NatWest Challenge, The Brit Oval: England v Australia Tuesday 11th July.

[oz100no]

Completey agree Ern. Test cricket is another game altogether, I just like the way the Aussie have built up over the last few games.

[Collyisamackem]

Total shambles today, we must find a test spot for KP.

[Beny]

For both side the kind of shots being played will be just a memory, when they look behind at the slip cordon, and clsoe in fielders.

That'll only be the English Batsmen Ern...

[Victor Frankenstein]

It's the nature of these defeats that bothers me, if we'd gone down to scoring too slowly or losing wickets trying to push the run rate against good bowling then i wouldn't be too bothered as that is just an indicator of why we're rated so low in one dayers. However, we went down, on the whole, to top order collapses destroying any confidence or chance in the middle and lower order and therefore having nothing worth bowling when it came to fielding.

That is not something that can be put down to "one day shots", bowled or edged playing normal (but poor) shots has seen the side constantly 3 or 4 down with nothing on the board.

Two bad games doesn't suddenly make us a bad side, but what has made us a good side in recent times is the opening stands between strauss and tresco, without that our middle order is pretty hollow and we need regular 450+ scores to put any kind of pressure on the australians. Unless we get some rubbish wickets served up by the test grounds, we will not win with the kind of 200-300 maximum scores that look to be on offer at the moment from our top order.

Sensibly we should have started the tests earlier, giving them no chance to practice, like australia do to us when we tour, but then again if we do turn it around (like we have done a lot recently) and do win the ashes, they'll have no excuses to throw at us.

As it stands now, i think we'll lose the first test as it's lords and we always do badly there, hopefully it will be close though so not too demoralising, as i genuinely think we can come back in the other tests. A hot summer is doing us no favours though, hardening the wickets it will be more like home for the aussies.

[Trescothick]

One major problem is that the ODI set up is very reliant on Marcus Trescothick! Hes our best ODI batsmen without a doubt, closely followed by Pietersen...
Unfortuently, he punishes bad balls and in the first 8 overs we are gonna see only one or two poor bowls TOP from the Aussies therefore he has to make things happen and unfortunetly that is difficult and he ended up getting out to an ODI shot and the whole base of Englands ODI game is down.
He succeeded in the first ODI, and we went on to trash the Aussies. But the following two he couldn't make it getting frutstrated at lack of runs and who can blame him against such great bowling... The rest followed up to Pietersen and Solanki.

The tests will be different though because our two openers will score a similar amount, around 25 from 9 overs or so and then go on to make bigger scores when poorer bowls keep coming.

[Victor Frankenstein]

hasn't that been one of our major problems in previous series though? when we do make it through the new ball of mcgrath and dizzy we then assume the rest of their bowlers are crap so swing for it, which then results in the likes of paul reiffel, damien fleming and andy bichel getting plenty of wickets in a series with only slightly above average ability. Either that or gifting wickets just before a break to the likes of the waugh brothers, chappells, bevans and clarkes of the world.