Be Excellent To Each Other

Five points isn't massive. Only eight points separate the top three now.

It's obviously been a while since I checked the standings.

From the beeb, so looks like it is Straus!

Malc

And we're off! Two edges from Strauss already, but he's just smacked a boundary.

Oh you dick. He's gone now.

I thought this started on Thursday

bollocks!

Malc

That's the danger of putting someone who sucks as your captain!

Not that we had any other decent options, to be fair.

Nah, he's worthy of his Test place. The ODIs, on the other hand...

TMS on your PC (sadly The Bearded Wonder-less), you lucky people.

(UK Only, so no TMS for you foriegns)

Cook gone for 4...the big arse.

Ian Bell will save us all!

Go go England batting slapstickery!

They'll flirt with it, still get a decent score, bundle them out (Chanderpaul 112*) and it'll all prove nothing, nothing I tells you.

Ian Bell is a clwon of the highest order. Races to 19 at better than a run a ball, remembers he's in a Test match, slows down to score 10 runs off the next 80 balls, and then gets out.

He does this every single effing time!

Learn, man!

ffs



Malc

10 minutes! 10 effing minutes and the carthorse is out.

I don't get England's obsession with persisting with Flintoff at six, as though the past four years never happened.

It's a tough one. Broad's probably the long-term answer but he's not quite up to scratch either with the bat or the ball yet.

As, with exquisite timing, he gets out. Criminy. 320's looking an optimistic target now.

Broad's a good eight and he'll always be a good eight IMO. I think England need to get over their fixation on all-rounders (to which other teams are by no means immune.)

Prior gets his 50.

He's a cracking #7, and perhaps indeed should be at #6, but I always wonder if the 20 runs extra he gets per innings over other keepers is squandered by the chances he invariably drops.

Better than in an ODI when he races to 3 off fifty balls, runs out a teammate and then skies his one aggresive shot of the match straight down a fielders throat.

How come I have only just learnt that his middle name is Ronald?

Hey dawgs don't hait da playa hait da game aight.

I have a text from you saved, saying to drop Ian Bell.



Also, what's the point of a challenge system, if the umpire on the pitch gives someone out, the third umpire says "Yeah, probably out, might have been a little high though" and they reverse the on field decision, which can ONLY happen with absolute proof that a wrong decision was made?

Could very probably cost England the game. Idiot umpires.

Have you been drinking Kia Ora again?

Nghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Mark Mitchener's just used the phrase 'pre-warn' on the BBC text commentary.

Is he selling his cardigan?

Why would you do that to yourself? Get over to the Guardian OBO - took me a while to warm to the style, felt too much like a private club to start with, but it's much better written and without the naff 'awright lads' shite the beeb (and Times) go in for.

Plus the Guardian OBO regularly used my contributions when I used to write in, so it MUST be awesome!

I don't follow cricket but a friend does and told me to read the guardian text feed one day (this was a couple of years ago) where the reporter appeared to have gone mad with boredom during a particularly quiet game - with hilarious consequences.

I loved the Guardian MBM during the olympics for that exact reason. Mmmmh, comedy vanity

I have nothing but respect for a contributor to the OBO. Plus they don't seem to include yer average musings and occasionally go off on good riffs, so for quality you know where to go.

Heh. 23/6. Apparently Collingwood was running a quick two after his dismissal, not even realising he'd been bowled...

This is brilliant.

I've got the book of the collective OBOs for the 2005 Ashes "Is it cowardly to pray for rain?", complete with my own contribution on page 94.

51. Bravo, lads!

/
Who do I call to get my money back?

1.5 Million?

I don't think he was playing

Malc

An innings and 23 bananas.

Settled down in my sickbed to watch the 2nd Test. After seven balls they were off for rain, then when they resumed Fidel Edwards aborted several deliveries due to the sandy run-up. Now everyone's standing around discussing whether to call it off. The cut and thrust of Test cricket!

A bit of a joke, really, that they didn't check to see if the pitch was playable.

MORE IMPORTANTLY - I loaded up Brian Lara's International Cricket 2007 last night, only to find that all the players now have their correct names. What the hell happened there? Did Codemasters suddenly get the license three years after the game had been released?

I miss Andrew Stross and Monty Pansarian already.

Were you playing in the World Cup? Didn't the game have a license to use the correct names, but only if you were playing in the officially licensed correct tournaments?

AAAAAAAAAAH. That might be it.

Hang on, that's bonkers.

Yeah, that's it. BLIC always had the World Cup and ICC Trophy rights.

Don't know why you're playing 07 though, it's crap. The 05 version is the definitive one, even if you can't ever run out batsmen.

Because it was a fiver.

You were robbed.

Yeah, it's a massive shame. 07 had some good ideas (360 degree shot selection, throw to bowler), but was a step back in a lot of ways (fielding, AI). And why no leave button? When I'm playing a test match I don't want my opening batsmens' confidence to wilt to zero because they've left six balls outside of the off-stump!

EA 2005 got that bit right. Shame you could never pierce the inside field unless you hit it over the top, though...

Oh, I don't know, I've had at least a fiver's worth of chuckles out of it. The batting is excellent fun and seems pretty well-realised in terms of what shots you can get away with depending on where the ball pitches. Bowling's less good, fielding's worse and the presentation's a bit of a mess, but hey.

It's much more fun in multiplayer, as it throws the AI out of the window, of course. I believe that Curio has it, also. Perhaps a 2v2 game sometime?

I would be very much up for this.