The Ashes 2009

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 12:59 am

Good performance by Flintoff.

Hopefully he can take 5 wickets with all legal balls next time and not have to rely on catches that bounce first.

Simmo79 · Post by **Simmo79** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 8:11 am

Johnson did, that's one positive, turning into our best batting bowler of almost but not quite All-Rounder status.

he'd need to be a bowler first wouldn't he?

broncos · Post by **broncos** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:16 am

Us Aussies whinge worse than the poms. Seriously, the umpiring was fine. I bet every single one of you thought Hussey was out when looking at it live. On the Hughes dismisal it looked like the ball carried to Strauss at the time without showing super duper slow-mo replays. Good on the umpire for making a judgement straight away even if it was wrong.

Umpires can't be blamed for that inept performance from the batting and bowling lineup. Johnson's lost all confidence unfortunately which is disappointing because he's a good bowler and Hussey has failed yet again. They should stick with the same lineup IMO and hope they all improve. On the plus side Hilfenhaus is bowling beautifully and what a great knock from Clarke.

Jeffles · Post by **Jeffles** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:38 am

There is a point in that. Umpiring mistakes or not, that's sport and at the end of the day England were the better team.

We lost it with a 200 deficit in the first innings. Our top order didn't fire and our bowling in the first two sessions of Day 1 was woeful.

Northampton next week. Maybe gve the batsmen some time in the middle and bowl Stuart Clark.

gyfox · Post by **gyfox** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 11:04 am

broncos wrote: Seriously, the umpiring was fine.

I suppose I expect higher standards from international umpires than you do. We were outplayed for the first 3 days of the match and England bowled well in the 4th innings of the game too but to say the umpiring was fine is ridiculous. Katich was caught off a no ball. If an umpire cannot see that Flintoff's whole foot was over the line instead of being 40+ mm further back then they shouldn't be umpiring at the international level. At normal speed on my TV the "catch" by Strauss to dismiss Hughes was suspect. I expected that it would be referred but inconsistently it wasn't. Hauritz's catch off Bopara looked more out. I didn't see the Hussey dismissal live as I was watching the TDF at the time. When I switched back over during an add break they were showing the replay and it was clear that Hussey missed it by quite a way. The thing with cricket is that although all three dismissals were incorrect decisions, if they had gone the other way Australia might have scored more than 406 but they also might have been out for less than that. We will never know. I feel sorry for Hussey. He has been the victim of at least half a dozen bad umpiring errors in the last 12 months.

Simmo79 · Post by **Simmo79** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 11:11 am

a picture paints a thousand words

yob · Post by **yob** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 11:56 am

gyfox wrote:
broncos wrote: Seriously, the umpiring was fine.
I suppose I expect higher standards from international umpires than you do.

That takes half the interest out of the sport. The best thing about cricket is its variability. The weather, the umpiring, the field dimensions, the pitch, the light, the ball, nothing is the perfect or consistent. You could have a super slow mo camera replay decide every wicket instead of human eyes 40 metres away, but that's as interesting as knowing a light switch either flips on or off.

gyfox · Post by **gyfox** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 1:11 pm

yob wrote:
gyfox wrote:
broncos wrote: Seriously, the umpiring was fine.
I suppose I expect higher standards from international umpires than you do.
That takes half the interest out of the sport. The best thing about cricket is its variability. The weather, the umpiring, the field dimensions, the pitch, the light, the ball, nothing is the perfect or consistent. You could have a super slow mo camera replay decide every wicket instead of human eyes 40 metres away, but that's as interesting as knowing a light switch either flips on or off.

The interest in the game is generated by the battle between bat and ball in the conditions that apply. The last thing you want as a player is to have that battle tipped one way or another by the incompetence of the officials. Umpires are human but you don't expect them to make clangers 3 times in 4 wickets.

hot_dogma · Post by **hot_dogma** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 3:17 pm

Simmo79 wrote:a picture paints a thousand words

I just have to post this on SFCU

yob · Post by **yob** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:22 pm

gyfox wrote:
yob wrote:
gyfox wrote:I suppose I expect higher standards from international umpires than you do.
That takes half the interest out of the sport. The best thing about cricket is its variability. The weather, the umpiring, the field dimensions, the pitch, the light, the ball, nothing is the perfect or consistent. You could have a super slow mo camera replay decide every wicket instead of human eyes 40 metres away, but that's as interesting as knowing a light switch either flips on or off.
The interest in the game is generated by the battle between bat and ball in the conditions that apply. The last thing you want as a player is to have that battle tipped one way or another by the incompetence of the officials. Umpires are human but you don't expect them to make clangers 3 times in 4 wickets.

Life is less interesting if you twist some nobs and make it perfect.

Example. During a Torrens V West Adelaide SANFL match in 1975 an interchange mixup resulted in Torrens having too many players on the ground (a player ran on before another had been stretchered off). West Adelaide called a player count - the laws of the game stated that any team found to have too many points after a count had their score reset to 0. Knowing Torrens had too many players on the field, Mick Nunan jumped the fence and chucked a supporter's coat on. Catastrophe averted.

Now fast forward to 2007. some AFL player doesn't go through some stupid line on the boundary. During the week there's a public war on interchange procedure. A club is fined 20 grand and the AFL introduces an interchange steward with a clip board.

One scenario was outright cheating, the other was perfect. One is a story to tell the kids, the other isn't.

Australia didn't just lose a test match by 200 runs. They lost a match after a string of bad umpring decisions. Could they have won? We'll never know. That's why it's interesting.

the crow · Post by **the crow** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 6:19 pm

Harden the f**k up Lads......I cant suffer seeing another English captain slobber all over the Ashes, Vaughn in 2005 was too much to bare.

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 7:54 pm

I guess we could do an India and threaten to abandon the tour.

beastjim · Post by **beastjim** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:14 pm

Rob wrote:I guess we could do an India and threaten to abandon the tour.

Strauss called Hauritz a Monkey perhaps?

Egan · Post by **Egan** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:38 pm

the crow wrote:Harden the f**k up Lads......I cant suffer seeing another English captain slobber all over the Ashes, Vaughn in 2005 was too much to bare.

Going to be devastating if we do not retain it...

LOL at that photo.

swede · Post by **swede** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 11:30 pm

gyfox wrote:
swede wrote: A draw on this tragedy of a pitch is excellent for them.
If a draw on that pitch is excellent for England then England would have to rank below Bangladesh in the Test Rankings. The truth is that it was an abysmal performance by England. On the best batting pitch that any of them are likely to see in their careers they managed to lose 19 wickets. The batsmen, other than Collingwood, ought to feel ashamed.

of course it was poor. I just make the point that it was on the kind of surface where England very often struggle. That makes it good to get away with a draw and live to fight another day.

Cardiff was not simply a good batting pitch. it made for slow controlled faultless batting rather than rewarding fast scoring and taking chances. That works against England.
Lords showed the difference. England score the same with the bat as in Cardiff but are far more dangerous with ball. Its the ideal surface for them. Flat but not so flat that good bowlers are out of the game.