General Cricket Thread (It's Come Home)

Today's awful cricket pun (from the BBC website): "Onions to play and pick up five cheap wickets leading to headlines of 'Onions makes Aussies cry'. That's shallot from me."  Groan...

Anyway, he's not been picked.  England are nothing if not consistent/stubborn.

And England win the toss.  So far this series, the toss seems to be the most important deciding factor.  England to win by an innings?  EDIT: Although not at this rate...

Afternoon EDIT: Not doing awfully at the moment. Slowly, yes, but not awfully.

That's good news for Tales of-er, I mean England. I have to say so far this has been a rather dull start, but that's usually how these things go. The time for action will come.

Trott, you idiot! You were playing well and got cocky. And Pietersen's first ball suggests that he's got the same mentality.

Congrats to Cook for the half-century. It hasn't looked like an easy one.

Here's hoping Bell can join him.  The innings so far smacks of England's first in the Ashes, when they were all out for 215.

EDIT: Bloody hell! TotA is suffering an extravagant collapse here. I think Cook may have had his day, to be frank.

If this innings smacks of their first innings I can only imagine how bad Australia's is going to be.  

EDIT: Aw yeah, Bell's gone. Glad to see the back of him, I wasn't liking Australia's chances of digging him out if he got going.

One of the (many) times that England needed Bell, and there he goes.  215 looking fairly optimistic now.

EDIT: Creeeeeeeeeeak...

Well, at least they'll likely crack the 215 margin now!  Boring it may be, but at least they're doing better than predicted.

Urgh. There goes Prior. Good use of reviews from Australia this innings. Tail now...

I guess I spoke too soon.  

Cowan > Bairstow? Could well be.  

9 for 214.  Well who knows, they might just scrape past the 215 guess, but they sure as heck won't be getting far past it!  

EDIT: Well well well, England are doing pretty darn good right now.  Could I be watching Anderson do an Agar?

Wait, never mind. Stumps day one. Still, England lasted the first day! That's got to count for something!

So I may have been wrong about England winning with an innings to spare?  Maybe?  At least the tail is wagging for once: that's usually an Australian "thing".  

Still, I give the Burnley Lara (as Jimmy is apparently called) until second ball tomorrow.  Then it's time to see if Australia's batting can match their bowling.  I still say that both sides are betting with the ball than hitting it.

New day EDIT: I'm not going to cheer too much until Clarke falls, but there are many echoes of the first test here.  Of course, we know what happened at the end of Australia's first innings there...

Blegh, more drs controversy. I at this point I am missing the days where if you get called out you were out. And right now I feel like I'm watching a rerun of the first test, I suspected before sitting down to watch today that that was what was going to happen.

The question seems to be, is the umpire calling that it's out, or is he calling that it's out caught behind?  Something that needs to be specified.  (EDIT: Apparently the rule book does agree.)

Broad is very excitable, isn't he?

EDIT: Broad is the Pietersen of bowling.

He was calling out caught behind I believe.  And Clarke's gone, and with him Australia's chances at a decent innings.

As for the reviews. I either wish they'd overhaul them or scrap them. As they are now they simply make the match grind to a halt to bring about a ruling nobody likes, and for no good reason. If they're going to have a review system they should have it like the reviews in Tennis, if you contest something and you get proven right you keep the review, if you get it wrong you lose the review.

Kudos to Rogers and Smith: they're both seeming solid.  And there's still the reliable Haddin and the less reliable Watson to come.

EDIT: Oh, never mind.

EDITEDIT: Well I was half right. Increased kudos to Rogers.

Definitely kudos to Rogers, he's really impressed me with this innings. He seems to have dug himself in really well.

And no doubt posting this will jinx things.

Poor on England's side. Australia throttled them in the first innings: why can't they do the same? This may be the Agar-and-Smith moment of this innings.

Watson's really impressed me this innings. So far this series I've been left wondering why they haven't dropped him yet with how often he got out, but now he's actually fired and doing some great cricket.

If Rogers gets the century, I almost don't want England to win.  I want them to go away, look at themselves, ask why they still have Bairstow and Bresnan in the team, and question Cook's captaincy.  I don't want him to lose the job: I want him to think.  

If that happens, they might actually play some worthwhile cricket in the final test.

EDIT: At flipping last. Good to know that England have one decent bowler. Still, here comes Haddin.

I just find it hilarious that Rogers has been there as the entire team so far has got out.  He deserves the century, hope he gets it.

EDIT: YES! He did it!  

And there we go.  Swann kept him pinned down well, but he did it in the end.  Well done to him.  Now Swann needs to keep the pressure up.

EDIT: Close of play, and well done both Rogers and Watson (although not as much).  England can still come in and bowl them out tomorrow, conceding only a slight lead.  On the other hand, they could bowl like idiots tomorrow and concede another hundred.

Worth noting that Rogers wouldn't have got even a half-century were it not for the DRS...

DAWN OF THE THIRD DAY: Or rather afternoon, shortly after Australia's collapse this morning.  I will doff my non-existent hat to Ryan Harris, though, while directing a glare at Tony Hill.  Rogers has found DRS a fickle mistress.  I'll say it again: echoes of the first test, with only three Aussies making a good show, but one of those being really very good.

Two overs in, 5 runs; but the first one was a maiden.  Australia will probably keep doing what they did on the first day, and it's up to England to find a way around that.  And not get out stupidly, of course.  Every batsman on the England team needs a good showing: even Bell will want to wipe out memories of that 6 last innings.

THREDIT: Root continues his disappointing form. Utterly unsurprising. The 180 was a fluke on an unpressured day. If it weren't for Bairstow, I'd think that England should chuck him out, but they have a bigger problem at the moment.

56 for 3 wickets, what a lovely score to start my day (or evening I should say) seeing.  

I come back from two episodes of AoT to... this. Disgusting.