I saw that yesterday. I thought, well that's better. One day of decent play to build upon....then I saw the news this morning. Ffs! What the fuck is wrong with these people? Dont answer that, I'll just get angry again
Aaaahhh well.......... I have to say woeful England, woeful. It's like they'd lost interest and didn't want to be there? Leadership was shit, complete wrong attitude, no attack at all.
I can only surmise some golf tee off times were booked and paid for , and they didn't want to miss them...
What I take out of all this is the media commentary, even on TMS, isn't worth shit. It seemed obvious to me that the 3-0 result in England in the summer was very flattering. The weather saved them on more than one occasion, and Bell saved them on the others. The England batting was already very dodgy. But all we heard was that Anderson was, with Steyn, the best bowler in the world. Well, that changed quickly, didn't it? If you were following the series, the commentary seemed out of proportion to the reality. It was similar for the Aussies who were beaten with a mighty stick when they lost. No one wants to piss on a party: telling Cook he got lucky with the weather or that he owed Bell a few pints was never going to be said, but alarm bells were already ringing. Boycott said today that he thought that a fair result for the last series would have been 2-all. Don't remember him voicing that opinion last summer. I do remember him saying that Aus couldn't bat and he had no clue how they were going to turn that around, and of course that they had no hope against Anderson. It seems quite likely that it's a confidence thing. England were overconfident and believed their own hype, now they are shell-shocked. Neither mindset is conducive to winning games. Aus on the other hand had been humiliated in test after test against a variety of opposition - enough to afford them pariah status in their homeland. Were they motivated to turn that around? You bet. Fortunately Johnson has given them a bit of a hand. Like most sports, once you reach a certain skill level, it's all in the mind.
Quite close to the truth GoG, Agnew expresses similar aspects this morning in a column on the bbc website. The summer flattered eng too much.
Well, we will soon be put out of our misery. Scenario repeated for about the 5th time: get out 5 batsmen for 100 runs, then wilt in the afternoon and take 220 to get the remaining 5 out. This feat is normally followed by an England innings collapse, making the second innings all a bit of a formality. At 8 for 1, England are well on course to conform to the series results so far. I assume we'll be pasted in the one-dayers too, (not that anyone cares much) and then they can come home. Losing is one thing, but being humiliated 5-0 by a smug Aussie side - it's just horrendous.
