dans ASHES thread

[Wicks]

Ashes victory sparks Scottish row 
 
England's victory over Australia in the Ashes cricket series has sparked a row in the Scottish Parliament.

The SNP's Christine Grahame complained about the level of UK-wide coverage given to a sport she said was of "only marginal interest in Scotland".

The Liberal Democrat MSP Iain Smith has accused her of insulting thousands of Scots cricketers with "narrow-minded nationalism".

Conservatives have urged the SNP to show "greater generosity of spirit".

England won the Ashes for the first time since 1987 following their 2-1 summer win over Australia.


Your views on the cricket coverage
The prime minister said the team had "lit up the whole summer" with their performance over the five Tests.

Fans also celebrated outside The Oval cricket ground and in pubs around the country on Monday, while British troops around the world were glued to TV screens.

  We want to congratulate the English cricket team

First Minister Jack McConnell

The Scottish Tories have accused the SNP of being "petty and vindictive" and said England's win would inspire youngsters to take up the game.

Jamie McGrigor, the Tories' spokesman for sport, added: "The SNP likes to portray itself as a party of integration, so it's surprising that Ms Grahame has chosen to react in this way to a game which has been played in Scotland longer than football has and has an estimated 12,000 active participants in this country.


'Tremendous success'

"England's tremendous cricket success has been an inspiration to thousands of youngsters to pick up a bat and ball."

England's Ashes triumph was raised during First Minister's Questions on Thursday.

Jack McConnell said: "I'm sure members will want to congratulate two successful national teams over the last week.

"First of all, our national football team here in Scotland, who have made us all feel an awful lot of better for the past 10 days.

"We wish them well for the end of the World Cup campaign - but we also, I'm sure, would want to congratulate the English cricket team."

Full motion

The full text of Ms Grahame's motion is: "It's Simply Not Cricket - That the Parliament notes the recent cricket win by England over Australia and, while congratulating England's players, laments the overwhelming UK-wide coverage of a sport that is of only marginal interest in Scotland and further laments that England's win is apparently of more importance than the continuing starvation of millions in Niger, the complete failure of the UK Government to deliver on the G8 promises and the continuing chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan, and notes that it provides a timely diversion from these desperate failures of the UK Government but that many of us are keeping our eye on another ball."

 

scotland lost

[diz]

ranked 12 in the world tbh

[joseph m. shepherd]

the snp have quite badly miscalculated, because cricket > them and their shitty tight-arsed malcontent voters, so pipe down np

[Sebs]

bitter scots, what a suprise

[Olly]

ricky ponting gave gary pratt his boots last monday night :**********)

[Wicks]

haha, kudos to Ponting tbf

[Stefan Effenberg]

alex loudon, shaun udal and matt prior in the test squad, liam plunkett in the odi squad

[Stefan Effenberg]

apparently gough said he didn't want to tour

[Hoopy]

Prior is fb, Chris Read overlooked AGAIN though

Gough should've saved his breath, on account of being too shit for a call up anyway?

[Wicks]

apparently gough said he didn't want to tour

well i believe him

England Test squad

* Michael Vaughan (Yorkshire, captain)
* James Anderson (Lancashire)
* Ian Bell (Warwickshire)
* Paul Collingwood (Durham)
* Andrew Flintoff (Lancashire)
* Ashley Giles (Warwickshire)
* Stephen Harmison (Durham)
* Matthew Hoggard (Yorkshire)
* Geraint Jones (Kent)
* Simon Jones (Glamorgan)
* Alex Loudon (Warwickshire)
* Kevin Pietersen (Hampshire)
* Matthew Prior (Sussex)
* Andrew Strauss (Middlesex)
* Chris Tremlett (Hampshire)
* Marcus Trescothick (Somerset)
* Shaun Udal (Hampshire)

England one-day squad

* Michael Vaughan (Yorkshire, captain)
* James Anderson (Lancashire)
* Paul Collingwood (Durham)
* Andrew Flintoff (Lancashire)
* Ashley Giles (Warwickshire)
* Stephen Harmison (Durham)
* Geraint Jones (Kent)
* Simon Jones (Glamorgan)
* Kevin Pietersen (Hampshire)
* Matthew Prior (Sussex)
* Liam Plunkett (Durham)
* Vikram Solanki (Worcestershire)
* Andrew Strauss (Middlesex)
* Chris Tremlett (Hampshire)
* Marcus Trescothick (Somerset)

I think the test squad is a batsman light

and shuan fucking udal

[Olly]

udal i could perhaps understand but not AS WELL AS loudon.  loudon is a 40 ave batsman though.  i am guessing they want to take udal so that he is in the touring mode for india when we probably will need 3 spinners.

the batting does look a little light but remember that we basically only had 4 specialist batsmen against aus, and at least shah and downs aren't in the squad

[Wicks]

i'm just worried if one of the top 3 has to miss a test we might have to stick Bell in at 3 which would be a bit unfair on him.

[Olly]

gilo can go in at three

[Olly]

ok mates off to another public inquiry now, probably back thursday this time, have fun without me amigos

[Mike]

hmm yeah i agree its a batsman short, especially considering the big question mark thats still hanging over bell. udal im not sure about but at the end of the day at least hes not gareth fucking batty. reads definitely unlucky considering hes seemingly gone off and imporved his batting by some way after they dropped him for not getting any runs

[Stefan Effenberg]

especially since geraint jones is a spastic

but yeah it probably is a batsman short unless they're thinking prior or loudon could play as a specialist batsman

[SOUNESSBARMYARMY16]

doesnt read average far more than prior this season? teh last time i looked at the stats on the bbc site he was in 40's while prior was about 33.

[Wicks]

Graveney said Read had lost out to Prior on batting grounds, despite the latter averaging 11 runs fewer per innings than his rival in the Championship this season..

"If you draw on the stats, Prior's frequency of scoring hundreds is superior to Read," said Graveney.

"He is the type of player that fits into team structure and batting is a relevant factor."

[andy]

pretty happy with that squad tbh, be interesting to see if they call anyone else up should jones need surgery.

[Harry F­uckface]

RIP English ¨spinners¨

[Wicks]

How Ashes nailbiters hit ratings for six
By Philip Derriman
September 17, 2005

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Channel 9 doesn't often get hurt in the ratings by an opposition cricket telecast, but it might have happened last weekend. At least, this seems the most likely reason for the rather ordinary audiences that Nine attracted to the first round of the rugby league finals, all four of which were down on last year.

For instance, whereas 485,000 people in Sydney watched the first qualifying final last year, the audience for the same fixture this year slipped to 384,000. Why? In the absence of another explanation, we must assume that many league fans were watching the cricket instead, which is apparently the NRL's own conclusion.

Clearly, it was another big week for cricket. SBS attracted 1.33 million viewers on the final night of the Test on Monday, close to four times its normal Monday night audience, while Fox says its total reach that day (the number of people who watched the cricket at some time) was 898,000.

(As big as this SBS audience might have been, it did not come close to the one that tuned in on the Sunday of the second Test when Australia's tail-enders almost batted their way to an unlikely victory. SBS's peak that night was 2.02 million viewers.)

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AdvertisementOn Monday, SBS had an audience share of 21 per cent, an exceptional result for the multicultural channel. In Britain, Channel 4 did even better. At one stage late on Monday afternoon, about half of all TV viewers in the UK were watching its cricket telecast. At 6.15 pm, when England finally secured the Ashes, the audience totalled 7.4 million. By the end of the day, Channel 4 had recorded its best-ever daily audience share, 23.2 per cent.

Most Australian viewers seem to have been happy enough with the telecasts. SBS's studio pundits, Dean Jones and Greg Matthews, certainly performed well as a duo and deserve to be paired again. Fortunately, they were able to analyse things from an Australian perspective - a welcome relief from the home-side focus of the commentaries from England.

This was probably the most complained-about feature of the broadcasts. The English broadcasters made it clear where their loyalties lay by sometimes referring to the England team as "we" - as when Geoff Boycott was asked during the final Test if England would be happy to win the Ashes with a draw. His response: "We'll take a victory anyhow."

What seems to have really upset some Australian viewers, though, was the impression that the match broadcasters treated tight umpiring decisions differently depending on which team the batsman belonged to. If an Australian survived a confident appeal - like the one by Ashley Giles against Justin Langer when he was on 66 in the final Test - the decision was analysed from all angles in numerous replays.

If an England batsman survived a similar appeal, the matter was liable to be brushed aside. One viewer reports there was minimal discussion and definitely no Hawkeye analysis when Andrew Flintoff survived a confident lbw appeal in the fourth Test, even though he certainly looked out in replays.

That umpiring decision was perhaps the most crucial of the series, for Flintoff, then on eight, went on to make a matchwinning century.

Bias aside, the match commentators did a pretty good job of elucidating the play. One former Australian Test cricketer who claims to have watched every ball of the series gives high marks to, in particular, Mark Nicholas, whom he now rates the world's best cricket commentator, David Lloyd, Bob Willis, Geoff Boycott and Australia's Greg Blewett.

Early in Shane Warne's Test career, a former Australian player, Ross Edwards, said that watching him bowl was the best cricket entertainment on TV - and Edwards was then a Nine executive.

Edwards said he would watch Warne bowl an over, wander off to do something else during the next over, then return just in time to see the start of the next Warne over.

Not much has changed. The Ashes telecasts showed again that watching Warne weave his various webs is still the best entertainment cricket can offer.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Wicks]

a letter to the Antigua Sun

Cricket got a 'black eye'
 
Friday September 16 2005
 
Dear Editor:


While England may have played the better cricket in this Ashes series, we cannot help feeling that Australia were not dealt with fairly by the umpire in the “off for bad light� decision, which deprived Australia of even a fair contest to square the series.

I heard Geoff Boycott state on at least two occasions that the light was good enough and in his words; “If we went off for this quality of light in Yorkshire, we would never have cricket.� And why not turn on the lights if it was that bad?

And why did the umpire not state the light metre readings when requested and since when do slow bowlers endanger the batsman?

As far as I am concerned these decisions may have given England the Ashes but they gave cricket (which literally means fair play) a black eye. The light was good enough when the Australia who were bowled out an hour earlier.

Remember, what sauce is for the goose is sauce for the gander.

 Ex Cricketer.


PS: Perhaps we could say that 1 ½ days of bad light won!

[Harry F­uckface]

One former Australian Test cricketer who claims to have watched every ball of the series gives high marks to, in particular, Mark Nicholas, whom he now rates the world's best cricket commentator

Was it David Hookes?

[Stefan Effenberg]

"why not turn the lights on?"

[Wicks]

The Royal Mail introduces four stamps on 6 October to commemorate England's Ashes victory over Australia

so pointless

[joseph m. shepherd]

So many better images they could have used. Such as :apbkoswbg:

[Olly]

i am glad the queen is getting some props at last. they simply could not have done it without her for inspiration.

[Olly]

watching the dvd inspired me to read through this thread again, simply awesome

3 days, none of which have got anywhere near 90 overs, 1072 runs, 38 wickets, 18 (EIGHTEEN) sixes (16 (SIXTEEN) by england), THAT warne ball, excellent umpiring, SHITE umpiring, great fielding, BREATHTAKING fielding, warney ten-fer and frederik q flintoff, A YOUNG GOD

:**********************)

that was even before the 4th day, edgbaston surely the greatest test ever.

vaughan's innings at manchester simply amazy too

[Stefan Effenberg]

yeah i was going to buy the dvd, but there was one thing stopping me.  does the dvd have "UNLUCKY YOU AUSSIES" on it?

[Olly]

haha gilo's dismissal of martyn at manchester the most arrogant wicket ever

[Wicks]

man i am so getting the dvd :*)

[Mike]

freddy quite pompously now rated the 4th best bowler in the world

[Stefan Effenberg]

haha so arrogant

[big arrogant rob]

just downloaded the dvd so that i could delete it

[Olly]

boycs' commentary on the ball when vaughan was out on a no ball at old trafford simply worth the price, yes dan.

[Stefan Effenberg]

yeah i pompously bought it today :*)

UNLUCKY YOU AUSSIES

[Wicks]

fletcher starting some beef up with the aussies in his book, basically read the extracts in the guardian and he basically clamps ponting :*)

[Stefan Effenberg]

i think i might publish this thread guardian-style

[Olly]

:*)

[big arrogant rob]

haha pg17-18 :*********)

should have just listened to me as always, would have saved a lot of embarrassment

[Olly]

The Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer has called for the rules on moving fielders while the ball is being bowled to be clarified before Pakistan and England begin their three-Test series on Saturday.
Woolmer is concerned about the interpretation of law 47.1 - which states that "any significant movement by a fielder after the ball comes into play and before it reaches the batsman is unfair" - after the England captain Michael Vaughan twice moved his fielding position while the ball was being bowled in the three-day tour opener in Rawalpindi last week.

England won the match, against a Patron's XI, by 52 runs but only after the controversy of Vaughan shifting from slip to leg slip to catch out Ashar Zaidi during one Ashley Giles ball. Vaughan later said he did not think he had broken any law.

"We would like the ICC match referee and umpires to give a clear definition of how the relevant law is to be read after what happened," Woolmer said. "I can understand the principle behind the ploy by Vaughan but we have to be clear on whether the law allows such things before the Tests. We would like the series to be played in the proper spirit."

The England coach Duncan Fletcher has defended Vaughan's tactics, saying his captain "was just trying to think ahead of the game." But Pakistan and England have a history with this law as the sides were involved in a unseemly row in 1987 that featured the infamous Mike Gatting-Shakoor Rana finger-wagging incident in the Test at Faisalabad after the umpire objected to the England captain moving fielders as the off-spinner Eddie Hemmings came in to bowl.

Woolmer, meanwhile, had some good news in the run-up to the opening Test when Mohammad Sami was cleared to play in Multan after shaking off a leg injury. The 24-year-old paceman has taken 70 Test wickets and is certain to share the new ball with Shoaib Akhtar, who has returned to the Pakistan side after a 10-month absence due to fitness concerns.

"Sami is clear to play the Test, which is good for us as we will be without Abdul Razzaq," Woolmer said, referring to the experienced all-rounder who is recovering from an elbow problem and has been advised to rest for at least 10 days.

Woolmer has named a 16-man squad for the first two Tests including the leg- spinners Mushtaq Ahmed, Danish Kaneria and Shahid Afridi and the off-spinner Arshad Khan. The Pakistan coach rates his side as England's equal, declaring: "People may have made England favourites for the first Test but as far as I am concerned both sides start with an equal chance of doing well."

vaughan simply dismissing inconvenient rules :*)


flithy cheating paki scum

[Olly]

wrong thread dickhead

[Wicks]

JONES ! BOWDEN !

a year ago today mates :*)

[olly]

just read all this again :****************)

[Stefan Effenberg]

ashes SO close, plan to reread this imo.  back when arfo was still in its pomp :*)

3 days, none of which have got anywhere near 90 overs, 1072 runs, 38 wickets, 18 (EIGHTEEN) sixes (16 (SIXTEEN) by england), THAT warne ball, excellent umpiring, SHITE umpiring, great fielding, BREATHTAKING fielding, warney ten-fer and frederik q flintoff, A YOUNG GOD