I'm disappointed that Strauss declared. What was the point of putting them in for a session, we were never going to bowl them out. The sole idea IMO was to try and get Ponting out to pee him off but now we let him get an unbeaten 50 and save some face. We should have made them stay out and chase the ball around the field for another sessions and let Trott try and get his double hundred, and Cook go for his triple hundred. Maybe if we lost a wicket we could have declared.

Anyway I wonder how many 'attacking declarations' Ponting will make in the rest of the series. What will be a safe target to set England to chase in the 4th innings...700? 800?

Just remembered another thing, what was it Mitchell Johnson was telling the press a few days ago, how he was going to stop trying to be a swing bowler and instead concentrate on bowling fast, and he was going to target Strauss with the short ball. How did that strategy go Mitch? 0-170, a duck and dropped catches. Johnson trying to talk like Glenn McGrath is like Audley Harrison trying to be Muhammed Ali.

Strauss would have been slaughtered in the media if he hadnt declared. We were never going to bowl them out but if Colly had held on to that catch we might have unsettled them.

Johnson maye well not be around for the next match, Bollinger and Harris have been called up.

Superb knock by Cook, this Test match he has started to look like the player he used to be, scored a lot of runs for a 25 year old so hopefully the summer was just a blip in his career. Great support from Trott to, to score 517 -1 in Australia at the Gabba is a great feat and should give us lots of confidence.

The question is does either attack have the ability to take 20 wickets? England could with Swann at his best, however once again the Aussies targetted him again today so it won't be easy for him.

I've seen both in county cricket and didn't see anything to worry about. Harris's bowling was ordinary in a short spell at Surrey two seasons ago, although he's a dangerous hitter at 8; he seems very injury-prone and has yet to make his Test debut at the age of 31. Bollinger bowled brainlessly when I saw him for Worcs against Surrey in 2007. Surrey were looking to bat out the final day to avoid a massive innings defeat with no hope of even making Worcs bat again, never mind winning. Bollinger repeatedly bowled four or five balls an over (sometimes all six) so short and wide outside off stump the batsman didn't even have to think about playing a shot. Surrey eventually scraped the draw after an unbroken last wicket partnership lasting 22 overs. Admittedly Bollinger's stats at Test level so far make it hard to understand how he didn't start this series; he'd be a fairly straight swap for Johnson now whereas I guess picking both and leaving out Siddle or Hilfenhaus would upset the balance fo their attack. Frankly though, if Xavier Doherty is the best spinner they can find I reckon they'd be better off going with an all-seam attack with North & Katich bowling a few overs of spin.

Johnson seems to have turned into an Aussie Steve Harmison. One golden year shortly after establishing himself at Test level followed by a mysterious and premature decline, never to be quite the same force again. His confidence and self-belief seem very fragile.


Difficult to judge at this early stage. After the first two days at Brisbane it was hard to see both sides batting long enough to draw a game. Only seven wickets fell on the last three days with almost 900 runs scored, but neither side was able to score quickly enough to set up a chance of a win. That just suggests to me the pitch became unusually docile. Even Harbhajan & Murali, the best two off spinners of the past decade, failed to make an impact in Australia. The omens don't look great for Swann, but he's clearly a confident and charismatic individual who won't easily be knocked out of his stride, so I wouldn't dismiss his chances of playing a pivotal winning role in the series just yet.

If they drop Johnson then I think it would be nailed on for Bollinger to replace him, he may have even started ahead of Siddle had he been fit for the first Test. Not seen much of him but I guess from an aussie perspective he can't do any worse than Johnson. Did you see his Harmison-esque delivery?

Swann has the character to come good and it's not like he bowled badly but the Ponting knows how crucial he is with regard to England having a four man attack and trying to nulify him is a way of trying to force the selectors to change the team.

If that did happen I would imagine Collingwood would drop out with Prior moving up and Bresnan coming in giving a fourth seam option and further strengthening the batting line up but I can't see any changes for the next Test.

England will not change their team but for injury IMO

You really don't know a lot about cricket do you?

I agree these Aussie bowlers don't bother me, Bollinger or Harris, they seem like the type who would never have got in a few years ago. You can categorise the Aussie pace bowlers over last couple of decades in a few groups
1 - world class strike bowlers (Reid, Alderman, McGrath)
2 - strike bowlers but could go through bad patches (McDermott, Whitney, Gillespie, Clark)
3 - workhorses (Hughes, Kasprowicz, Reiffel, Siddle)
4 - wayward and unreliable (Julian, Angel, Johnson, Rackemann)

When the Aussies have been strong they have had one from category 1 and then a couple of workhorses in support, plus a spinner, or maybe one workhorse and one of the less consistent strike bowlers. But whenever they have been short of the consistent strike bowler, they have been more vulnerable. Now for the first time since going way way back before Lillee, the Aussies don't have any sort of strike bowler, the ones they are looking to as strike bowlers are erratic. Siddle would have been a good support bowler 10-20 years ago and picked up wickets from batsmen who were under the pressure McGrath and Warne exerted on them, but he's not enough to knock sides over consistently on his own.

I would say at this point, England have at least Anderson who is in category 2, plus workhorses in Broad and Finn, which puts our bowling attack roughly where it was when we had Malcolm/Gough plus Fraser.



Swann is more likely to make a significant contribution with the bat, I bet he takes about 11 wickets in the series at an average of 40odd.

Isn't Shezhad (sp?) down there particularly to exploit possible reverse swing at Adelaide? May be horse$hit, but I'm sure I read this in the press somewhere.

For whom though?? Finn after a 6 for?? Swann is a given as is Jimmy. Which leaves Broad unless a batsman gives way??

No. Shahzad wasn't even in the initial squad of 16; he was co-opted as an additional member after impressing against Australia "A" in the final warm-up match. He'll only play as a direct replacement for Anderson in the event of injury.

Barring injuries England will pick the same XI for Adelaide. In fact, you could have said that before the Brisbane match even started; not only did the XI for Brisbane pick itself, I'd say only Finn was possibly unsure of keeping his place for the next match, and only then if he'd had the same sort of match as Mitchell Johnson might the selectors have replaced him with Tremlett. After wiping out the Aussies' lower order, Finn has cemented his place for the next two matches at least, and so has everyone else. Collingwood failed once at Brisbane, but given his depth of experience and fielding prowess he won't be excluded before Melbourne at the earliest, and only then if we're trailing and need Bresnan to come in as a fifth bowler/all-rounder. This is the most settled England side I can recall in almost forty years. Our selectors are decisive and consistent, and they've got it right.

Adelaide is traditionally a batsman's ground, so barring some sensational bowling by one or two individuals I can see the series remaining all-square going to Perth in a couple of weeks' time. And barring injury the England XI will remain unchanged and will be an even stronger and more well-drilled unit by then. Our only relative weakness is the lack of a fifth bowler who might take a wicket or two.

If that game had been played in Galle or in Mohali and it were Sri Lanka or India scoring 500-1 there'd be people going mental saying "thats not proper test cricket", "needs to be a balance between bat and ball", "groundsman should be shot" etc etc....as its in Oz and between Oz and England then nothing like that gets said...interesting!



And as for Cook scoring (yet another) century...how can it be "long overdue" as someone has posted, when he's got over 1,000 test runs in this calendar year alone including 6 centuries now??

And as I predicted before the start of the series, both teams are going to struggle to take 20 wickets on a regular basis. Bringing in Doug Bollinger, Ryan Harris or Nathan Hauritz isn't going to radically change that for Australia IMO.

Probably because England scoring 500 odd for 1 at the Gabba is seen as a rare occurrence, but I can guarantee, if the same thing happens in the next two Tests then people will be saying exactly that about balance between bat and ball. Having said that when India score 500-1 its usually before tea on the first day with Sehwag 300 not out.



Cook is a bit like Mike Atherton was, he has a high percentage of low scores, which is why people say "failed again against the new ball" and always seem to talk about him as being out of form despite him regularly getting hundreds. Like Atherton he is vulnerable when he first comes in and is probably the one opposition opening bowlers fancy as the most likely early strike, but again like Atherton, when he's in he has the concentration to knuckle down and make it count. The difference between them is Atherton used to get a run of low scores punctuated by the odd score of 100-130. Cook gets a run of low scores punctuated by bigger hundreds. Although in fairness, Atherton played in an era when the standard of Test bowling was a cut above what it is today.

I can't recall anyone ever scoring 500+ for the loss of only one wicket in a Test, and for England to do it in the first match of a tour where we haven't won for 24 years will certainly make everyone take notice. I tried searching for similar totals on cricinfo, but they only list large totals in excess of 600 in the records section. However nobody has ever scored 600 for the los of fewer than three wickets, which England may well have done had they not declared at Brisbane. It's a very extraordinary occurrance and unlikely to be repeated so startlingly. As you say though, it will soon become tedious if high scoring draws on tame pitches are a recurring theme in this series.

im not sure the bowling isnt as good tbh.. I think these days the batting is better. Look at the batting orders of teams now these days. England for example have a all rounder in Broad batting at 9. Wheres at in the past teams had 7 batters and the rest were out and out batters and plus the pitches these days are mostly suited too batting.

The pitch at Adelaide should be pretty flat and other than any moisture on day one for the first three days it will be a batsmen's paradise but on days 4 and 5 the wicket should start to turn and the cracks should widen and then having someone like Swann bowling could be crucial.

I would imagine both captain will bat should they win the toss but I do wonder if it would be brave to bowl first? That way you get the best of the bowling conditions on day one when it might do a bit and the best of the batting conditions on day 2 & 3. It does mean batting last of course which is not good at Adelaide but if you have a first innings lead then it would be worth it.

Look at the last Test on day one it was doing a fair bit and as a result England lost early wickets, still both captains will probably bat.

Quote ="oggy123"im not sure the bowling isnt as good tbh.. I think these days the batting is better. Look at the batting orders of teams now these days. England for example have a all rounder in Broad batting at 9. Wheres at in the past teams had 7 batters and the rest were out and out batters and plus the pitches these days are mostly suited too batting.'" Well all of this talk about tame pitches has only come about in the last few years as the last of the greats (McGrath, Warne, Pollock, Murali) have been retiring. The overall standard of bowling now is very average, there are still lots of great batsmen in the game, eg Tendulkar, Kallis, Graeme Smith, Chanderpaul, Sehwag, but the bowling cupboard is bare at the moment, it has been in decline for a few years but there were still some good bowlers around at the end of their careers. Look at the top ranked bowlers in the world today: www.reliancemobileiccrankings.com/ 1 Dale Steyn 2 Graeme Swann 3 Zaheer Khan 4 Mohammed Asif 5 Jimmy Anderson 6 Morne Morkel 7 Mitchell Johnson 8 Harbajan Singh 9 Dougie Bollinger 10 Shakib Al Hasan Compare this to the top ranked bowlers 10 years ago, Nov 30 2000: 1 Glenn McGrath 2 Shaun Pollock 3 Allan Donald 4 Muttiah Muralitharan 5 Courtney Walsh 6 Anil Kumble 7 Wasim Akram 8 Darren Gough 9 Saqlain Mushtaq 10 Chris Cairns Top ranked bowlers 20 years ago, Nov 30 1990: 1 Malcolm Marshall 2 Curtly Ambrose 3 Wasim Akram 4 Terry Alderman 5 Courtney Walsh 6 Waqar Younis 7 Merv Hughes 8 Imran Khan 9 Kapil Dev 10 Ian Bishop

Quote ="oggy123"im not sure the bowling isnt as good tbh.. I think these days the batting is better. Look at the batting orders of teams now these days. England for example have a all rounder in Broad batting at 9. Wheres at in the past teams had 7 batters and the rest were out and out batters and plus the pitches these days are mostly suited too batting.'" Well all of this talk about tame pitches has only come about in the last few years as the last of the greats (McGrath, Warne, Pollock, Murali) have been retiring. The overall standard of bowling now is very average, there are still lots of great batsmen in the game, eg Tendulkar, Kallis, Graeme Smith, Chanderpaul, Sehwag, but the bowling cupboard is bare at the moment, it has been in decline for a few years but there were still some good bowlers around at the end of their careers. Look at the top ranked bowlers in the world today: www.reliancemobileiccrankings.com/ 1 Dale Steyn 2 Graeme Swann 3 Zaheer Khan 4 Mohammed Asif 5 Jimmy Anderson 6 Morne Morkel 7 Mitchell Johnson 8 Harbajan Singh 9 Dougie Bollinger 10 Shakib Al Hasan Compare this to the top ranked bowlers 10 years ago, Nov 30 2000: 1 Glenn McGrath 2 Shaun Pollock 3 Allan Donald 4 Muttiah Muralitharan 5 Courtney Walsh 6 Anil Kumble 7 Wasim Akram 8 Darren Gough 9 Saqlain Mushtaq 10 Chris Cairns Top ranked bowlers 20 years ago, Nov 30 1990: 1 Malcolm Marshall 2 Curtly Ambrose 3 Wasim Akram 4 Terry Alderman 5 Courtney Walsh 6 Waqar Younis 7 Merv Hughes 8 Imran Khan 9 Kapil Dev 10 Ian Bishop

Is there (i ask because i genuinely don't know) a decline in the world participation of the sport ?

The dreaded corrupt(allegedly) beast that is football does seem to be taking up most of the kids time and energy when they grow up.

Well this has been said for a long time, but is it matched by an improvement in the quality of football teams? Look at the England team, ten years ago we had Seaman in net, Adams and Sol Campbell in centre defence, have we improved on that? Have we improved on Shearer up front? What about the Aussies, have they improved on the team which had Viduka, Kewell, John Aloisi in it? Also I don't see teams like Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka or South Africa making huge strides in the world of football!

Personally I think it goes in peaks and waves. Like above I am talking about the quality of bowling in general, but if you said spin bowling, in the 1970s and 1980s, the cupboard was pretty much bare, you had Derek Underwood who was more a flat medium pace cutter than a proper spin bowler, and Roger Harper for the W Indies, and Abdul Qadir for Pakistan, but there were pretty much no decent spinners in international cricket. Then you fast forwards to the 1990s and suddenly there's Warne, Kumble, Murali, Mushtaq Ahmed, then Saqlain, Harbajan and Vettori appeared. The quality of batting in international cricket today is still strong and in some other areas I think we have moved forwards, like oggy says above about the depth of batting, there are a lot of bowlers who are virtually all rounders today, and wicket keepers now are nearly all good batsmen, back in the day you had keepers who would average 20-25 in Test cricket, now they are averaging 40, pretty much batsmen. Fielding standards have gone up as well. So I am not saying there is a general decline in cricket, but there is a very big decline in bowling especially fast bowling.

I also think standards in county cricket are far far lower than they were in the 1980s and 1990s, but thats a result of the expansion of international cricket, pretty much anybody who is good, hardly plays any county cricket once they start playing internationals, and you don't have the top overseas players over here like you did before. All of those top players on my list for 2000 and 1990 bowlers, were in county cricket apart from Merv Hughes, and they played lots of games, not like the 4 or 5 guest appearances which happen today.

Mike Selvey's view, FWIW:

[urlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/nov/30/england-australia-adelaide-test-brisbane[/url

The pitch at adelaide will produce a positive result either way weather permitting

Quote ="sally cinnamon"Well all of this talk about tame pitches has only come about in the last few years as the last of the greats (McGrath, Warne, Pollock, Murali) have been retiring. The overall standard of bowling now is very average, there are still lots of great batsmen in the game, eg Tendulkar, Kallis, Graeme Smith, Chanderpaul, Sehwag, but the bowling cupboard is bare at the moment, it has been in decline for a few years but there were still some good bowlers around at the end of their careers. Look at the top ranked bowlers in the world today: www.reliancemobileiccrankings.com/ 1 Dale Steyn 2 Graeme Swann 3 Zaheer Khan 4 Mohammed Asif 5 Jimmy Anderson 6 Morne Morkel 7 Mitchell Johnson 8 Harbajan Singh 9 Dougie Bollinger 10 Shakib Al Hasan Compare this to the top ranked bowlers 10 years ago, Nov 30 2000: 1 Glenn McGrath 2 Shaun Pollock 3 Allan Donald 4 Muttiah Muralitharan 5 Courtney Walsh 6 Anil Kumble 7 Wasim Akram 8 Darren Gough 9 Saqlain Mushtaq 10 Chris Cairns Top ranked bowlers 20 years ago, Nov 30 1990: 1 Malcolm Marshall 2 Curtly Ambrose 3 Wasim Akram 4 Terry Alderman 5 Courtney Walsh 6 Waqar Younis 7 Merv Hughes 8 Imran Khan 9 Kapil Dev 10 Ian Bishop'" Excellent point backed up by solid stats! Many of the names on lists 2 and 3 are true legends of the game. I don't see anyone list 1 making it to legendary status or even an excellent player status for many of them!!!

Quote ="sally cinnamon"Well all of this talk about tame pitches has only come about in the last few years as the last of the greats (McGrath, Warne, Pollock, Murali) have been retiring. The overall standard of bowling now is very average, there are still lots of great batsmen in the game, eg Tendulkar, Kallis, Graeme Smith, Chanderpaul, Sehwag, but the bowling cupboard is bare at the moment, it has been in decline for a few years but there were still some good bowlers around at the end of their careers. Look at the top ranked bowlers in the world today: www.reliancemobileiccrankings.com/ 1 Dale Steyn 2 Graeme Swann 3 Zaheer Khan 4 Mohammed Asif 5 Jimmy Anderson 6 Morne Morkel 7 Mitchell Johnson 8 Harbajan Singh 9 Dougie Bollinger 10 Shakib Al Hasan Compare this to the top ranked bowlers 10 years ago, Nov 30 2000: 1 Glenn McGrath 2 Shaun Pollock 3 Allan Donald 4 Muttiah Muralitharan 5 Courtney Walsh 6 Anil Kumble 7 Wasim Akram 8 Darren Gough 9 Saqlain Mushtaq 10 Chris Cairns Top ranked bowlers 20 years ago, Nov 30 1990: 1 Malcolm Marshall 2 Curtly Ambrose 3 Wasim Akram 4 Terry Alderman 5 Courtney Walsh 6 Waqar Younis 7 Merv Hughes 8 Imran Khan 9 Kapil Dev 10 Ian Bishop'" Excellent point backed up by solid stats! Many of the names on lists 2 and 3 are true legends of the game. I don't see anyone list 1 making it to legendary status or even an excellent player status for many of them!!!

On the 1990 list, Bruce Reid who destroyed England in that Ashes tour, was not even in the top 10. He was 11th, with Angus Fraser at a very creditable 12th. Surprisingly, the world no.14 at the time was Neil Foster, who was a year into a Test ban for going on a South African rebel tour, but despite the ranking system which depreciates a players rating for every missed Test, he still had enough points to be up at 14 in late 1990!

Also interesting to see Alderman, one of the most underrated of the Aussie bowlers, up in 4th....he is never talked about as one of the greats probably because he was missed a lot of cricket after he rugby tackled a pitch invader and needed a shoulder reconstruction. But in two Ashes series (1981 and 1989) he got 40 odd wickets which is more than any other Aussie fast bowler ever did. And in the 1990 series down under, he destroyed England again. Alderman was probably the Aussies best ever bowler in English conditions, he took stacks of wickets in county cricket for Kent and Gloucestershire, I always reckoned if he had been English, playing half his Tests in England, he could have been England's best Test fast/medium bowler since the war.

Dale Steyn and Harbhajan Singh will both go down as very very good players IMO. Harbhajan is the 13th on the all-time wicket taking list already and will have 400 Test wickets pretty soon. That has to be regarded with the utmost respect, however much of a c*ock he is!!

Another player missing from that top 10 of bowlers who will go down as a top, top bowler is Daniel Vettori.