die hard doonhamer

Nov 23rd - New Found Glory Dec 1st - Pigeon Detectives Feb 27th - Kaiser Chiefs

New Found Glory - November 23rd - Barrowlands The Pigeon Detectives - December 1st - Barrowlands

good bowling from england in the afternoon session. although off to a shaky start in reply with Strauss going early.

As i said, the 5 day game will always be there. It survived the introduction of one day games, it will survive twenty20. The ICC will realise the cricket would never be the same without test matches, and so will protect it.

Test cricket will never die. If you ask any cricket fan they will agree that test cricket is the true form of the game. Twenty20 will be a flash in the pan i think, interest will die down soon enough.

Other way round, it was the end of day 1, so all the players were fed up, and sidebottom had a go at panesar when the ball went for 4, even though 1) Panesar was never getting it 2) Sidebottom isn't exactly the best fielder in the world himself. I thought he just looked really out of place in that side.

Right, i was at Edgebaston for the full duration of the test. During it, England played some fantastic cricket, and some downright awful cricket. I'll go through the team and how i rated them: Cook: Played well 1st innings, second innings not so good, but everyone has an off day. Strauss: looked good, got out stupidly in the first innings (stepped on stumps), second again made no good score. Vaughan: looked out of touch with the bat. Great catch to wrap up SA's second innings though. KP: poor 1st innings, batted well second, but so predictable he would go for the big shot to get to his ton, the ball wasn't there to be hit. Bell: batted well 1st, stupid shot to get out 2nd. Collingwood: still looked out of nick on 100, although looked to be getting his technique back a bit. Flintoff: 1st innings batted well, 2nd didn't. Fantastic with the ball, especially when against Kallis. Looked shattered by the end. Ambrose: ok with the bat, thought him and colly were excellent at the end of day 3, took real discipline. Kept well as well, he could do nothing about all the leg byes. Sidebottom: drop him, looked really unfit. Anderson: bowled well in patches, not so well in others. Took an amazing catch. Panesar: really not convinced by him, really looks out of place in that team, noticed he seemed to be at odds with quite a few players. Sadly, the best spinner england have. On a side note, Kallis should be fined for his reaction to something said in the crowd after he was out in the second innings, he should not be telling someone in the crowd to "f**k off".

If Sidebottom is fit he gets in ahead of Jones or Hoggard, and Broad ahead of Harmison is a no brainer in my view. Shah is fair enough, although i can see Collingwood being recalled ahead of him.

Disagree with Kulli re Flintoff, he has had a few good knocks for Lancs recently. Agree with you about Pattison though, although i think with Sidebottom being injured they should of stuck with Colly, at least he is capable of batting. Mark Ramprakash (sp?) should be in there though, how he hasn't had a recall in the past 2 years I'll never know.

Collingwood is out of form, every batsmen goes through a spell like that at some point. When Colly is playing well he is absolutely fantastic. Stuart Broad is turning out a great player in all forms of the game

I think the role of Bell is underestimated, he is there to hold the innings together, of everyone went out and flashed the bat they may as well make it 10/10. The Bells of this world are needed, and, when Bell gets going, he can hit as well as the best of them.

If Napier isn't in the Twenty20 side at least then the selectors need shot. He seems to be able to play some unbelievable shots.

time is going so slow. still have about 3 hours to sit about doing nothing.

where did the sun go?

yeah i think it's the light. It's going to get worse next week when i go back to school

1) not sleeping very well at the moment. 2) there's no antihystamines (sp?) in the house, so i either sniffle and sneeze all day, or i cycle into town to buy some, which i really can't be bothered with

pendulum - blood sugar

The pigeon detectives - wait for me

All the english exams are tomorrow, that gig is after the exam

England are looking to copy the IPL model, could be interesting. It is a good thing for cricket as a whole, but as has been said could have a bad effect on test cricket, the original and best form of the game. Love watching cricket in any form, but tests are the best viewing for me.

what he said