Oh, fantastic knock yet again Clarke and Ponting.

ponting was strangled down the legside to a rubbish ball. there's really not much you can do about that. clarke is in good touch. a foolish error playing with an angled bat on the waca early on but he's certainly not out of form. i'm interested, who do you think should replace them?

Regardless, Ponting and Clarke haven't had a decent innings in aeons (Ponting especially). Even if I feel they should be replaced, there's practically nobody to replace them with.

ponting just hit four half centuries at a decent tick in india and hit one in brisbane. he's just not converting his starts. ludicrous that people have been calling for his head. clarke's 80 was the only positive i could take from adelaide. anyway the rebuilding should've been done a year ago, too late now.

i can't believe finn is the leading wicket taker this series. he bowls so much dross. easily a boundary ball per over. reminds of johnson, can bowl rubbish and still take wickets. would any of the english like to see bell up the order? surely could at least switch with collingwood and leave him to deal with the tail. warnie suggested a straight switch with trott.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/co ... 91338.html
hayden made the team? horrid.

I don't understand everyone's dislike towards Hayden. He had a fairly great average, scored relatively quickly and had good style. I don't agree with him making the 11, but still.

England get only 3 out of the 11 players

How Steve Waugh gets in ahead of Greg Chappell, Wally Hammond and Ken Barrington is anyones guess.

What's the overall ashes head to head record? In terms of both series and matches win/loss/draw?

South Africa are killing India in the other test. I'm not surprised at all...as soon as they lost the toss and got put in with the wicket expected to dry after day 1, this was on the cards. And Zaheer Khan out injured replaced by some green 19 year old isn't helping either.

archetypal modern batsman. his stats are inflated. filled his boots against rubbish opponents and faltered in the 90's when bowlers were good and in '05 when there was some pressure. he's a bit of a wanker as well. ever heard him interviewed? he talks so much shit. his style wasn't the greatest for mine. not a fan really a fan of those who muscle the ball round. credit where credit is due, that india series was impressive. i'm blinded by my hatred, i admit.

zaheer khan is really the only good thing about india's attack atm. top 5 seamer in the world when fit but rarely is.

Hmm so probably 1-1 going to the MCG. The mo-mentum will be with your lot, but I suppose the good thing is we only need 1 test win.

Well I won't be very comfortable with anything but a 400+ run lead. Even then it was only a couple of years ago that South Africa chased down over 400 pretty easily at the WACA. I don't think the pitch has any demons in it, and might get even better for batting in the next couple of days.

Again, it seems our batting line up starts at 3 down. Thankfully England don't appear to have any concrete ideas about how to get Hussey out (it's amazing to think that he probably would have been dropped for the first test had he not scored a century in shield cricket the week before). The major worry is that Watson is now on 61 which, going on past performances, means he's probably about to get out. Then we've got Smith who's inexperienced and Haddin who has been fantastic, but won't make runs every time.

But with Johnson as high in confidence as he is, it'd take a major reversal in momentum for Australia to lose from here.

that team is disgusting. hayden and ponting didnt make the all time aus XI for good reason

I'm pretty sure both Hayden & Ponting average below their career averages against England...possibly in one of the cases, markedly so, but I'm open to be corrected (can't be arsed to check cricinfo).

Mint, I think Aus v England is roughly 130 plays 100. Not sure how that breaks down into series wins.

Knott should be in over Gilchrist if you're looking at it from a wicketkeeping perspective (which i think you should). Or indeed Healy for that matter.
Barrington's not a bad shout either, and actually Ian Chappell as skipper/batsman (takes #4 slot from Punter) would work too...would think Chappelli averages a bit more against the Poms than career wise - knocks like 192 at the oval in '75 surely help.

Also Keith Miller takes out Ian Botham. Potentially you could field both I suppose. The quality of the opposition should really be taken into account. Miller was up against one of the better English sides during his time I reckon.

Lol, the team they picked isn't that bad, any team is subjective, its pretty right, steve waugh and ponting are the main points of conjecture, and i don't mind hayden being there but im surprised he is.

Miller was my other player i thought was unlucky, but lets face it there has to be some Englishmen in the side otherwise its embarrassing.

Haha, no fair call, john, but I think getting the right englishmen can be done. But i mean fair enough this is a readers poll. But I mean, really, haydos? He hardly excelled in english conditions in tests and I think that's being charitable. And don't get me wrong, as I've said before I've met the bloke on many occasions and as I've said before, funny as it sounds he was a childhood cricketing hero for me because of his innings at hampshire and how he was 100% approachable off the field and a pleasure to speak with.
I'm surprised he got in here actually because he's not liked here really.