Oooooohhhhhhhhhhh.

I said RAPING.

I'm presupposing things. Supposedly that's unlucky.

So! Who will rape who? What will happen? Cricket shenanigans! Get stuck in, white people!

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I don't think we stand a chance. That limp-wristed disgrace of a man Trescothick has cried off with a "stress related" illness again - pull yourself together man.

Our only hope is that Pietersen ruffles a few feathers and Harmison finds the form that he lost immediately after the last Ashes series. Presumably he hasn't looked behind the fucking couch. Maybe Monty Panesar can take advantage of wickets that will undoubtedly be prepared with Shane Warne in mind.

Other than that I can't see how we can win. Freddie Flintoff's had no test action since the formation of Alpha Centauri and Michael Vaughan is lodging a claim to install stairlifts in all pavillions on the tour. Ian Bell is never a batsman. Or a bowler. Or a fielder. I doubt he could bring the drinks out without losing his wicket.

Australia are strong and, more pertinently, are highly motivated. They want to annihilate England. England merely want a series draw to limp back to Blighty with the Ashes. To be honest, it's the absolute best we can hope for as I feel we will need to win two matches to get that draw. I could see us scraping one, but two? Look up "tall order" in the dictionary and that'll be the definition.

Still, I'm looking forward to resuming combat with our old deportees - it should be fun.

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Australian matches don't usually draw. It's also an especially hot summer on the way - after 4 days, a pitch turns into a series of interconnected craters. I think to keep the trophy, you have to win three. And I can't see that happening. You might have better luck in Adelaide than elsewhere, but I do not like your chances in Brisbane and Perth especially, where we can play a swing-heavy bowling attack and a super-confabulous-pace attack respectively.

(Now I've said that, they'll probably keep the team identical. But surely they'd be tempted to play Tait in Perth and Bracken in Brisbane...? We'll see.)

I think the absence of Simon Jones will be felt when it comes to slowing the scoring rate of our chumps. He was pretty good, and aggressive as all shit. Harmison and those two new clowns you brought are now the most crucial thing missing.

On the converse, we have our bowling together very well this time around. McGrath is NOT stepping on any more cricket balls, Lee is working, Warne is working, and we have Stuart Clark, Mitchell Johnson, Nathan Bracken, Stuart MacGill, Shaun Tait... all working.

From the SMH website, about how the friendly Australian crowds are going to hang a ton of shit on Kevin P:

Moving down the batting order we notice Kevin Pietersen. The Skunk seems to have the perfect pedigree to bear the grunt of crowd hostility. A Boer come Pom in the classic Tony Greig mould. Imposing, cocky and talented. The next big thing. A silly haircut. A biography after 1 series. A girlfriend that masquerades as an entertainer. This guy is perfect.

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Looks like Monty's going to get the nod in the first test. He's not up there with Warne but I'm expecting a decent return from him this series, maybe 15 to 20 wickets if he plays in every game.

Jim picks up on a great point by highlighting the lack of Simon Jones in England's attack. He's the best exponent of reverse swing that we have and whichever of Anderson or Mahmood replaces him has an uphill battle in trying to worry the Aussie batsmen to the same extent. England's main weapons will be to use Hoggard and the spinners to restrict at one end and let the more expensive bowlers like Harmison and Anderson get in and amongst them at the other.

But! The Aussie batsmen are of the highest quality - there must be at least 50,000 runs between them in that top 7 or 8 - so no matter what tactic we employ, it'll be tougher than my mother's fanny crease to crack them.

Seven days and counting...

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I LIKE MONTY PANESAR. He is a wily fucker and if your lot are smart enough to play him, I predict much better than that useless shit Giles could offer. I would dearly love to see Giles facing up to Hussey or Gilchrist on a dead pitch. The run rate would go factorial.

This is why I picked Jones as the main fellow you lot would miss... I can't see Hoggard worrying us too much with a Kookaburra in his hand, and Harmison's form has been total shit. Jones was brutal with the old ball in 2005 - I don't know the stats, and I'm fairly sure he took less wickets than Harmison all up, but certainly from here he appeared the most intimidating of your four quicks when the ball wasn't new. 90mph+ thunderbolts of doom that threatened the two things every batsman needs intact - testicles and an off stump.

Also something that might not be in common estimation, Mr. Mansley - grounds. Here, they're highly individual and take some learning to play. Some have shortish boundaries, some have enormous boundaries where you're almost as likely to run four as you are to hit the boards if the outfield is slow. Pitches vary similarly. While the Australian team have respectable experience playing county cricket in the UK, the majority of your lot have never had their ears properly singed at the WACA, or tried reading leg spin on the last few days at Sydney, or had to pick up the vicious swing which comes out of nowhere at the Gabba.

Australia will have learnt their lesson from last year where they weren't just outplayed, the were out-thought. That pissed off the establishment no end, and now I'm sure they'll have a plan for systematically dismantling every player, on every ground. That bizarre little poo-brown cup, they FUCKING WANT IT BACK. They pretty much consider it their propery which is on some kind of temporary holiday in Old Blighty.

P.S. I cleaned this thread because I am sick of all your drivel. The next person who posts horseshit in here gets 7 days at Her I-Am-Suspended-And-Can't-Post-Majesty's Pleasure. You have been warned, you abstract shit sculptures.

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I've always wanted to check out cricket, being such a huge baseball fan and all. I never seem to catch it on any of the sports networks, networks that, mind you, love to show stock car racing (which ISN'T A FUCKING SPORT) and stuff as obscure as curling. No cricket in the States, I guess.

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This is another of my worries - the list is quite fulsome! - especially since Vaughan is likely to only make the 3rd test at the very, very earliest. He's a great captain and must surely be included whether fully match fit or not. I think the burden on Flintoff will be too much, what with being our most consistent bowler and important batsman and all. His captaincy also isn't as good as Vaughan's.

I think the prime factor is the fact that the Aussies are hurting after the last series - motivation is not even an issue for them - while England just seem to be losing confidence with each passing day. A wounded beast is a very dangerous animal indeed.

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And not just losing confidence... if you lose Stumpy Bell, you'll be well and truly in trouble.

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Indeed, he's taken a rap on the hand from Jimmy Anderson in the nets. Save it for the Aussies you fucking cunt, Anderson!

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Fucking Shane fucking Watson is fucking always broken!

He's like that truck you had as a kid, where you could never find the fourth wheel and the bastard ran into the skirting boards instead of across the floor.

MELT HIM DOWN AND START AGAIN!

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Well, Stumpy Bell is back. Here we go!

(Cumboy, do you have any English cricket sites worth reading for coverage etc.?)

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Not really, but I suppose the BBC has got to be worth a punt. Maybe try the Sky Sports website at skysports.co.uk.

Well, it was a good start by England; we took to the field without sustaining any more injuries. Then we started bowling...

I hate Ricky Ponting something fierce. He looks like he was that annoying midget-playing-at-being-mighty-man in school that everybody wanted to punch; the Steinbeckian Curly, if you will.

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Wee Ricky is actually rather pleasant, if you meet him.

Breathe deeply, and pretend the overnight score isn't 3/346.

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I think it's safe to say England won't win this test or even draw without putting at least 500 (over two days) on the board when we get our chance.

Thirty-second ton for that little shit - he must be catching up on Tendulkar by now.

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I think the match is living up to the thread title.

England have got no chance in this test. 53 for 3? Show some fucking balls, lads.

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6/126, no better than yesterday England. Flintoff had a shocker today, and Mcgrath is having a wonderful match.

Meh, England held their own for a little while, but the hole was too deep to get out of. Next test will be close..

Well, the first test was fun.

Thoughts:

This entire country is laughing at Steve Harmison. If they're dumb enough to play him in Adelaide, I predict the whole Oval yelling "WIDE! WIDE! WIDE!" for every ball of his first over. If he wasn't under pressure before, he's going to be cooked now.

Now. We don't want to see everything suck balls so PLAY PANESAR IN ADELAIDE. If you don't, then you are clinically insane. Anderson was rubbish. Boot him, or Harmison, or both of them. Or clone Flintoff. Adelaide is H.O.T. Hotter even than Perth. I hope your conditioning is up to scratch and you're ready, because there will be no complacent second-test slump this time. Ponting will be thinking '2-0 with three tests left will make them shit fish' and as angry as he ever was.

Oh, and finally, FINALLY, we are playing both Clark and Hussey who both should have been in the side years earlier. We have a history of playing people past their retirement age.

That being said, all those people pissing and moaning about 'Dad's Army' are morons who fail to appreciate how much further sports science has come along in even the last 5-10 years. In the 70's, cricket was essentially throwing stuff, hitting stuff then long nights of getting pissed. David Boon set the world record for continual drinking from Sydney to London.

From that drunken state of affairs, we go to very good 21st century sports medicine in prehab, rehab and recovery. So, of course Warne is still playing at 37. Just because you were washed-up pieces of dessicated shit at that age (Boycott, Thompson, I'm looking right at you) doesn't mean that people who aren't such drunks will be.

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True re the "Dad's Army" crap; Warne will probably be able to play in the next Ashes if he doesn't retire after this series.

England have got problems. Big problems. Our main strike bowler is woefully out of form and lacking in confidence - dropping him could be even worse than playing him and I honestly believe Harmison's possible replacement, Mahmood, would not do a better job.

The main problem is that we haven't prepared properly for this series. A 14-a-side throwabout and a three-day pansy festival? If we believed that was enough preparation for a series with the number one ranked test side in the world for the past decade then we deserve to be whitewashed.

One final word: Get motherfucking Panesar in the team! Fletcher reckons he's the best finger spinner in the world. Well fucking play the cunt then, you fat Mugabe-dodging wastrel.

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The second test is underway and England appear to have grown some batting balls in the three days since the last test. Hopefully we can convert 266/3 into 450+ especially if Collingwood and Pietersen remain at the crease for another session or two tomorrow.

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Your right to say they were batting well today. All out before 450 I say.

Collingwood and Pietersen are crucial to England surpassing 450. Two quick wickets tomorrow morning (perm any two from Collingwood, Pietersen and Flintoff) would almost certainly limit England to a sub-400 score. I'm hoping that Pietersen decides to play himself back in again after the overnight break rather than coming out all guns blazing like in the first test.

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The last wicket today should not have been, those two blokes had a nice run rate going.

And it looks like they have.

Collingwood is a good batsman for Australian conditions. He's done very well so far.

206. Fook. How this game plays out will be interesting.

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I agree. Did you see how well the grass grew? All out an interesting game and expected outcome of about 60 kg／hm ．d grass growing rate in Summer.

Should be a draw, I dont think Australia will fall apart.

We really don't get cricket on here either, I really don't even know if I've seen a full game televised...other than just clips and whatnot.

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You're probably right. 5 down and needing about 40 more to avoid following on... If we bat part of the way through tomorrow and reduce the deficit to 100 or less, England are thrown back under the pump - how competitive do they want to make the final day?

My current prediction would be not very, considering the fucking unchanged fucking team being their most recent competitive decision - setting a margin of 250-300 and giving us no time to either get it or get out.

If I was Panesar I would fucking emigrate. What bullshit.

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So that's a draw then...

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The winner? The pitch in Adelaide.

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Indeed. Even Bangladesh could've racked up 400 plus on that wicket. Three more of that type of wicket and you're home and hosed... not that I'm cynical of course!

By the way, fantastic perfomance from the Old Sheepdog!

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Is that your folksy name for Snaggletooth Hoggard?

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OR NOT.

OUCH CUNTS MALONE. That was one hell of a loss. How did you pull it off?

Post-mortem (if I can quieten the beer in my head and yelling in the other room):

Where did you guys lose momentum late today?

When fucking Giles was bowling. Warne had a field day on that pitch and then Ashley Faggot "I Spun The Ball Once in '97" Shitbox Giles rocks up and goes for about 50 from 10 overs. Now you've lost the opportunity to play an aggressive spinner for the series because you'll have to wait until Sydney for that to be an interesting 5th day factor, and now it looks like that'll be a dead rubber. I can't see you winning the 2 you need to draw the series, let alone taking the rest to win.

Write Duncan Fletcher a note.

"Dear Duncan,

You are a shithead.

Yours sincerely,
England and its ugly denizens."

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Agreed. With everything.

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Shit, the world agrees with me:

SMH

WITH nine overs remaining yesterday, Channel Nine's cameras panned to the England dressing rooms for a close-up of Monty Panesar. Producers then cut back to the action just in time for the first delivery of the over, bowled by Ashley Giles, to be dispatched to the mid-wicket boundary by Michael Hussey.

In just two frames, Nine had revealed the problem with England's spin attack. Panesar, the attacking tweaker who rose to prominence last English summer, remained consigned to his seat at a time when the tourists were screaming for a spinner with his aggressive mindset. And Giles, the conservative slow bowler who spent the majority of the match nagging around leg stump, was unable to make the breakthroughs needed of him.

The blowtorch of the English media will be directed at Duncan Fletcher in the coming days, after the England coach/selector stubbornly played his preferred spinner, Giles, at a time when Panesar seemed better suited to the Adelaide conditions. Giles barely made an impact in the match, save for the dismissals of Adam Gilchrist to a first-innings slog-sweep and Ricky Ponting at a time when Australia had effectively sealed the match, and will surely be replaced by Panesar for the third Test.

The playing of Giles over Panesar was an obvious misjudgement on the part of Fletcher, but there were others. The coach's preference for Geraint Jones over Chris Read returned to haunt him late on the fifth day in Adelaide, as Jones let through four overthrows at a crucial juncture of Australia's innings, then spilled a chance off Michael Clarke.

Fletcher's move to persist with Steve Harmison after his nightmare at the Gabba also failed to pay dividends, with the paceman failing to take a wicket in the match. His performances, coupled with those of Giles, have netted a combined four wickets for the series so far, leaving captain Andrew Flintoff to shoulder a heavy burden that is clearly affecting him physically.

But the Guardian sez:

An unrepentant Duncan Fletcher has defended his team selection despite a shambolic fifth-day performance which saw England slump to defeat in the second Test.

Fletcher has come under pressure for not selecting Monty Panesar after a series of toothless displays from England's bowling attack, but once again he insisted England had been right not to play two spinners at the Adelaide Oval. He also maintained that Giles was the natural choice over Panesar due to his superior batting, despite seeing the spinner register just 20 runs in the first innings and only one in the second.

"As we have said on numerous occasions, we want to bat to eight," he said. "Look at Australia where (Shane) Warne had that 100 partnership with (Michael) Clarke (in the first innings). Those runs put the pressure back on to us. We think Ashley (Giles) can do that better. That's the reason."

However, he revealed there had been a "huge discussion" about playing another spinner, and pointed out how hard Warne had had to work to claim four for 49 in England's second innings and effectively set the stage for Australia to snatch victory.

"We were close to it," continued Fletcher. "We wanted to play two spinners here, we had a huge discussion about playing two spinners. Having played in that (practice) game against South Australia, the skiddy bowlers were more effective - seamers took most of the wickets. Warne is a very good wrist spinner, he took 86 overs to get five wickets - that summed it up. It was not easy for the spinners if they played on the main square."

Dear Chumpy Lord. What a dick.

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A bowler's job is to take wickets, not dip in with 20 runs here and 30 runs there. If they want runs at number 8, pick a fucking all-rounder or a batsman. Otherwise, pick Panesar. Simple, eh? Not for England it seems.

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Shit, Manso. Your media is so nasty that the media here write articles about how nasty your media is.

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...And that's why Panesar should've been playing from day one of this tour.

We're currently 11 for no loss; any takers for England all out sub-200?

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You horrible Redcoat pessimist.

Barmy Harmy looked much, much better today.

Disappointed with our middle order. You bowled well, the pitch was Perth-ier than expected, BUT STILL - ain't no sub-250 situation.

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Yes, this Perth pitch is horribly different. Good to see Panesar in the team.

If we were spread betting I'd be raping your wallet, old chap!

The lesson learned here is never to trust England's batsmen to build on the good work of the bowlers. It also works vice versa, i.e. England can't put two good innings together. If we had two good innings in a match I'd be amazed.

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Johnnypoos, in no way does a score of 215 constitute sub-200. YOU, Sir, owe ME entirely fictitious e-money!

(Erm, what's spread betting?)




R.A.P.E.D.

That was the single most destructive day's worth of cricket I have ever seen. It wasn't just the monstrous scores...

ML Hayden c Collingwood b Panesar 92
RT Ponting c Jones b Harmison 75
MEK Hussey c Jones b Panesar 103
MJ Clarke not out 135
AC Gilchrist not out 102

...but everything else as well. You fielded like shit. Flintoff has no presence. You bowled very well, really, with NO love from circumstance. It's such typically English bad luck... Harmison finds form, Panesar in the team... and everything else goes shitfired wrong.

Hoggard's face when he watched Gilchrist monster him for six was beautiful.

Now, you have 2 days to not lose 9 wickets. Or you could make 140-odd more than the highest 2nd innings chase ever. LIKE YOUR CHANCES, I DO NOT.

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It's betting that a given fact will be either less than a given range or more. For instance, if I bet £1 with you that England would score less than 200 then I would owe you £16 (£1 per run that I was wrong) as they scored 16 more runs than 199. If that bet was extended to include your assertion that we would not score less than 250, then I would win £34 from you since we scored 34 runs under 250.

We're doomed. Eighty overs without losing 5 wickets? Only if Pietersen and Flintoff hang around for the majority of the day. No chance.

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I have to now echo the sentiments of my long lost Austrailian brethren: England. Have. Been. Thoroughly. RAPED.

I'll start with the good points of England's tour before I get too acerbic to consider them.

1) Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood. The only English batsmen to put up any concerted effort to actually think about what they were doing and who they were playing against.

2) Monty Panesar. It says a lot about England's bowlers that Monty has only played in one test of this series so far and has looked our best bowler.

3) The grub on the plane over there. Must've been good given the bloated corpulence of Duncan Fletcher.

4) Any other takers?

OK, now on to the bad points...

1) The preparation, team selection and execution, with the exception of one day's play from the fifteen so far have been the worst I've seen from this England team for at least five years. The blame must lay squarely with the ECB and Duncan Fletcher.

2) Ashley Giles. It's not his fault that Fletcher selected him over Panesar but he could've at least repaid some of Fletcher's faith by scoring those "additional runs" from number 8. What's the point of playing a far inferior bowler who'll get an extra 20 or 30 runs (which, incidentally, never materialised) when the seven muppets above him are amassing just over 200 between them? The basics of cricket appear to have been forgotten; runs don't mean shit if you can't take twenty wickets.

3) Geraint Jones. Another Fletcher cock up. I've not checked the statistics, but what's his average for this tour? Less than 10? They call this guy a wicketkeeper-batsmen; that tag shames genuine wicketkeeper-batsmen such as Alec Stewart, Brendan McCullum, Mark Boucher and, most famously, Adam Gilchrist (who was one ball away from equalling Viv Richards' quickest test century record). His glovework is also far inferior to those listed. Chris Read must be laughing at Jones' demise.

4) Preparation. Picture this: You're 6 months from playing the number one ranked team in the world for the past 15 years, a team still snarling and smarting from defeat 15 months ago, a team with one of the most destructive batting line ups that cricket has ever seen, the best spinner that cricket has ever seen, and the most accurate and well oiled bowling attack that cricket has ever seen with more wickets between them than Geraint Jones has runs. What sort of tour itinery do you put together in order to ensure that the team is fully prepared for the inevitable onslaught? That's right, a Mickey Mouse 14-a-side game and a three day game! Genius! No wonder Harmison didn't get fully into the swing of things until the third game. If our own board aren't going to give us a fighting chance then we really are in the shit.

There are a lot more, but in order to keep my blood pressure down I'll save them for another day.

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Well, that's the that of that. We teh winz.

I like your chances better for the next two tests. Panesar working and Harmison played back in (took exactly the right amount of time you'd expect three practice matches to fill, didn't it...?). Probably a batsmen-friendly strip in Melb instead of something where the mismatch between bowlers will be exposed. And we're notoriously less good in dead rubbers.

(I've taken a poll and everyone here agrees: we support Australia, unless the Terrorist is bowling. Then we support him instead. You just don't have a choice. He's so... terrorist-y. He even runs and throws in that goofy 'I have a heavy brace of dynamite strapped to me' kind of way.)

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Finally, it's over.

Now this thread can happily sink past pages by time.

Fuck yourself. Two tests left.

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I wonder if the England side can spell "whitewash"...

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Fucking Kevin South African Cuntface Peter-In-My-Ear-My-Son should NOT be in at 5. He should be at first drop, no doubt about it. Many media shits are saying 4th. Fuck that. You waste him horribly in a long, long batting tail (which starts with Flintoff these days, apparently!) and it's rotten.

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So, a lead of perhaps 250...

Could you guys at least try?

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I think we're beyond trying. We might try and save some face by obtaining a 200+ score in one of the ODIs and taking at least 5 wickets in another.

The Pietersen point is a good one - you can see he's frustrated when he's languishing with the likes of Mahmood, Hoggard and Harmison at the other end. A waste. I think the Aussies would put him in at 3 or 4, no question.

We miss Giles' runs at 8!

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Lol @ warnies 4 yesterday!

*insert esoteric cricket comment here*

Shush, you.

Understandably, I have lost interest in the Ashes.

Prediction: the World Cup is going to be good. Australia have momentum. NZ always play one-day very well for a bunch of livestock molesters... even so Sri Lanka just trod on their throat, but it's the first match in a series. South Africa just punished India 4-0. West Indies and Pakistan also just fought a fairly well contested series.

While we shit on about the Ashes, the rest of the world is firmly in one-day mode and are definitely looking at treading on our necks. And they have a much better chance at doing so than Flintoff's poor bedraggled mob seem to right now.



Shitfucked cuntsores. This kind of childish bullshit makes me wonder if there's any adults left in the world. Read the comments to this article. Are English and Australian people actually this fucking sickening?

"Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime.
But give a man the internet, and he'll whinge and cry like a retarded toddler with haemorrhoids."

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One of the only good things that happened last night...

Met two drunk Englishmen. One of them was asain, the other looked a fucking lot like mansley. Medium height, a tad chubby, round face and short hair (if I remember correctly what Mansley looks like).

Anyhow, the last thing I ever said to him (when parting) was: "Enjoy the fifth test". He replied "Fuck you, you fucking funny cunt". Hahaha.

This is probably the first time I've seen someone presuppose anything (fbs), and it came to be way more than true, let alone true.

In fact, the other day he said he would have if by some utter miracle we'd managed to lose this series.

So, no Warne, McGrath, or Langer after tomorrow's test. Respectively, I see MacGill, Clark and Phil Jaques just about managing to fill their boots out (perhaps with a little newspaper stuffed in the toes).

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Well well, there's always next year.
Now, all we need is the urn...

the urn's in Aus anyway. It'll just save it the trip back to lords. Anyway...

Five Niiiiil, Fiiiiive Niiiiiiiiiii-iill, Five Nil!

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FIVE-NIL. YAY.

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Fe Fi Fo Fum etc.

World Cup time!

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*Hangs head in shame*

*Shivers at the thought of the upcoming one day series*

*Cries*

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