Little Richard

I have a lot of hope for the cricket side in about 4 years time. What really surprised me watching the Ryobi Cup and Shield matches last season was the ages of the players. There were a lot of young guys (18-22) playing and most played quite well, especially in the one dayers.

It seemed only yesterday that Khawaja was a young, up and coming gun. Now he's 26 and hopeless. Where's George Bailey at the moment?

Hopefully Siddle and Harris can start to dig us out of that hole tonight. Then we need some sort of miracle to chase down the 400 (at least) that we'll probably be chasing.

Rhino again, this is a great start.

Little Joe gone! Harris bowling well which is good to see, I was worried he'd be well underdone.

I think a positive we can take out of this match is that England's reliability on Anderson has really been exposed. Once he went off last night they couldn't buy a wicket. Finn has bowled terribly, Broad been up and down and not looking very dangerous for the most part and Swann was fairly ineffective, even on the last day. Now we just need our batsmen to master Anderson and stop getting themselves out and we'll be apples.

Absolute [censored]

Australian Cricket - no batsmen, no worries! The tail enders might get it done.

Stiff, great innings!

This has been a great first couple of days, very entertaining. Hopefully it keeps up like this!

What's the highest score by an 11 ever? Agar taking the pi$$ now, this is sensational. Great anchoring innings by Hughes too.

Maybe Stark could be a left field option if he can lift his game a bit? A small midfielder who can play forward.

I'd say Saad will definitely be a required player at the Saints, considering Milne may never play again and he regardless of his off field issues he is 33. Ben Warren (ex-North) has been doing very well in the VFL but I'm not sure if he is more of a lead up forward rather than the crumber we need.

On holiday in the US at the moment and saw the Mets/Yankees at Citi Field the other day. I was backing the Mets as I always back the underdog (probably should have gone for the more successful side) and surprisingly they won 2-1! It was pretty entertaining and some guy whose name I can't remember hit a nice homer.

Haha, beauty!

So.... who won?

It just shows how unwilling our boys are to play for each other. Good local sides go hard for one another because they are mates, so what does that make the lads down at the MFC? Not just local sides, all good sides are willing to work hard for each other.

I think one thing is obvious - it's not Doherty and never will be

Lyon has 76 wickets at 33 from 22 games - a pretty respectable return considering his Shield form that you pointed out. The fact is that four day shield cricket is very different from test cricket and can take quite a bit of adapting. At 26 I think Lyon is definitely the man who should remain number one test spinner as he has plenty of time to work on his game and his returns show that he has been improving. We shouldn't get carried away by a bloke who has played a few good shield matches and has a status in the cricketing community which is majorly inflated by of his back story.

Fair enough, it's not a bad side anyhow. I am under the impression Ahmed is about 30/31 but how old is he?

I think it is ridiculous of you to have Ahmed in your best XI Macca. He is a very raw, unproven leg spinner and Lyon is no doubt the most experienced and definitely reliable spinner in the country and is in my best XI every day of the week.

Looking towards the Ashes, this is my preferred squad... M Clarke S Watson* E Cowan D Warner P Hughes M Wade T Paine U Khawaja J Faulkner N Lyon J Pattinson P Siddle F Ahmed G Maxwell / M Henriques - one of and I'd lean towards Henriques as I could see his seamers being useful in the English conditions. P Cummins / J Bird - preferably Bird, subject to fitness (both) R Harris A real smokey for me could be Chadd Sayers of South Australia. Is 25 and has 59 wickets from his 12 shield matches. Not the quickest and I haven't seen a whole lot of him but he moves it in the air and off the seam which could be valuable on the English wickets. *I'm not convinced that Watson will provide much for the team if he isn't bowling. If he can't bowl personally someone like Rogers or Bailey would be much preferred.

Great test match, New Zealand finally have more than one or two bowlers at a time which look dangerous. Boult and Southee could be a great opening partnership in the future.

Johnson bowling rubbish, seen this before

Gazza!!! Dropping him after the first test was pathetic.