*Official* Fifth Test at The Oval

[flibbertyjibber]

You do know Lehmann was taking the piss in that interview don't you?

Cos he's a drunken pisshead who was off his face at the time.

 

[NUFAN]

England were never really under pressure batting in the first innings. Australia dominated the 1st innings but that's it.

Australia dominated the first innings. We declared 9 down and had a lead over 100. That's a good result for a team 3-0 down away from home.

 

[Uppercut]

For me there has to be some way of differentiating between deliberately slowing the game down and just - what happens sometimes - the overs naturally being bowled a bit slower. Having a rule like that dictate team selection or, worse still, create the absolute farce Ponting went through in India is even worse than captains time wasting IMO.

They talk about the fans getting their money's worth for 90 overs a day etc, but if I was at the cricket I'd rather see 80 overs of cricket whereby the batsman made his bowling changes based entirely on merit for the situation than 75 overs of that and 15 overs of contrived rubbish where pie-chuckers rush through overs to make sure the captain doesn't get banned. Obviously what we saw twice during this game from Cook and then Clarke was a bit different but we do need a way of differentiating to make the rule workable.

A five run penalty for time-wasting would definitely help. But you'd still get silly situations like these. It's all very well to say that the light wasn't actually that dangerous, but it obviously could have been. You're only solving the problem for this exact situation.

Honestly I think the only change that would make cricket a sport that the world could take seriously would be standardising the length of a test in overs. Most of the logistical difficulties have pretty simple solutions, major tennis tournaments have managed a similar situation perfectly well for centuries. It won't happen, of course, but it should.

 

[Burgey]

Cos he's a drunken pisshead who was off his face at the time.

Pot. Kettle.

 

[Broady]

5-0 white wash in the winter here we come

 

[MW1304]

Love me some Harris.

 

[andyc]

Cos he's a drunken pisshead who was off his face at the time.

Hahaha, even for you that's woeful.

 

[TT Boy]

Sorry I didn't realize that having half your batsmen playing at SR's of 25 was the perfect balance between not throwing your wicket away and putting runs on the board. The wicket clearly was uber difficult to score runs on too.

Was for Aus second dig.

 

[burr]

This is the exact type of response which makes Australia's tactics today annoying. We outplayed England for the majority of this Test match. We then go all innovative with our batting lineup, England's main bowlers bowl well but get some easy wickets and then England feel as though they were the better team when clearly Australia were the dominant team for most of the match. We find a way to lose or almost lose from any possible situation these days, its just bizarre.

Yep. Everyone is so busy attempting to slag off the other side. The only person I'm annoyed at is Clarke. Anyway, full credit to England on the series win. Until we learn how to play in the big moments we're not going to come even close to winning a series.

 

[grecian]

We love you Belly, and if it's quite alright we love you Belly.....

 

[NUFAN]

5-0 white wash in the winter here we come

If I had it my way 0-0 grey wash in the summer, here we come.

 

[Pothas]

Bell's ashes. Did it all for Burgey.

 

[91Jmay]

Shane Watson actually sounds like a transvestite as well. Any objective Aussie would know that Clarke would have done what Cook did at OT, yet there was cries of denial. Now we know exactly what they are.

Ian Bell, sensational. What a guy.

 

[Burgey]

Bell bringing seven years worth of facial hair to this interview.

Deserves his award here. Congrats to him.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Hahaha, even for you that's woeful.

To be fair he does sound a little worse for wear in the interview.

 

[Furball]

Sorry I didn't realize that having half your batsmen playing at SR's of 25 was the perfect balance between not throwing your wicket away and putting runs on the board. The wicket clearly was uber difficult to score runs on too.

Worked ok for Australia in the first innings.

 

[MW1304]

Ring my mother****ing Bell.

 

[grecian]

Bell's ashes. Did it all for Burgey.

It'll be BOPs next time

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[grecian]

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

boo

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Booing Clarke is unfair. Lehmann would be fair but not Clarke.