I just feel this is all a bit flat. Also is it me or are we being just a bit too nice? Personally I reckon we should get a couple of short legs in and give them a few up their nostrils!! At the moment we seem to be just going through the motions. Come on boys, get a bit nasty!!

Blimey!! The things that go on during a friday night in SW London!! You could get arrested for that in the Tottenham High Road!

Don't worry Oli. This will be as easy as our game against Reading on Sunday. No problems there surely?

Vaughan is waiting till he's used up all the power plays and then he's gonna shoot them all out with Bopara and Panesar.

At least, that's the plan.

Probably.

And if that doesn't work, it'll be Collingwood or Pietersen!

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Red-it, Red-it, Read it and wept

Off topic there mikey, but I understand King is out for the entire season now. Which is worrying.
I think our Portuguese looks pretty good and villainous, but I do worry about our defence.
Still, if we can win our next fifteen games, we'll probably finish fifth and bring back the UEFA cup.

Some chance!

The best piece of news I've heard recently is that the FA are toying (again) with the idea of giving a Champion's League place to the FA Cup winners.

Actually this won't happen, whether they vote for it or not. Presumably the FA will decide in 2009 that the fourth place should go to the FA Cup winners, just in time for Michel Platini to change the rules and disallow countries from having four entrants into the main European competition.

It does need to happen though. It would liven up the FA Cup no end. Sadly that competition is about as dead is it can be now. It is astonishing to see empty seats at stadia across the country now, and it's all because there is no Cup Winner's Cup and the prize for our daddy trophy is the same as the ghastly League Cup.

Rant over... back to the cricket.

Come on Vaughan, make something happen. If you can.

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Red-it, Red-it, Read it and wept

Oh well a win for England, not a convincing win but a win nontheless.

I was pleased to see Pansesar bowl well and pleasantly surprised by Vaughan. He showed why it was folly to keep on picking Dalrymple. He's no worse a batsman and his part time off spin shows he will be a better bowler than Dalrymple ever will.

What was worrying was our top 3 again failing to score at any pace (Bell) and the other tow failing to score. We cant keep relying on Collingwood to dig us out of the ****!

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Mark.

It was a win - remember England had a poor start to the CB Trophy in Australia - and ended up winning it.

Collingwood - Pietersen - Flintoff and Nixon all did well, considering the bad start yet again from the top three.

The England seamers came in for some stick from the Irish batsem with nothing to lose.

Mahmood was singled out by the commentators as poor, but in fact had the best econ rate of all the seamers.

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Ern

Unconvincing is right. But for Collingwood, the overall score might have been more reachable against an Irish attack that was spirited, but little above mediocre in quality. But England's bowling was not much better; Flintoff got his wickets but went for over 5 runs an over, something unsual for him. Anderson was nothing special while Mahmood was his usual second rate. Unless England up their performance, I not only cannot see them beating any of the 4 major teams that they have to play, but even Bangladesh might give them a run for their money or more!

Only towards the end when he was being tonked by the Irish tail-enders. During his really economical spell at the start TMS certainly were praising him, if not a little worried by the vast quantity of slower balls he seems to use.

England's bowling was alright... but not world-beating.

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"Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose."
- Ayrton Senna

Aggers was the worst adam, he also singled Mahmood out on the BBC1 cricket highlights - and on TMS was on about Plunkett should be playing rather than Mahmood.

Thing that annoyed me was that he gave away (even counting the tonking at the end) less runs than all the other seamers, including Flintoff.

He would have also had a wicket like the others - had Joyce not missed a sitter of his bowling, and I think Bopara missed a sharper chance also.

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Ern

I think people may be underestimating Ireland a bit here, having scraped a draw vs Zimbabwe they have since defeated Pakistan and had a semi respectable match against West Indies. The Irish may yet turn over Bangladesh and it isn't even impossible that they could spring a supprise on one or two more teams. As it was I think the slow low pitch yesterday suited them just nice, no real juice for the England quicks, very little swing and just nipped around off the seam a little early on when they were bowling.

For me England needed to bowl first, and I'm still not sure which side Ed Joyce was playing on.