2009 Ashes Series - England vs. Australia **Spoilers**

If Freddie can't play I can't see how we can get a balanced side from that squad.
Monty will be replaced by Onions anyway so if Harmison comes in for Freddie that leaves us ridiculously weak batting after Prior and we are fragile enough in that department anyway.

Cook
Strauss
Bopara
KP
Collingwood
Prior
Broad
Swann
Harmison
Anderson*
Onions

*50 innings without a 50, 100 or a duck now:p
 
We have to royally screw up the batting to not get a draw at the flat batting haven that is Lords....

Oh and about the celebrating a draw thing, remember in 2005 when Australia survived at 9 wickets down and were going mental on the balcony?
 
StewartMG said:
We have to royally screw up the batting to not get a draw at the flat batting haven that is Lords....

Oh and about the celebrating a draw thing, remember in 2005 when Australia survived at 9 wickets down and were going mental on the balcony?
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Id be surprised if England get a draw from Lords as well...seeing as one of the major reasons why they gave the first test to Wales was due to the fact the Aussies usually beat England at Lords.

But if they do get a draw out of Lords then ill be surprised if anything as Lords usually comes up with a result of some sort.

Looks like ill have to rely on cricinfo for my updates of the Test seeing as im in Dallas for the rest of this week for business...flying out tonight...mind you i probably wont be all that interested as ill be too busy with work and then roaming around Dallas to find some sort of mischief:p.
 
dirtydog said:
Australia have had much success over England there in the last several encounters IIRC so I'm not sure why you are so confident of a draw.
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I was about to point out it's usually a batting paradise, but it seems the stats don't back that up. From 2006 to the beginning of this year, the average first innings score is only 370.

Will have to see how the wicket behaves and how the weather does!
 
Harmy has to play, even if its just for Lords and his bounce and he gets dropped for the rest. I'm not sure Onions is quick enough to play the aussies, its a shame Sidebottom is low on match time as he could be effective up the slope.
 
SMN said:
Harmy has to play, even if its just for Lords and his bounce and he gets dropped for the rest. I'm not sure Onions is quick enough to play the aussies, its a shame Sidebottom is low on match time as he could be effective up the slope.
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Onions was bowling around 86-90 last time he was playing for England :confused:

Speaking of speed, did anyone else notice how on the first morning all our bowlers were going at 90-94, and by the evening they barely hit 90? I know there's tiredness to take into account but it didn't seem to happen to the Aussies when they bowled?
 
So Flintoff has announced he is retiring after this series - should he not have kept that quiet until after the series is over? I wonder if it might not be disruptive to announce it now.
 
I think it depends, it can be hard if you've made up your mind 100% but decide to keep it quiet and still concentrate on his own performance - if he had a failure with the bat and ball people would likely be questioning his performance etc.

Probably would have been better to wait until the series was over, but I'm sure he'd thought long and hard about the timing and everything - it may even be that the media somehow picked up on it and so his announcement is pre-emptive rather than have speculation swirling around.
 
dirtydog said:
Flintoff in the team, Harmison isn't! I'm quite surprised they left him out.
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I was a bit too - on commentary they're suggesting it could quicken up too like in the last test here against the west indies. If the ball is swinging and seaming though, Onions and Anderson will be very useful.

Weather looks pretty mixed so I'm expecting a draw. Good news is we're batting first so as long as we have a good day today we should be in an OK position!
 
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