Son of L8

Dirty fucking cunt Ramos. The whole momentum of the game was based on them being pegged back in fear of the counter and Mo's pace, so he takes him out of the game and voila, everything changes. Snide cynical scumbag of a player.

We did our very best to lose that, and still didn't manage to. I guess that says something!

Let's hope we've got some bad performances out of the way today. We'll need to be a long way better than that to win the final.

How can we be so good, and so bad?

Beauty.

I just got home from a pub night and looked at the scorecard. What in the titty fucking jesus is going on??

Also glad to see Cook carry his bat. It may be true that it's too late, doesnt matter, pressure off, etc, but anything that lends Alistair Cook form and confidence is good news for English cricket. There will be life after the Ashes, and more series to play, and he's the only Test class opening batsman in the country. We need him to be on the up.

Well, time to have a bowl. Hopefully the moisture out there will give Jimmy and Broad a little something extra to work with.

More than ten and a half hours in the middle, passing three players in the all-time run scorers list in the process.

Take a bow, Cooky.

Despite contributing a load of nothing through six innings, this one knock has made Cook our leading run scorer in the series.

Tells you all you need to know, that!

Would rather have had a bowl at them tonight, to be honest. Although now he's coming up on 250, so why not enjoy it. This is all we've had to smile about since the tour started.

Hah, 50 to the pantomime villain too!

200 up off 360 balls. Absolutely vintage Alistair Cook.

Broad also giving a fair account of himself here.

It was completely inexplicable. Did he think he woke up this morning and turned into Kevin Pietersen?

What the fuck is the matter with them? Seriously, what is it?

307-6 now. You've got a rock down at the other end and the pitch is placid, just fucking hang around, get yourself in and accumulate.

Un fucking necessary.

Not doing a lot to deflect criticism with getting himself out to shots like that...

Cook turns up in the fourth test.

Vintage Cook innings too, everything he's always been capable of. Just about a month too late.

Decent little session that. I'm nervous to see how we go with the bat, but this is about as good a position as you could have hoped for after getting dismantled on the first morning.

Well, fuck me...

Warner caught out to a no ball, then makes his century. Fucksticks.

To lull the Aussies into a true sense of security?

Fixed.

What the fuck is our plan here?

Lose by an innings?

I wonder if I could get odds on Australia declaring this innings. Can't see us bowling them out unless something changes drastically.

Just over an hour to go. First ball is half four in the afternoon here, so I'll be sneaking off from the Christmas do with a beer to watch the first session.

I'd just like to see England play with a bit of pride.

I'm not sure what to make of this Series, probably because I can't get over how bad - most mentally - England appear to be.

 

The England side we played 4 years ago was much better, and had just beaten us 3-0.

 

This England team really has been a massive disappointment. And I can't help but think discord, or indiscipline, or something - other than just talent - is part of it.

 

Because, other than OK bowlers and Steve Smith, Australia is just so-so.

I agree with that about discord and indiscipline completely. This isn't a great England side, but they're not nearly as bad as the three results look (and almost certainly the two results yet to come). You can see in individual performances or partnerships or periods of play that there's enough talent in the XI to give a decent account of themselves and leave a bit of pride out there. Not to win the series, no, but to avoid national humiliation -- yeah!

The sessions where everything just falls apart have been, for me, principally mental failures. This team is technically okay but psychologically too weak to reverse a situation when things start to go badly. There will always be times in a Test match when you're pushed up against the wall, and when that happens we're completely hopeless. Great teams know how to stabilize a bad situation and force their way back into a game.

I agree with Ricky Ponting the other day that Root doesn't look much like a captain right now. He's new at the job, and obviously a great batsman, but so far the psychological leadership and stubbornness and strength isn't there. That's far from the only problem, but with so many players drifting there's a lot of responsibility on a captain to stand up and show the way when things are going badly.

I think of Strauss going for a duck on the first day of the 2010/11 series at the Gabba, the Aussies getting a 220 lead first innings, then the captain came out and made a second-innings hundred in a huge partnership with Cook as part of that 507/1 declared to draw the match. That partnership showed psychological stubbornness and courage as well as technical skill in spades to rescue us from defeat, and possibly changed the whole direction of the series. We're not that much worse technically now, but psychologically we're a shadow of the side we took down there seven years ago. In the same position today we'd have been all out for 200 and given them an innings victory to start the series off instead of a demoralizing draw from a winning position.

Proper captain's innings.

Especially as clearing Australia out this early could well be hastening England's demise.

Yeah, time is the only friend we've got in this game at this point.

Will need a gutsy, stubborn performance with the bat to prevent defeat, so I look forward to Cooky nicking out for about 6.

Couldn't have done a bit of this yesterday, could you, you flock of wankers...

We're fucked here, arent we? They're going to post a massive lead and we're going to crumble with the bat.

I can see the future.