You'll never hear that phrase from an england (or pretty much any other) captain again. In the age of media training things like honesty are glossed over with needless sound bites. Thats the other thing about the departure of G Jones - he was the worst for it so I was doubly glad t osee the back of him.

Re Jelligate - totally out of order and the match referee needs to sit down both captains and tell them to stop the throwing of sweets and beamers and shoulder barging or its banning time for culprit and captain. The thing that surprises me is that both are experienced (certainly the captains and most of the batsmen are) , the series in india was more or less incedent free so why all the aggro all of a sudden ? I dont want to see stuff like this while I'm watching the cricket and I'm sure neither does anyone else.

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Nothing says "Obey Me" like a bloody head on a fence post!

So if someone had offered a couple of jellybeans to ZK when he walked in and said "Here, have some sweets, mate" instead of strewing them in front of him, this entire Jelligate () business would not have started?

I heard that KP is doing an article for a certain tabloid about his Beamergate affair....

Maybe because that's not true? Prior apart (and he surely cost England the match) England played very well... and could play at the same level, against the same quality of opposition, and with a little bit more of the luck, win the game. The bowling certainly rated as excellent... and in truth the batting was decent enough: another 50-60 runs in the first innings would have constituted an excellent effort... and the same in the second innings... but the runs on the board would have been enough had quality of bowling in the INdian first innings been rewarded by snaffled chances.

Fortunately, India punished the failure of one player to take chances (and to even turn batting mistakes INTO chances): that's right and proper and so long as the selectors reach the obvious conclusion ahead of the next match, England should start confident that they are at least the equals of their opposition.

Rachael, we all know that the people who select International cricket teams these days believe that the ability to score runs is more important than the ability to curtail opponents innings through excellence behind the stumps. Not that Read or any other decent keeper would have scored any less than Prior did at Trent Bridge.

However, Prior has earned himself the opportunity to build on his good start at the beginning of the summer. I would rather see him with the gloves than Nixon, and from what I have seen Tim Ambrose is no better with the gloves than Prior is.

I think with Prior's dynamic batting form it's become hard to drop him for a fairly long time, no matter how well he performs with the gloves. We would need a Geriant Jones 2006 style run of form with the bat for him to go. Of course this could have been avoided by giving the best keeper in England the gloves in the first place (that's Chris Read btw). Still, it's nice to see Prior stride out when England are 350-5 on a flat wicket isn't it?

The next test - just Hoggy for Anderson? Any other changes, maybe Strauss to go? With Tres still in his mind trough, maybe the dashing Denly? I wouldn't drop bell, no matter what spin on it certain members of this forum would like to have. I'd rather drop Colly before Bell.

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Freddie Flintoff=God

The selectors have been blinkered and dogmatic in selecting on sledging potential rather than batting potential or (heavan forbid) glovework... and leaving aside the possibility of them finally facing up to the damage they are inflicting on the game by getting loudmouthed, foulmouthed braggarts with verbal diarrhea disturbing the peace instead of playing the game... this Test (surely lost by appalling glovework) should surely have led to their blinkers being removed when it comes to their belief that any half-baked slip catcher / outfielder can do a passable job with the gloves.

I'm all for giving youngsters a chance... but it's not as if the problems were caused by nerves... and I accept that anyone can make mistakes... but it's not as if that is the problem: the guy has just proven, in almost every over of Test cricket he's faced since being unexpectedly elevated, that he's not got a hope in hell of ever cutting it as a 'keeper.

I don't expect the selectors to elevate Simon Guy in the hope he'll be the next Keith Piper-level wicketkeeper... and I doubt they'll do the decent thing and bring back Read... but I do expect them to end career of the new coach's former protege in favour of Foster - he's no Bob Taylor... but even he would be a step in the right direction.

The English captain is denying that his players were involved in throwing jelly beans. But when Colly was asked about it right after the day's play, this is what he had to say: ""I think he prefers the blue ones to the pink ones". I think that amounts to confession.
source: Cricinfo - When jelly bean turned bitter pill

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My computer can beat me at chess.....but its no match for me at kick boxing.

Actually, Rachael, that's a fair comment and I am being a bit harsh on Vaughan in reference to this particular game. The game gave us some great cricket and - as was also the case at Lord's - a great deal of interest through the greater part of the match (really until tea on Monday at Trent Bridge and all the way to the end at Lord's). I guess the reason for my rant is, as RBLC suggests, that we have heard it all before about a thousand times. It's a sound-bite age we live in, I suppose, and maybe I just have to get used to it.

On the jelly bean incident, the foul language which bowlers from both sides were using in this match and the barging of Michael Vaughan and the two-foot no-ball, Jonathan Agnew had plenty to say on the BBC World Service last evening. I can't remember ever hearing him hammer the players, captains and umpires of both sides as hard as he did in a five minute interview in the Newshour programme: simply put, he was furious at what these people had done to "his" game. I was hoping he might have mentioned some of his thoughts in his end of match commentary on the BBC website, but when I looked half an hour ago nothing had been published there. If you can catch the Newshour programme on the BBC's "Listen Again" page (it will only be available until about 1200 BST today, I think), his interview with Jonathan Charles is worth listening to. It's about 45 minutes into the programme and you can scroll through to that point. (Incidentally, worth noting that this was a news item in the BBC's flagship news programme - not a sports desk item.)

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Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan

Stick to your theories about glovework by all means, but England did not lose because of "appaling glovework".

Well, he certainly scored runs in the first test when England were in a position second innings where they could well have conceivably lost the game.

Why do you keep having a dig at the same players and singing the praises (often unwarranted - I remember your rejoicing about Zoysa and Langeveldt because they had one or two good games) of others that fit nicely into your pigeon-holed view of the game?