Cricket, lovely cricket (Part 1)

I’ve been to several ‘dead rubber’ tests in Australia over various ashes series and none of them were meaningless to the people in the ground, Poms or Strayans. If anything, the Strayans are really keen to flog the Poms at any and every chance. The pressure will be on to win here so that Sydney will be the chance for the whitewash. At worst, they will play hard for a draw to go for 4-0 in Sydney. There is no way they’ll countenance defeat. The side that Waugh largely inherited from Taylor had a reputation for keeling over in dead rubbers, something that Waugh tried very hard to stamp out.

3 Likes

Means a great deal to English fans, particularly the travelling fans.

Great to see Cook back in the runs and Broad bowled much better. Hearing the interviews Broad trained really hard before this test, shouldn’t that be the case for every match?

Great knock from Cook.

2 Likes

Another good day - but sadly too little to late. The Aussies miss Mitchel Starc terribly,

Congratulations to Cooke.
A double hundred in Test Cricket is a remarkable feat, to do it away, in Australia, is a stand out achievement, to do it twice is exceptional.

1 Like

Where was Cook when he was needed?

1 Like

Haha,

I know an Alistair Cooke so I always get the spelling wrong

Where he’s always been, opening the batting for England. He’s had a bad run of form. All batsmen go through dips in form but he’s ended that in spectacular fashion.

He still stands as our best ever opener in my book.

Form is temporary, class is permanent

1 Like

Rubbish. Jack Hobbs was far better.

Geoffrey won’t be happy with that comment.:laughing:

:+1: Fixt

How do you come to that conclusion? He stopped playing in 1930 so even you couldn’t have watched him play for England

3 Likes

Geoffrey was the best, but only in his own head

1 Like

What about Dennis Compton?
Herbert Sutcliffe?
Len Hutton?

What about him? We’re discussing opening batsmen

Anderson out first ball this morning.

FFS someone please end Boycott’s commentating career

Any method meets with my approval

ANY!

1 Like

Game on!

Back to the opener debate, I have a lot of time for Atherton, he faced some very decent pace attacks (as did Boycott to be fair). His innings in Johannesburg will live long in the memory.
Hard to leave Graham Gooch out of any such debate either.

Typical Melbourne weather.