*Official* Fifth Test at The Oval

[Riggins]

man i regret reading back through this thread.

 

[Cabinet96]

 

[silentstriker]

I was on the Australian side, but seriously:

When the umpires attempted to take light metre readings out of sight of Clarke, Aleem Dar seemed to gently push the Australian captain away. It left Clarke unimpressed.

"I remember Aleem touching me and I asked him politely to not touch me because if I touched him I'd be suspended for three games," Michael Clarke said. "That's all I can really remember. I just know a player is not allowed to touch an umpire. But for me personally, I have absolutely no issue with it at all."

I saw the 'push'. Maybe you should let them do their job. And obviously you have an 'issue' with it otherwise you wouldn't have brought it up.

 

[grecian]

TBF to him if Dar had pushed Watson or Harris they'd have probably been out for three months, so I can see his point....

 

[Ruckus]

Nothing more satisfying than hearing England fans whinge about being 'robbed' of victory despite their attempts on both day 2 and 3 to ensure a result was impossible and having Clarke hand them the chance of a result. I'm only talking about fans who were on the radio leaving the ground though, I haven't read back what English posters thought of all this on the forum.

na don't you understand. GF has actually enlightened us that Eng were in fact maximizing the chances of a result by batting slower than molasses on days 2 and 3. So really we should be thanking Cook for that exciting finish to the series.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

na don't you understand. GF has actually enlightened us that Eng were in fact maximizing the chances of a result by batting slower than molasses on days 2 and 3. So really we should be thanking Cook for that exciting finish to the series.

Even Border, Julian and Clark were saying the pitch had slowed down to a pudding in the middle stages of the Test to make scoring much more difficult than on day 1 and 2 (in their preamble to the day's play yesterday). Yes, the players belied this at the end of the match, but really what do you want? I've sat and watched batting performances even more turgid than that in the past. Really, this is hardly anything novel.

 

[Furball]

Maximising the chances of a result for England, ********.

 

[Burgey]

I don't understand people bitching about England batting slowly in this test. They're well within their rights to do so. I have a problem with the go slow stuff in terms of bowling 5 overs in half an hour with a spinner on, but you see teams do it all the time. I think England's general rate of scoring has slowed quite markedly over th epast year or so though, but it hasn't cost them in this series.

An I don't mind Clarke wanting to see the light reading one bit tbh. Nor would I mind Cook wanting to either. Let's be honest, it was ****ing dark at the end of the game. Not "a tad gloomy" but ****ing dark. Imagine if they'd stayed on when the world had seen a light reading of 5.8-6.0 after they'd previously gone off with a a better reading? There would be hell to pay. As Prior said post-game, England's attitude to staying on the park would have been very different if they were eight or nine down.

It sucks not to get a result in those circumstances, but tbh if you get to see 470 odd runs scored on a last day pitch after a delayed start, I don't really think you've got too much to whinge about.

 

[Furball]

Since when is numb nuts filtered?

 

[Maximas]

I repeat, I didn't read back, I just heard on ABC radio this morning some pissed off England fans as they left the ground and I was happy

 

[smash84]

Congratulations England on a comprehensive series win. Let's see what happens in a few months time when the Ashes is held down under.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

As Prior said post-game, England's attitude to staying on the park would have been very different if they were eight or nine down.

All the players have said the 'right' things, as have most of the former players (I hesitate to use the word most).

The views of some of the armchair critics has been bizarre and tedious to say the least.

Bowling go-slows should be gone though. I definitely remember captains earning sizeable bans for such in the past and I have no idea why they're not rolled out more often. Banning Cook and Clarke for match one of the Ashes would be a sizeable deterrent for such behaviour in the future, even if it would be to the detriment of the game.

 

[Burgey]

 

[Furball]

I don't understand people bitching about England batting slowly in this test. They're well within their rights to do so. I have a problem with the go slow stuff in terms of bowling 5 overs in half an hour with a spinner on, but you see teams do it all the time. I think England's general rate of scoring has slowed quite markedly over th epast year or so though, but it hasn't cost them in this series.

An I don't mind Clarke wanting to see the light reading one bit tbh. Nor would I mind Cook wanting to either. Let's be honest, it was ****ing dark at the end of the game. Not "a tad gloomy" but ****ing dark. Imagine if they'd stayed on when the world had seen a light reading of 5.8-6.0 after they'd previously gone off with a a better reading? There would be hell to pay. As Prior said post-game, England's attitude to staying on the park would have been very different if they were eight or nine down.

It sucks not to get a result in those circumstances, but tbh if you get to see 470 odd runs scored on a last day pitch after a delayed start, I don't really think you've got too much to whinge about.

The hilarious thing is that the same people criticising England's slow scoring on day 3 are the same people who'll moan about Australia's lack of discipline the next time they lose a Test thanks to an epic batting collapse.

All this stuff about 'intent' and 'playing your natural game' is a bag of ****, when the opposition put 500 on you then you need to bat for at least 5 sessions to have any chance of not losing the game. This requires discipline, something which Australia's batsmen as a group don't have and aren't encouraged to have. Being positive and playing your natural game sounds great but it's also the reason that Australia collapse all the ****ing time. They're not capable of doing what the South Africans did to you at Adelaide.

 

[Maximas]

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

 

[Furball]

Clarke's declaration was also ****ing mental. Yes it made for a great last day, but Clarke isn't paid to entertain the English public, he's paid to get results for Australia. Australia were 4 overs away from losing their 8th Test out of the last 9, and it was all Clarke's doing. Australia have a massive losing culture just now and the first thing Australia need to do is learn not to lose. Clarke's declaration was never going to result in an Australian win.

 

[Furball]

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

Not against quality bowling. You need a lot of luck to continually play shots without losing wickets against bowling that's constantly in the right areas. You wear the bowlers down to cash in on day 4.

 

[Flem274*]

The hilarious thing is that the same people criticising England's slow scoring on day 3 are the same people who'll moan about Australia's lack of discipline the next time they lose a Test thanks to an epic batting collapse.

All this stuff about 'intent' and 'playing your natural game' is a bag of ****, when the opposition put 500 on you then you need to bat for at least 5 sessions to have any chance of not losing the game. This requires discipline, something which Australia's batsmen as a group don't have and aren't encouraged to have. Being positive and playing your natural game sounds great but it's also the reason that Australia collapse all the ****ing time. They're not capable of doing what the South Africans did to you at Adelaide.

awta. Play what's in front of you, not what you want to be in front of you.

 

[Maximas]

Not against quality bowling. You need a lot of luck to continually play shots without losing wickets against bowling that's constantly in the right areas. You wear the bowlers down to cash in on day 4.

It's worth noting that we got to 500 once and almost twice this series against what was a quality attack, you impose yourself on the bowling and put them off their plans and lines/lengths. It's not always about waiting for the bowling to turn to ****, you can force this process against even the best, especially in good batting conditions

 

[Ruckus]

Even Border, Julian and Clark were saying the pitch had slowed down to a pudding in the middle stages of the Test to make scoring much more difficult than on day 1 and 2 (in their preamble to the day's play yesterday). Yes, the players belied this at the end of the match, but really what do you want? I've sat and watched batting performances even more turgid than that in the past. Really, this is hardly anything novel.

For it to be admitted that Eng weren't trying to win the match at that stage, and were perfectly content with playing for a draw. This isn't just me, pretty much all the articles written about it have highlighted that attitude. In the context of the match and series I just don't think that kind of mentality does anything good for the game. The fact is if Clarke decided to just play out a draw in the second innings, it would have been an incredibly boring test match. I'm not asking Eng to go out there and recklessly gift their wickets away in an attempt to provide superficial entertainment - the attitude still obv has to fall within the confines of trying to put up a positive result for your team. But there is no reason why they couldn't have just batted more normally, and tried to keep the game alive more than they did. I don't buy their batting display being a inevitable consequence of the conditions and bowling. As the rest of the game showed, the wicket clearly wasn't that difficult, and I don't think the Aus bowling was anything special either tbh. At least part of it was a deliberate, and fairly negative, game plan.