Ashes highlights: England vs Australia 5th Test - Day 2 cricket scores, blog

I'm sure he did. But he still hasn't overtaken Watto this series.

If you think that Ian Healy, Michael Vaughan, Shane Warne, Mark Nicholas, Beefy, Bumble, Nas and every cricket commentator in the world went out and got plastered last night in London…you would be 1000% right. I would’ve if I could’ve. They are entitled to be giggling their heads off this morning, while downing their Beroccas. For 60 days they have been very quick to explain why Australia have been falling apart in England for 20 years….and then England fall apart. When the Ashes was lost. When , some say, it didn’t matter! When Aussies believe it matters a heap! The ball started talking after Tea. English batsmen said “Stuff this. Johnson’s knocking my block off. I can’t lay a bat on Marsh or Siddle or Lyon and they keep hitting me on the pinkies and head off a good length. We’re going down like nine pins…I’m outta her!” The cricket world could scarcely believe their eyes in the session after tea at the Oval on Day 2. The Oval crowd packed up and went home, warm and snugly in the knowledge that this Test was gone, but that the Ashes was safe. For now! 3 Day Test here we come!!!!! Michael Clarke…you’rre a genius! Another holiday for 30 of the world’s best cricketers in English conditions. Let’s paint the town red and get on the drink….quick! Before we wake up! Are Mitch Marsh and Peter Siddle… rejected, ridiculed, in and out of the team…the disciples of Merlin, Harry Potter reincarnate, or masters of Black Magic or Gods of Cricket? Are Rod Marsh and Darren Lehmann able to bend spoons at 20 paces like Uri Geller? Or can they select anyone and see them succeed……or are they just lucky??? Or unlucky, depending on how you look at it??? Let’s face it. What happened at The Oval as England lost 8/108 in 140 minutes was the exception for Australia , not the rule. But it was joyous for Aussie cricket because it redeemed and reinforced everything Aussie cricket stands for in our minds. We can actually play cricket in England when we get a fair shake of the weather, toss etc. • Lords and the Oval are in London. The weather was dry and sunny for most of yesterday and all of the Lords’ Test. The wicket was rolled after Australia “brilliantly” struggled to 481. Rogers, Warner, Voges, Starc and Smith were gutsy and great…and lucky at times. No denying their guts though! • England had been in the field for 5 sessions at the end of 5 mentally debilitating Tests and had won the Ashes. • Australia felt that the Tests at Edgbaston and Trent Bridge made them look very bad, when the coin toss and the luck of batting first, when bowling first was mandatory, denied them the opportunity of attacking England in perfect bowling conditions. 60 and 136 will forever stick in my mind. Pure Luck!!!!!! All of it bad!!!! • Australia’s brains’ trust picked 4 bowlers at Trent Bridge? Hello? Is that the move of 2 genius’? Hardly! • So Australia lost Haddin, Harris, Watson, Shaun Marsh, Mike Clarke, in their heads, then had conniptions of kinds which shot them in the foot…and left Australia in the lurch. It was like a revolving door at Heathrow. • Mitch Johnson was said to have failed again in English conditions. Mitch Starc was said to be all over the shop. Josh Hazelwood was suddenly a failure. Pat Cummins was “unpickable”. Mitch Marsh couldn’t hit a ball with a bat as big as a barn. Steve Smith could only bat at Lords and the Oval. Dave Warner didn’t find his box of bats until Trent Bridge. Adam Voges was the flop of flops. Australia was a technically flawed and failed bunch of no-hopers. And in 140 minutes last night, all that was seen to be what we hoped it was…..a bunch of unmitigated crap! You go to England with hope…..and you get kicked in the head and rolled for all your money by the Gods of Clouds, the Gods of swing and seam, the Gods of the Toss and 5 very good English seamers! So if you think that Rod Marsh, Darren Lehmann, Mike Di Venuto and Craig McDermott are off the hook with the Australian public…you are certifiable! They have presided over a relative disaster. There is no system in the teams they have picked for the West Indies and England which looked after youth as well as experience. There was just some old guys on the last leg of their careers getting another Tour for sentimental reasons and in the hope that they would succeed. Cardiff told them they were in a heap of trouble, if the next 4 wickets and conditions played havoc, because our batters could barely get the ball off the square at Cardiff. Clarke and Harris had been badly injured and mentally affected by Phil Hughes’ passing. Watson was, is a shell. Haddin had family problems. Shaun Marsh got 2 innings on a green top under clouds of doom. Marsh and Lehmann never really ever invested in youth, other than Mitch Marsh. Pete Nevill was like 2-3 other wicketkeeping tyros back in Oz. Josh Hazelwood, Mitch Starc, Mitch Johnson and Nathan Lyon were, are heroic. Not for yesterday, for the whole series. They are salt of the earth. Mitch Marsh and Pete Siddle have my admiration for what they did in the Perfect Storm yesterday. Pete Nevill had not even figured in the series until Brad Haddin failed at Cardiff with the bat. He has been very good and will get better. Fawad Ahmed must think he is the 15th man on every tour. Pat Cummins must think he has leprosy. Shaun Marsh could be forgiven for spending the next 6 months on a shrink’s couch somewhere. Mitch Marsh wants to take a London Phone Book and tear it to shreds to show his manliness…when he just needs to learn the art of batting in England…and everywhere else. Ohh…and to complete the lunacy, Wally Edwards and Rod Marsh, the WA Connection, have taken up cigar smoking and brandy drinking for the rest of their cricketing lives. I think I’ll join them! Footnote. If the ICC wants to bring some sanity to Tests in England or anywhere for visiting teams who are rarely if ever winning away from home, then it will dispense with Coin Tosses, allow the Home Team to chose whether to bat or bowl in tests 1-3-5, and allow the Visitors to chose in the 2-4 Tests. Apply it all over the world. And bring some certainty to the world of cricket. ARTHUR PAGONIS MANAGING DIRECTOR AUSTRALIA GLOBAL TRADING PTY LTD 10 HERTZ WAY, MORLEY, W.A. 6062 AUSTRALIA PH. 61.8.9377 3833, FAX 61.8.93773877, MOBILE 61. 409918874 SKYPE: apagonis2 WEB: www.ausglobaltrading.com

If Australia, and I , have ever learned a lesson, it was after Tea on Day 2 at the Oval. 481 on the board for the Oz and at 0/30 England were cruising. In 2 hours , Australia went from zero to heroes and put the test in danger of being completed in 3 days as Michael Clarke had predicted. Now it is not that I resent anyone succeeding. But to be honest, I had bagged Nathan Lyon’s automatic selection and Pete Siddle being preferred to Pat Cummins, and I stand by my thinking. Mitchell Marsh, Lyon and Siddle had purple patches which Australia also curiously had at Lords on a flat deck after scoring 550. Scoreboard pressure. No incentive for England to perform in a dead rubber against a manic bowling attack intent on destruction. Just plain great bowling against a tired English team. I thought all 3 bowled beautifully, as did Johnson and Starc. They were helped by cleverly thought out field settings employed by Clarke which restricted runs for long periods. Also, the cool late afternoon breezes, twilight-ish sunshine… and a dry track with irregular bounce leaping off the seam of the Duke ball. So irregular that keeper Pete Nevill had nightmares. Siddle was dangerous with swing from ball 1. He displayed a frenetic intent and torturous length, swing and spit that the youth and uncertainty of Josh Hazelwood has not often been able to match in this series. To be fair to all fellow critics, Lyon bowled Cook with his best ball of the Series, a cracker which pitched leg and hit off. Siddle bowled Bell with another cracker which swung late and hit the top of middle. Trott was not out…but was given so to Mitch Marsh when his bat brushed his pad/thigh pad at the same time as the ball beat the bat. And Lyth threw his wicket away to a lifting ball outside off from Siddle which he didn’t need to play at. But you can take nothing away from Siddle who hit the fingers of the batter, beat the bat, held the seam upright and got lateral movement every over. Rod Marsh might think he is a genius, but if he is, he would have had Siddle in the team in the First Test and would never have picked Ryan Harris until his fitness had been confirmed in Australia prior to the Tour. Certainly the conditions and spite in the wicket after Tea on Day 2 have not occurred prior to this on both days. England went from 0/30 to 6/83 when Johnson picked up Bairstow fending and Lyon bowled Buttler wafting thru the gate. This was certainly an English lineup which yes, had won the Series, but was being destroyed by a hungry and angry Aussie team which sensed that the losses at Trent Bridge and Edgbaston were only because they didn’t bowl first. Johnson was violent. Starc wasn’t even required. Siddle, Marsh and Lyon were licking their lips. It made a mockery of England’s intent, made a 2-3 result in this series look likely, and the difference between the 2 teams seems on this evidence to be only due to the toss of coins. Marsh’s swing and bounce induced a rash launch from Stokes off a bouncer. He then got Broad to edge to Voges at slip with another beautiful away swinger to the lefthander to take his figures to 3/8 in 7 overs. He also had Wood caught by the same man off a no ball. Curiously, there has been an avalanche of No Balls in this innings and in the Australian innings, several of which have cost wickets. I would suggest that the distance between the popping crease and the batters crease might be incorrect. No previous Test in this series has had such over-stepping. Siddle and Marsh have been the only 2 Australian bowlers in this series who have genuinely swung the ball both ways. It was perhaps both men’s finest session in Test Cricket. And it has lifted Australian spirits immensely. ARTHUR PAGONIS MANAGING DIRECTOR AUSTRALIA GLOBAL TRADING PTY LTD 10 HERTZ WAY, MORLEY, W.A. 6062 AUSTRALIA PH. 61.8.9377 3833, FAX 61.8.93773877, MOBILE 61. 409918874 SKYPE: apagonis2 WEB: www.ausglobaltrading.com

Marsh - making sure he doesn't bowl another no ball - bowls that one from behind the sightscreen.

Both teams found wanting under pressure - is the effect of 20/20?

Disgusting

Dead rubber for Oz too.