The Ashes First Test Lords Sunday 24th July..Day 4.

[Victor Frankenstein]

oh well, that's us screwed then

i'm going to be optimistic, play will resume at 3.45pm, assuming we play till 5.30pm we can score another 60-90+ runs with pieterson and jones at the crease, here's hoping they can do us proud. I'd imagine there will be a bit of moisture in the pitch though considering how much it has rained so, with the cloud cover too, it could be seaming all over the place and we'll be all out in double quick time, arggh, can't help the pessimism! Still think we're good enough to beat any other side, australia still seem to make us play crap though.

One thing in our favour though, we've been beaten heavier than this and come back to play well in the remaining tests, at least our bowling even at 60% has managed to get 20 (28 really if you count the drops) wickets, our bowling can get a lot better and our batting couldn't possibly get any worse, could it?

[Victor Frankenstein]

still think we can get 264 in the amount of time left in the match, well, jones and pieterson could, either of them get out and it's all over, we've improved from the "5 out all out" to "6 out all out"

[Victor Frankenstein]

great shot jones, can definatly see why he was picked for his batting :P anyone got priors phone number? (i'm only joking before his fan club cry)

well that's that, i'm not being pessismistic, but there is no way in hell that giles, hoggard, jones the ball and harmison have the talent to hang around for an entire day, even assuming half of it is lost to rain tomorrow they just don't have the ability on this pitch against this attack, no fault of their own. Whilst jones was in we had hope but now it's just a case of time for the inevitble.

oh dear, gilo, well there you go then.

Australia deserve the win, they showed why they're the number one, collapsing badly to 190 all out under some good english bowling they not only gathered themselves but upped another 20 gears and took us out of the game. We did fight our way back into it a couple of times, but on the whole it was all australia and we're left with a lot of work to do before the second test and thought of what might have been had we batted with some application and thought in the first innings.

[John]

Giles out and thats the last we should see of him this summer.

[Victor Frankenstein]

nah, he's vaughans mate, he'll be in all series, as bad as he is he is the best spinner/batsman in england and we feel the need to have a "balanced" attack, ie 4 bowlers and one person to hold their jumpers. If he hadn't hurt his hip he might have been more effective as he was playing well at the begining of the season, his batting is normally better than this too.

[Occasional Fan]

So - three for two wickets in twenty minutes before the rain comes back. I guess you have to call that Australia's session.

[Pete]

Originally Posted by John

Giles out and thats the last we should see of him this summer.

As much as i'd like to see an extra batsman, Gilo will play every game even if he's ineffective.

[Pete]

KP needs to protect the damn tail!

[Occasional Fan]

Well, congratulations to Australia on a deserved win by 239 runs. Quite a bit of work for England to do over the next ten days or so, it seems. A disappointing start to the campaign, but a great game.

[Victor Frankenstein]

oh well, congratulations to Australia on a well deserved victory. Genius from Mcgrath to destroy not only our top order but our self belief, despite getting close to their first innings score I felt like we'd lost our intensity and were inneffective in their second innings despite bowling them out for 384, and our second innings was just a slightly delayed repeat of the first but with warne this time.

Good start from Pietersen, still think he has massive flaws in his technique and plays some ugly shots, but there's no denying he has some talent, I did think his dissmissal in the first innings though was exactly how i'd expect someone to get him out, give him a boundary then tempt him into another but slow it down/drop it short, but fair play to KP he seemed to learn from that and didn't take the bait in the second innings, shame the tail couldn't hang on longer and get him the century he deserved.

Roll on Edgbaston.