Cul's Sports Bar

[Ursa major]

I need a drink - an orange juice and lemonade (with ice), that is - because it's been quite a day for surprises:

• The Aussies on 8-156** in reply to England's 425 all out.
• Tom Watson as joint leader at the Open, with Tiger missing the cut.

** - It's good how the Aussie way of saying the score emphasizes all those lost wickets.

[Majimaune]

Shhh Ursa. We don't like to talk about the cricket.

[Tillane]

It's only on rare days like today that we do, Maj! Aussies 34-2 chasing 522, btw.

[Ursa major]

And now - at the Tea Interval - the Aussies have reached 178 runs.




And they still have five wickets left.

[Ursa major]

And the Aussies still had those five wickets in hand at the end of Sunday's final session. (Well done them!)

Sadly for them and their supporters, their valiant attempts came to naught (at least in terms of the final result) and England won a test against them at Lords for the first time in three-quarters of a century.

The two teams meet again at Edgbaston at the end of this month (starting on the 30th). Whether there'll be a turnaround as great as that between the first and second Tests remains to be seen.

[Hilarious Joke]

Full credit to England, they played really well to break the Lords hoodoo.

Can't help but feel frustrated though that we drew that first test. Feels like it should be 1-1.

[Ursa major]

On the other hand, HJ, as Australia currently holds the Ashes, they only need to draw the series the retain them.

So you won't be surprised to hear that I prefer it to be 1-0.

[Majimaune]

I wouldn't be surprised if there is going to be a change in the bowling for Australia for the next test. Brett Lee should be fit and Stuart Clark is just hanging around over there being 12th man.

[Cayal]

Originally Posted by Majimaune

I wouldn't be surprised if there is going to be a change in the bowling for Australia for the next test. Brett Lee should be fit and Stuart Clark is just hanging around over there being 12th man.

If only Brett Lee was any good.

Johnson should be gone for Clark. Clark should almost be first pick bowler, I don't know why he was ever gone.

[Culhwch]

Because Johnson has a better looking girlfriend, I'm guessing. It's sad that that's about the only thing I know about this Australian cricket team....

[pyan]

A good win for us, soured slightly for me by the fact that the umpires seemed unable to tell whether a a couple of catches actually carried or not, and even more by the fact that non-carrying "catches" were appealed for, even though the catchers must have known they didn't...

Still, it all evens out in the end...Roll on no. 3.

[Culhwch]

Originally Posted by pyan

A good win for us, soured slightly for me by the fact that the umpires seemed unable to tell whether a a couple of catches actually carried or not, and even more by the fact that non-carrying "catches" were appealed for, even though the catchers must have known they didn't...

One of the things that turned me off the sport...

[Ursa major]

But there are always dubious decisions, Cul, in all sorts of sport.

For example, I'm sure I recall an Australian try against England in the first Rugby Union World Cup** where the attacking player had dropped (not just lost control of) the ball a good two feet above the ground.

From what I've seen, the only sport where players seem to own up to "foul play" is Snooker. (Obviously the higher reaches of the men's game is played exclusively by gentlemen.)




** - Apologies if I've identified the wrong match.

[Quokka]

I wouldn't be too quick to condemn the non-catchers, they are still reacting as they dive for the catch. I know one of the aussie commentators was saying that it's extremely hard to tell in those situations whether it touched the ground before your fingers were around it or not and that he blamed the umpires but not the english fielder involved and I'm sure he would have had a dig at the english team if he felt he could .

Still it looks like being an entertaining series at least, I don't think it's a best-ever team for either side (and South Africa would beat us both comfortably) but sometimes that just makes the contest better.

[Ursa major]

Originally Posted by Quokka

I know one of the aussie commentators was saying that it's extremely hard to tell in those situations whether it touched the ground before your fingers were around it or not....

I may have heard the same commentator; he mentioned Tony Greig demonstrating a few years ago that a good catch could, from certain angles, be seen as a missed catch, because it looked as if the ball had touched the ground when it hadn't.

I got the impression - rightly or wrongly - that the commentator was not too impressed by the introduction of technology in this area at least.