The Ashes thread

[Reece]

****ing get in

[Reece]

What a buzz

Six 'bowled' in the innings, love it! Love to see the timberrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

It's a great sound

[Reece]

I wonder if Freddie drunk yet?

[wiw]

I wonder if Freddie drunk yet?

Are you?

[Reece]

No just euphoric

[Gerrard]

Heroic from freddie - aussies on fox are bitter as **** but **** em super freddie flintoff is on the march whast a way to walk from lords - the (aussie) wife is gutted ut ha ha - i am blitzed on vin rouge

supef super fred supoer freddir flintoff

[Shaggy]

Heroic from freddie - aussies on fox are bitter as **** but **** em super freddie flintoff is on the march whast a way to walk from lords - the (aussie) wife is gutted ut ha ha - i am blitzed on vin rouge

supef super fred supoer freddir flintoff

WTF have they got to be bitter about FFS, they got outplayed from ball one.

[Vermilion]

Excellent, just brilliant, all done and dusted and my nails still intact, just what we needed.

[Neil Young]

WTF have they got to be bitter about FFS, they got outplayed from ball one.

Maybe they're bitter about the fact their captain is a hypocrite.

From The Times
July 20, 2009

Ricky Ponting condemned by own actions

Simon Barnes

Piece of advice for all professional athletes: never talk about the spirit of the game. It is a statistical certainty - sport being sport and athletes being athletes - that before the week is out you'll be found wanting it. To invoke the spirit of the game - any game - is to stand before the world as a hypocrite.

Ricky Ponting, the captain of Australia, has perpetuated just such a howler. Last week he suggested that England, by slowing down the game with such pathetic devices as sending on the twelfth man and the physio to take out unneeded gloves and to tend non-existent injuries, were violating the spirit of the game.

It opens the door to a fascinating philosophical discussion. What do we mean by the word spirit? What do we mean by the word game? What do we mean by the word word? Just some of the questions that Ponting will not be debating tonight. He has always given the impression of a man who has escaped the tyranny of abstract thought.

He has also, like many athletes, let himself off the need for philosophical and moral consistency. You can call that hypocrisy if you like. He accused England of slowing down the game in Cardiff; so what did he do when England were on the charge at Lord's? Why, he slowed down the game, to little more than 13 overs an hour, with all those field changes and committee meetings designed not to improve Australia's performance but to disrupt England's.

When he was out in the first innings, he departed with behaviour that bordered on dissent. Later, one of his players, Nathan Hauritz, claimed - with total certainty - a catch. The appeal went to a replay that seemed to show quite clearly that it was no such thing.

Let us take the generous line and assume that all this appealing was done in good faith, but Ponting's response was not in accordance with what some people would consider the spirit of the game.

The thing with cricketers, the thing with all athletes, is that the primary use of “the spirit of the game” is as a cudgel to belabour the opposition, rather than a code to keep yourself. Our team are frightfully hard-nosed and tough-minded, but when the opponents act the same way, everybody gets a fit of the vapours and says they are betraying the SOTG.

Most modern cricketers won't walk. Our chief cricket correspondent will give you the hardest of the arguments, not to mention the hardest of Paddington Bear stares, should you attempt to argue otherwise. This is the spirit of the modern game; so OK, fine, we must accept that. But many - admittedly not Athers - are incensed when an opponent fails to walk. He is a rotten cheat and when he makes his century, you refuse to clap. In short, you are using the SOTG not as a thing of real moral meaning but as a piece of gamesmanship.

The truth of the matter is that every game has two spirits. First, there is the SOTG as an imprecise moral concept, a device you can use for a spot of self-righteousness, a thing used with self-certainty and complete vagueness by spectators and commentators.

But then there is the spirit of the game as it is actually played, a much tougher and more meaningful thing altogether. We spectators want to see sport played with a near-impossible mixture of hardness and decency, with total commitment and perfect chivalry.

We accept the hard-nosed stuff; that's modern sport. But when we find hypocrisy we put a clothes peg on our nose.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/spo...cle6719629.ece

[Assassin]

Maybe they're bitter about the fact their captain is a hypocrite.

waits patiently for harv to make an appearance

[dww]

Andy Flower just said that there is no room for complacency in the England team. I take this as a hint that Pietersen will be dropped.

[dww]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/jul/20/ashes-england-australia-live-report

"I want to give a special mention to Andrew Flintoff" says Andy Strauss, "he was magnificent throughout." The crowd cheers in agreement, and Fred modestly picks at a fingernail. Man of the match is, unsurprisingly, England Rudi Koertzen Andy Flintoff.

Well, the post-match awards are taking place. "We were outplayed right through the course of the game" says Ricky Ponting, "from the first ball to the last." Australia start a three-day game against Northamptonshire on Friday, when they will start their counter-attack. It's coming people. They will not be so easily beaten again in this series. "Do you sense Australia didn't get the rub of the green in this game?" asks Atherton, "it's irrelevant now, we've lost the game and we can't complain." That was well said by him, and he grins as he gets a round of applause from the crowd.

[EwarWoo]

Yeah, punter took it well for a change, though let's wait to see if he changes his story in the mornings papers.

Great knock from Johnson to salvage at least a little pride, but Freddie and Swann were just magnificent.

[Neil Young]

The Guardian are flogging this on their site:

[Scratch]

Andy Flower just said that there is no room for complacency in the England team. I take this as a hint that Pietersen will be dropped.

Hmmmn, very doubtful that....more that Flower is saying we cannot think that because we have one a test, we have won the series, and that the aussies could still win the next three...

But if Pietersen is still getting grief from his achilles, then maybe a rest would be beneficial...same with Freddie and his knee...altho with 10 days (i think) till the next test, i expect both players to be ok.