Diamond_Jim

Hard to ask for a better first session Without wishing to tempt fate this could be wrapped up by tea.

that early wicket probably removed the win equation for England if it was ever there. Now for another 2 wickets this session. How many overs until Lyon comes on ??

A nice article from today's Guardian on Steve Smith. As usual some of the below the line comments are instructive. "Well, what did you see my blue eyed son? And what did you see, my darling young one? I saw a man batting without a chance for 149 overs. I saw Joe Denly bowling in mid-afternoon. I saw a thousand pad-roll fiddles and five hundred box-flicks. I saw a game and a series and a career defined. And yes, like everyone else I saw quite a lot of Steve Smith. The fourth day of this first Ashes Test may have ended with England’s openers battling for survival, set an impossible 398 to win and a day to play out for a draw. But once again the chorus, the melody, the rhythm of the occasion belonged to the greatest Test batsman of the age." https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2019/aug/04/steve-smith-australia-england-ashes-second-hundred

In the world of what ifs..... imagine if the Weed had been having a reasonable season and he hadn't signed an extension. His manager may have been proved right

Interesting... watch Sydney call for medical retirement for Buddy and general salary cap relief (the equivalent of the old COLA). For Joe D it could be a good thing to get out of the local fishbowl and ply his craft in relative obscurity.

I think there's a common thread there... Viney.... perhaps there's a better player for his position. Viney's upside is limited whereas we know Brayshaw has another level.

and of course fall away mid way through the third and go relatively scoreless in the last while Collingwood rest Grundy and Pendlebury from about 15-20 minutes in the last for more important matches. Plus another financial nail in the proverbial coffin with a crowd around 45k. (Weather of 12 degrees and rain might even make it lower.)

great hour till drinks then

Three fours to Wade in his 15 runs. He "could" break this game open

Wade has had some prolific scores in England on the Australia A tour. A whirlwind 100 would be nice now. Lunch to tea session is really big needless to say.

Aim is to get through to lunch without a wicket being lost and say 40 more runs. We need a lead of 250 to make a game out of this and that's still another 170 runs away. Need to get them in on a 4/5 day wicket if we are going to rely on pitch deterioration. The worst thing would be to all out by tea today.

we paid very big money for Templeton. This guy is apparently bargain basement. Who would you prefer to take a chance on.... AVB or Patton.

took a dive tonight but I'm still pushing the national pandemic to get us over the line

well... today decides this test match if not the next session fingers crossed I need a happy ending PS I would have given it 10-6... this partnership is not nice

Did we make money from the game. There has to be a positive

Regulation loss Another two thousand memberships lost

Very impressive ?

well that got ugly quickly.....

and as soon as I type that another one..... go Nathan

Got him !! okay .. time for a quick 3 or 4 more

Burns is Out we are in it !!

yep

Setting up for the classic 70's Demon failure stick with them until around 3/4 time and they slowly pull away to win by 24 points rinse and repeat

and you need to ask ? We are the 21st century version of the Easy Beats.. we are the Easy Scores

Big session coming up here. That missed lbw decision on Burns has burnt us big.