressure weighing on you. In that situation, smart teams take their time and have a look at the pitch and bowling they're facing with the aim of setting a platform so players lower down the order can cash in from 200/2 or something similarly nice. Unless you have a Sehwag in your team you won't be throwing the bat from ball one because 30/3 in reply to 500 equals death.

England had their look and found the pitch to be relatively easy to survive on but hard to score on, and they found the bowling to be good. That means they took it easy because they wanted that big platform for the middle order.

This is pretty straightforward stuff.

In particular because it takes ages to get back into the game. You might be looking good at 2/150. But if you're careless and that becomes 5/200, chasing 500, you're in serious trouble.

 

[Furball]

I cbf anymore honestly, this has never been the argument.

Well what the **** is your argument then?

 

[Furball]

In particular because it takes ages to get back into the game. You might be looking good at 2/150. But if you're careless and that becomes 5/200, chasing 500, you're in serious trouble.

Taking time out of the game also puts the onus back on the opposition to take risks in order to win the game.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Sorry but why are we discussing England's negative batting from days ago? Don't know if people have noticed but that's allowed.

Pathetic time-wasting, constantly harassing and crying at the umpires isn't. And that was what cheated England out of a Test victory, and it was yesterday not 3-4 days ago.

We should be discussing what length of ban Clarke should be getting.

 

[Uppercut]

Tbf to Clarke and his declaration, I don't think many of us were expecting England to get anywhere near the chase at 5.5 rpo.

Yeah, it was closer to 5 an over but even so a lot of people were saying England shouldn't even go for it because Clarke had made it too difficult. I didn't really get that. 228~ off 44 would make England comfortable favourites in most ODIs, it's a tougher ask in a test of course but not by so much that it's not even worth bothering to try.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Anyway, bring on November and round 2.

Can't be arsed with the shorter games after this series, find it hard to believe that Australia go to India for a long one day series before the ashes, can't imagine the BCCI would be happy if it was an Australia A side so when are the test players going to get first class games before the 1st test?

The way it ended yesterday was apt, umpires looking stupid (due to following the rules) in a series where they have been terrible. God help us if the ICC don't make a few changes to the panel before the return leg.

 

[Ruckus]

Well what the **** is your argument then?

from maximas a few pages ago, an idea that people seem to be really struggling to grasp. It isn't black and white, all or nothing etc.:

You can score at a reasonable pace without collapsing horribly, teams have been doing it for years

If you then want to argue a reasonable pace was what Eng were going along at, well then that's simply where I disagree. I don't think the bowling nor the conditions warranted such slow batting.

 

[Son Of Coco]

If you're 3-0 down in a test series and you're thinking "oh well" about the prospect of 4-0 you should get out of test cricket.

"oh well" at 3-0 might turn into "oh well" at 2-0 and so on. Win or draw, never lose.

They weren't thinking 'oh well' at the prospect of 4-0 though, clearly they were thinking about trying to make it 3-1.

I don' think you're seriously suggesting a team would fail to take the series in context and start not caring when it's 1-0 or 0-0. There's no comparison to what happened in this test.