England 10 without loss.

Time for a Rosy.

McGrath gets his 500th test wicket first ball after tea. Meh.

10 for 1. McGrath's 500th test wicket. Dammit.

I know this is one of the greatest rivalries in a sport not understood by Americans, but really why do we continue to play a game that's just a racial memory of the most devastating war the galaxy has ever seen?

/Doug Adams was a stinking genius
//RIP 42.

Can anyone say BodyLine ?

I figured Ricky Pontings cheek would be lacerated even more. A graze from a pace bowl is sure to leave a mark.

Strauss caught :(

500 for McGrath.

make that 501

Strange, I saw it as a batters' wicket - shows how wrong I was. 2 - 11. Lowest test scores ever, perhaps?

Maybe somebody should remind them it's not a one dayer...?

Damned foreign language.....

Wraithstrike: Sorry about the war. I was only trying to fulfil my programming.

Arghh!! 14-2 - both openers gone

The Great Mutato: That's an asshat comment. Baseball is a major sport in one country. There are maybe three or four other countries where it is a minor sport. Cricket is the number one sport in around 10 nations. A baseball game might be followed by a large fraction of Americans. Over a billion people follow cricket - a sixth of the world's population. Cricket is a top sport in all of the following nations:

England
South Africa
all the English speaking Caribbean nations
Zimbabwe
Kenya
Pakistan
Sri Lanka
India
Australia
New Zealand
and Bangladesh.

Now name 11 countries (counting the Caribbean as one place) where baseball is the number 1 sport. And the "gayest uniform" comment is funny - I presume you haven't seen that baseball and American football players wear tights, fer chrissakes?

saulecker: no one has won yet, the game is in progress. it is the five-day variety. Now are we done with the generic "oh, cricket is so long, I don't understand it" comments that jackasses suffering from ADD make whenever cricket comes up? try to be original, for once. Cricket and football are both great, and very different, games.

pepsichris: England's batsmen have made 14 runs for the loss of 2 wickets. 14-2. Everywhere outside Australia, runs are written before wickets.

Vaughan bowled :(

Silly poms, ashes are for aussies

18 for 3! Man, both sides are dropping like flies...

Low scores make baby jeebus cry

must be a hell of a wicket. 18-3

Low scores make this fast bowler very happy. Give those batsmen something to think about.

thejoyofpi,

I refuse the counting the Caribbean as one place restriction - even so:

United States
Japan
Canada
Mexico
Panama
Venezuela
South Korea
Taiwan? (not sure on that one)
The english speaking caribbean
the spanish speaking caribbean
the dutch speaking caribbean
probably some of the other central/sa countries but I dont remember in MLB players from them so I didnt list them.

There is a reason baseball is in the olympics (although not in 2012) and cricket isnt.

I thought that cricket didn't qualify as an olympic sport as it has a world cup. Which is why they don't have proper football (soccer)

thejoyofpi

In the same way as writing the date 17/3, there's no question which way around it can be, so makes no difference.

At least let me play with my writing - the cricket's just upsetting me...

4 :(

The decision to drop Thorpe for Pietersen is turning out really well, isn't it?

Damn idiot dropped two sitters, and seems befuddled by McGrath and Lee.

The commentary from The Guardian's over-by-over is pretty amusing:

14th over: England 19-3 (Pietersen 0, Bell 6) A run! For Ian Bell. The less said about the rest of the over, the better from an England point of view. "Back when Steve Harmison was a slip of a lad playing for Ashington as an under-17, I thrashed him to all parts of the ground one Friday night," says Chris Bone, continuing the tales of interaction with the England players. "I had my Levi's 501s and inappropriately coloured T-Shirt hanging in the dressing room ready for an assault on the bars of Tyneside and we were chasing a small total. I couldn't believe the length of the fellas run up - there was booze to be had. First ball dug in and over point it went for a one-bounce four! More of the same followed as we cantered home by eight wickets. 'Thanks for the net,' I chirped as I left the field. His response is unprintable on a family website."

More than anything, I wish I had access to a TV showing cricket right about now. Relying on cricinfo isn't a lot of fun

My TV card arrives tomorrow and I'm still going to have missed the match!

Tjos Weel: I can assure you that in Japan, South Korea, and Mexico and in all central/south American countries, soccer is by far the most popular sport. Baseball is relatively minor. And, um, baseball and softball are no longer Olympic sports. Read about it here. So baseball was an Olympic sport for three Olympics - 1996 Atlanta, 2000 Sydney, 2004 Athens. Cricket was an Olympic sport for two Olympics - 1896 and 1900. Not a huge difference, I think. Neither really belong in the Olympic format.

What a great sport.

uzzmaan


More than anything, I wish I had access to a TV showing cricket right about now.


Indeedy! This is going to be over before I get home!

I suppose I could order Willow's CricketTicket, but they're not covering any of Pakistan's matches, so kinda defeats the purpose

makaz

Yeah, most people tend to react like that 200 milliseconds after a cricket ball hits their face...

Pietersen and Flintoff both look very tentative against Lee and McGrath. I expect Lee to pick up his first wicket within his next over or two.

Looking good against Bangladesh, and playing against a real team are two entirely different things, as the English team is now learning.

They desperately need experience; I'll wager Thorpey will be back for the next test.

McGrath 5 for 7

England farked

binnster

I'm stuck in Canada, only option is either PPV (don't know if they're even showing it on PPV, actually) or Willow's cricketticket

And could someone tell me how to do the bold name thing here? My computer skills are limited to surfing the net and playing the odd game

Flintoff bowled 0, 21-5

farking hell, it is a one-dayer

Right. Back. Have I missed anything?



mgrath's got 5 wkts. humph. dunno why we bother.

uzzman

You need to use HTML tags to do this - an example is:

bbinnster/b

Actually, don't do that, the filter screwed up my "advice"

RUNS!!! We got nearly 20% more runs!!!!

Flintoff's gone, McGrath's on fire. England's lowest total against Australia was 45 (in 1886 at Sydney). Good chance we'll see that (dismal) record broken at Lords today.

leperboy69

Thanks. Learn something new everyday

thejoyofpi,

soccer is more popular than cricket in many/most of the countries you mentioned. You said "a" top sport, not "the" top sport.

Hell, baseball may not be THE top sport in the US, depending on how you want to measure. I would argue with Japan too. Does the J league even qualify as "professional". Baseball has a real professional league and has had it for a long time.

The reason baseball is out for 2012 (as I mentioned) is that they dont let the MLBers play. If they change that, they will be back in in 2016. And you left out 2008 for the list of olympics baseball has been in. It hasnt gone away yet.

Also, no american professional sports team play in a stadium called The cricket ground. Although, Im thinking Derby Co. has built a new stadium so maybe they dont play in The Baseball Ground anymore.

Dunno if there are any Americans left in here, but to put the cricket lingo into perspective, just think if you knew absolutely nothing about NFL style football. How confused would something like this sound?

3rd and 2. On their own 38. Defense lines up in a 4-3. Thinking run, the safety comes up to put 8 men in the box. QB looks at the formation and changes it up at the line. The ball is snapped. Linebackers are blitzing. The Quarterback fakes the pitch to the tailback on the sweep, and naked-bootlegs out to the right. Avoiding a sack that would force a punt, he fires the ball over the middle to the streaking receiver who splits the secondary and takes it 55 yards for six.

Just count the amount of stuff that would make zero sense to you. 4-3? 8 Men in the box? naked-bootleg? It goes on and on. I don't even get into statistics... Yet, for someone who watches football every week, it might as well be a "Dick and Jane" story.

/my $0.02
//still don't know anything about cricket
///or Austrailian Rules Football

Damn... that should be 62 yards... not 55.

/needs the season badly.

C'mon, Aussie, c'mon!

We want a wicket! We want a wicket?

My sister and I used to chant that when we were kids in Australia watching it on TV. Sometimes it worked.