General Cricket Thread (It's Come Home)

Next time will be Perth, so MJ will claim his third consecutive MotM award (it's the moustache I tells ya) and England will concede the Ashes. The two matches after that might be more interesting, though.

And so in a development that will no doubt make England fans go "uh-oh" Australia have once again won the toss and elected to bat.

Edit: Not going good for Australia so far, they've lost two wickets in the space of sixty runs.  The good news is those wickets were Rogers and Watson, so we still have the deadly Warner and Clarke both out there.  Rogers was run out with some exceptional fielding by Anderson, I was out when Watson got out but I hear he went to Broad.

Edit 2: Lunch, Clarke is out as well and Australia sits at 3 for 107.  Not awful, but not good.  The match still sits roughly even, I'd give the edge to England right now both in the scoreline but also more importantly mentally.

Edit 3: And Warner is gone for 60.  Not bad at all, and good work from England to get him. I'm not sure how long Smith is going to last with the way he's currently comporting himself, he's trying to do too much and if he doesn't settle down he's as good as gone.

Maybe you're familiar with the Sonic cycle? I'd like to suggest something I call "the 2013-14 Ashes cycle" (not quite as catchy, I'll admit):

Match starts

• England open the bowling well;
  
• Early wickets include Warner;
  
• Fans begin to claim this as England's triumphant fightback.

End of first day/beginning of second

• Haddin brought into the attack;
  
• Scores a century or thereabouts;
  
• Makes a significant partnership;
  
• Hopes hit the ground.

Rest of match

• Johnson routs batting, with help from England batsmen;
  
• Massive disappointment;
  
• Fans proclaim they will never be fooled again.

  

To be fair on Warner he usually gets a fair few runs before he gets out.  He may be a quick wicket but he's not normally a cheap one. At least in this series anyway, it wasn't always that way.  

As for what's going on right now, colour me highly unimpressed with England.  They had a absolutely perfect chance to catch Haddin and they just stood there, no initiative, just let the ball fall to the ground when it should have been out.

Edit: Well, Haddin has gone at least.

Edit 2: Hats off to Steve Smith for his second hundred and his first at home. What started off as a shaky innings has gone on to become an excellent showing of skill.

Pretty much as expected, only with Smith taking on Haddin's role. Johnson showing a bit more fight as well. This has "Gabba Mk. 2" written all over it. Sigh.

Sounds like an okay day's cricket, marred by DRS (again).  KP being surprisingly careful - hope it doesn't come back to bite him.

EDIT: Cooooooooooooooooooooooooook! 

EDITEDIT: And there goes Pietersen. Well, it looked good for a while.

It seems I slept through all the fun again. I can't say I'm surprised to once again wake up to find England four wickets down, I see Cook posted a good score however so my hat goes off to him. While not a century 72 is a very good score, now if only the team in general was posting good supporting scores to it.

Stokes isn't getting through to close.  I just can't see it.  (EDIT: Wrong, thank goodness.) He's like Pietersen again, back when KP used to bowl a bit.  And used to bat a bit, frankly.

EDIT: Watto, don't be an ass.

Well Stokes has made it to the end of play. Honestly I had a feeling we'd seen all the wickets we were going to see today, not that I think England can win because of this. I still don't see them coming within 100 runs of Australia's original score.

England's tail end can bat.  I've seen them do it (in the last series, no less): maybe they're not quite as powerful as Australia's, and maybe it's more difficult against "Mitch", but Swann can hit the odd six and Big Tim Bresnan is pretty much an all-rounder, making Anderson theoretically the only walking wicket in the England side.  But so far, only Broad has shown any sign of hitting any runs this series.  Mind you, Tim still needs to justify his inclusion: maybe tomorrow? (He says without much hope.)

Also my belief in KP has taken another nosedive. The man simply cannot cope with pressure. As long as he's hitting boundaries he's fine, but he's unable to last out when he's being contained.

Bell's gone!  15 from something like 70 odd balls.  But a big breakthrough regardless, lbw was the call and in a massive match defining moment was reviewed and found to be very decisively out.  As was pointed out this is a big wicket for England to lose given out of all their batsmen Bell is the one that could hang in all day.  With him gone the rest of the team regardless of how well they can wag will inevitably go down.

Edit: And not too much long after Stokes is gone!  Johnson worked his magic again claiming his first wicket of the match.

Edit 2: All out just in time for lunch, which is great from an Australian perspective as it means they won't have to get settled only to get disrupted by lunch and have to do it all over again.  To England's credit they did get 251 runs which is more than I was expecting, not that I think they'll win unless Australia is all out for less than 180 runs, which of course is entirely possible.

Edit 3: Ouch, Broad is off to hospital after his dismissal from Johnson looks like it might've done some damage to his foot.  Needless to say the twittersphere isn't missing the irony of Broad's trouble walking, but personally I'm a little sad about it.  It sucks he's been injured both because it just plain sucks for someone to get injured, and also because this is the last thing England needs.  I hope nothing too bad happened and he'll be able to rest it off.

Edit 4: Play is back after tea, and I can't say I was impressed with England's fielding last session.  Prior missed both openers, Warner particularly being a clanger with the ball going up in the air and pretty much landing in his gloves.  Now Warner is at 86 and Australia overall leads by 262 runs with 128 of them being from this innings alone.  Hopefully this session sees some improvement, there've been some shocking missed wickets this match by England.

Edit 5: And we can add a missed stumping and four leg byes to that.

Edit 6: Finally England gets a wicket, Bresnan bowls with Carberry catching Rogers.  Meanwhile Warner is sitting on 95, and Australia is 1 for 157.

Edit 7: And Warner gets his century!  And a well played one its been as well!

Edit 8: And Warner is finally out after getting a well done 112 runs, Swann's spin finally claiming him. The score is now 2 for 183, I guess I should revoke my earlier claim they might have a massive collapse and not make it to 200.

I may not make any further comments in this thread. There's no point. All the anguished wailings above can be copy-pasted for the rest of this match and the remaining dead rubbers.

I will say this, though: my "humorous" picture from earlier? Really, very possibly, on the cards. England have lost all confidence, I think, while Australia have oodles of it, so I can't see England making any sort of comeback (no matter how minor) from here. Especially if their best bowler has been hospitalised.

I dunno, I still reckon they'll at least drop the last match, even during the Steve Waugh years it wasn't uncommon for them to simply go off the boil in the last test after they'd spent the first four slaughtering the opposition.

I like the look of that boy Stokes, mind you.  England showing a bit of fight in the dying embers of the series.  We could be in for a decent-ish two dead rubbers.  Still going with a whitewash overall, but maybe the next two games will be vaguely entertaining as opposed to one-sided stompings.

Of course, I know that as soon as I say that, England will chuck their wickets in unison with gay abandon.

Yeah, Stokes is showing a lot of promise, I'm looking forward to seeing how he develops over the years.

Edit: And it's over!  Australia after what can only be described as a stunning series has reclaimed the Ashes!  It's been an awesome match and series to watch, reflecting a good chunk of the team this series has been making a comeback which honestly has been one of the more satisfying things about this series, to see a set of achievement stories play out.  Smith deservedly got the Man of the Match.  

That said England for what its worth batted very well this last innings.  Stokes got his well deserved century and is showing some fantastic promise, Bell continues to be a big threat to Australia even though his form has slumped a little, and Prior did reasonably well showing some great determination and steel.  Overall I hope this is the start of England making a comeback, as much as I want my home side to win the series I also want to the opposing team do well.

As for my prediction, I still think it'll be either 4-0 or 4-1. I just think the winning momentum will wear out ever so slightly by the fifth test, and they might rest a few players like Johnson as well.

Surely the ideal situation for both sides would be 5-0 to them, but every match to go down to the wire? You'd have no wits by the end of it, but it'd be good cricket.

Congratulations to Australia. They really deserved it: they beat England in every aspect of the game. Bowling, batting, fielding, sledging... Not so keen on the last one, but can't deny the first three. And unlike the last series, where you (well, I) really felt that Bell was the difference between the two teams, the whole Australian team has stood up at some point (who knows how much is due to Johnson rattling the English batsmen), with maybe two exceptions. Meanwhile, England have been mostly hopeless. Only the most misty-eyed Barmy Army supporter could have thought that things deserved to be otherwise, Trott or no Trott.

As you say, though, there are some encouraging signs, England's first century coming from Stokes most of all. (From what I understand he seems to be a bit of an asshat off the pitch, but that seems to be par for this series - hello Mister Warner!) Makes me slightly excited for the dead rubbers. Pietersen has a lot of proving himself to do.

As an aside, why does every country in the cricketing world seem to take the Australian side in this? What have England done to deserve such global opprobrium?

Swann no! No, you can't do this to me, no! NOOOOOOOOOO!  

(sits panting for a few seconds)

Perhaps this was inevitable, with the way he was being smacked around. But this is just a few months after he was the lead wicket-taker in a previous series. And even if Lyon is doing well (bearing in mind he has a confidence-delivering team around him), Australia is not a good country for spinners. Well, not those who can remain faithful during their marriages.

That said, I can't begin to guess how it was feeling for the man. If he felt that his body was breaking down around him in the longer sessions, then that's what it was doing. Either way, I wish him well. Besides being a great cricketer, he was a genuinely funny chap (see the quotes here and what turned out to be the last episode of his Ashes diary), who was probably guilty of negligence rather than anything else with the rape comment. Best of luck to him.

As for England, apart from this possibly giving the Aussies a confidence boost, I don't think that it'll hurt them that much, in this series anyway. As mentioned earlier, he was being carted all over the shop. It's arguable whether, with Bresnan providing the economy, England need a spinner at all. Root can always send down the occasional ball if required.

Right, I'm going back to following the last day of South Africa v. India, a test with two decent teams involved.

It's a shame about Swann, but ultimately if he feels it's time to go then it probably is. Still it's always a bit of a somber feeling when a good cricketer retires and I wish him the best of luck with his future ventures.

You know what? It's the end of the first day, and England aren't out yet. I'm going to take this as a good thing.

Yeah I missed the action today (I blame bravely default) but it sounds like it was a good day of action for both sides, albeit favouring Australia overall. From the sounds of things England's putting up a fight from the start this time which is good, I'll try to get to sleep early enough to actually watch some of the match tomorrow.

Also in other cricketing news Jacques Kallis has announced his retirement from Test cricket and first class cricket.

That's not terribly surprising. Since I've got into cricket, he seems to have been injured and/or subpar. I appreciate his legacy, though, not to mention the fact that he won't be fawned over like SRT was.

That said, India are making the best bowling attack in the world look a bit silly at the moment.

Wow, within the first over of Johnson bowling he gets a double wicket maiden!  Suddenly a score that looked like England could fight a score of 270 or more looks like it'll be lucky to reach 250.  Or maybe not given Broad's skill with the bat.  Either way they'll be lucky to reach lunch now.

Edit: And Johnson claims Broad (again) lbw, now having five wickets for sixty runs!  It seems he is nowhere near running out of the steam that has seen him disembowel England the last three matches.

Edit 2: Well, they made it past 250 at least.  Anderson hit the four, if only it had carried it would have been a pretty epic six.

Edit 3: And they get not much further, all out for 255.  Loyn bowled Panesar in an excellent delivery.

Edit 4: And England fans finally have something to be happy about, Warner has been dismissed for nine runs.  The ball hit a clean edge and went straight up in the air before coming down not one meter away, naturally it was caught.

Edit 5: And after a bout of bravely default I come back to find more good news for England fans!  Watson was dismissed cheaply as well and the score is 2 for 40 runs after lunch.  Now watch England mess it up somehow.   

Edit 6: Rogers is playing it slow and safe, and sitting on a well earned half century.  Meanwhile Smith is settling in with 14.

Edit 7: Okay, now what on earth are you doing Australia?  Now Smith and Rogers are gone and the chances of reaching that target are next to nill, what happened?  At this point I'm going to revise my prediction to 3-1.   

Edit 8: Well it seems this is a return of the English Ashes Australia batting order. Still I should congratulate England for finally getting their heads in the game, I only wish I didn't feel so utterly awful so I could be interested in what is set to become a genuine contest. Ah well.

England batting first, pitch helpful to England, both innings under 300, Australian batting collapse, Rogers sticking around?  it's the summer all over again!  A bit too late, and no Bell century, but that aside this match has distinct echoes of the summer.  Anyway, I was wrong when I said that side that wins the toss always wins.  The side that bats first always wins.  Neither Australia nor England can chase, it seems.

Also  at "Loyn" bowling Panesar, especially as Monty got hit in the box not so long before.

Even more  at this. Brilliant.

And England have faffed it up! 179 runs in the second innings, giving them an overall score of 231 for Australia to chase down. This is a great example of what not to do, give Australia a chance. They had Australia on the ropes, now they've got a score that is well within Australia's power to chase down. All Australia has to do is bat passably well and the match is theirs. The result is still up in the air, but England's seeming lack of being able to go in for a kill along with Australia's amazing bowling attack (this time led by Lyon) has put this match well and truly back in Australia's sights.

Unbelievable. No wait, scrap that, it's totally and completely believable. I'd go on another rant about the English batting, but I've done it before and I doubt anyone would read it.