England v Australia -Natwest Final- Lords

[English_Al]

Ha, ha, yes Beny. Botham has just said "some people have been writing the Aussies off as too old, well I've got news for you, they're not!" Yes Beefy, you were one of them!

Botham and Gower have also been saying that England should have been kept their best bowlers on etc, etc and gone for Aussies throat earlier. Maybe, but thats nit picking, come on, the problems here are the batting!

Also they have said Ponting has the advantage of learning from Englands innings. Er, works both ways, could we not learn from the Aussies batting? We should have been extremely watchful and even if we scored at 2 an over for a while, if we had the wickets intact we could accelerate as their bowling eased off.

[Seamer]

Originally Posted by Big Merv

Hey, I'm enjoying it!

Big Merv
They just showed a couple shots of Merv at lords. He looked like he was enjoying the selectors gig too

[Beny]

Ha, ha, yes Beny. Botham has just said "some people have been writing the Aussies off as too old, well I've got news for you, they're not!" Yes Beefy, you were one of them!

You read my mind

[Big Merv]

Originally Posted by Seamer

Big Merv
They just showed a couple shots of Merv at lords. He looked like he was enjoying the selectors gig too

Yes I saw that. He looks like he's enjoying himself. I'd love to be over there myself.

[greg]

Australia should win comfortably and i have no complaints if they do.
The only complaint i have is why such a poor batting pitch was used in a 1 day final.None of the pitches have been great all through the Tournament and you have to wonder if it is a plan by the England management to stop the Aussie batters getting into too much form before the Test series,if so it has backfired drastically.

[Victor Frankenstein]

i'm convinced the australians are using some kind of mind wiping device out there on the field and i want the ICC to do something about it. Time after time we go out and play other sides and play excellent cricket and win matchs with good batting, bowling, fielding and captaincy. The instant we play against australia it's like everyone forgets how to play and they all get confused and think they're bangladesh (except at least they won :P ).

Still, colly and jones the glove are doing well considering, mainly because colly is northern and therefore already had his mind wiped at birth, and i think jones the glove has some kind of mind ray deflection device in his teeth which is why he always grins like a cheshire cat

plus sides: our bowling has been bowling well against australia as a team, vaughan has been setting good fields and good tactics.

down side: our batsmen are clueless. tresco and strauss are being made to look stupid, i can only hope they're getting all their low scores out of the way and they'll average over 70 each in the ashes... hope is essential!

[greg]

Originally Posted by Seamer

Big Merv
They just showed a couple shots of Merv at lords. He looked like he was enjoying the selectors gig too

He's a beached whale now.Fine bowler in his time though.

[Kirsty Harris]

I'm very, very tense at the moment...can Colly and Jones pull this off???

I said England needed a good solid start and they messed that up big time - they must have thought this was a twenty:20 match they way they played!! This was not the pitch for playing your shots, just keeping the scoreboard ticking over would have been sufficient.

One thing that might be useful (well, from my standpoint) is Pieterson's failure today, the manor of it it inparticular, might make a few of the media-types rethink his place in the Ashes aquad at the expense of Thorpe/Bell - there is no way on earth either of those guys would have attampted a shot like that, especially not in those circumstances. It's all very well having self-belief, but you need a bit of common sense as well, Kev!!

I can hardly watch the game at the minute!!! Fingers crossed!!

[Irish Left Armer]

Vaughan kept Colly and Giles on because he didn't want to bowl Gough I reckon. He was getting hit about a bit and when he did come back on Hussey rushed down the wicket at him. Harmison bowled out and Flintoff would have bowled the last over which would only have left him one short so I don't think Vaughan messed up too badly. You can say he should hacve tried to bowl them out with his strike bowlers at the time but what if they were seen off and then England got butchered in the last 5 overs.

England's top order need to look at themselves though, some of the shots they were playing were ludicrous. It's not a good enough pitch to try and smash some of the best bowlers in the world around.

As it stands England have a chance so long as Colly and Geraint stay together, if only the rest had considered consolidating the innings and building a partnership.

The game will be decided by whoever bowls the 5 overs left needed to be filled by Hogg or an occasional bowler most likely.

[Kirsty Harris]

100 partnership for Colly and Jones - fab effort by those two!!!

It appears that Ponting has made a bit of a faux pas in the bowling stakes himself - Michael Hussey is bowling in the last ten overs!!! Time will tell, but it may be that Ponting was a little, erm, over positive, if Vaughan was a little too defensive.