Brilliant Broad swings series decider England’s way

England 332 (Bell 72, Siddle 4-75, Hilfenhaus 3-71) and 58 for 3 (Strauss 32*, Trott 8*) lead Australia 160 (Broad 5-37, Swann 4-38) by 230 runs

In a fascinating series that has fluctuated both ways, the pendulum swung perhaps decisively to England on a dramatic second day at the Oval. An amazing 15 wickets fell as England closed the day 230 runs ahead at 58 for three in their second innings, with captain Andrew Strauss a resolute 32 not out. This should prove to be a decisive lead with the Oval pitch providing ample help to spinners and seamers alike. How Australia and Ricky Ponting must rue the decision to leave spinner Nathan Hauritz out of their XI.

The unlikely heroes of the day for England were the much maligned Stuart Broad, who took 5 for 37 in an unbroken 12 over spell, and Graham Swann, who took 4 for 38.

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Where are the English Tons?

“I say what I like, and I like what I bloody well say”

Geoffrey Boycott could probably teach the england batsmen a few things about digging in and grinding out runs . . .

It really is a strange turn of events that has found England STILL with only one century in the current Ashes campaign. I guess that they are still in with a fight in the series is also an oddity, given their collective inability to push on and make big scores against a so-so Australian bowling line-up. So, it was with interest this morning to Jonathan Agnew who tried to explain why the Poms just couldn’t buy a ton.

In their excellent daily wrap of play, BBC 5 Live, featuring Agnew and the always entertaining Geoff Boycott, again had to explain why England had thrown away a solid start on the first day of the 5th test. It was interesting to hear them describe the crowd during England’s impressive start to the day. They described the mood as hesitant, as the learned fans knew that a collapse was simply a fait accompli.  You see, other than the terrible 102 in the last test, the English batting has been generally pretty good. Most batsmen have struggled through and got to a decent score before getting out. Scores of 30’s and 40’s have been all too common for their batting line-up.

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England 307 for 8 (Bell 72, Siddle 4-63)

After 4 Tests, 16 days play, 4542 runs and 116 wickets England and Australia arrived this morning at the Oval in south east London squared at one game all in the 2009 Ashes. Only a win would do for England in their quest to win back the Ashes, and while a draw would be enough for Ricky Ponting’s men there was no way that they would be playing for anything other than a victory.

Australia named an unchanged side meaning that they would have no frontline spinner, and for England Freddie Flintoff returned at the expense of Graeme Onions to make his 79th and final appearance in a test match, and Jonathan Trott makes his debut coming in for Ravi Bopara. Andrew Strauss won the toss and chose to bat.

England made it to lunch for the loss of just one wicket, Alastair Cook again chasing a wide ball outside of his off stump and edging to Ricky Ponting at second slip. It was 50/50 how the first wicket was going to go, Strauss was either going to be LBW to a Hilfenhaus inswinger or Cook was going to do that. Let’s hope with some prolonged net work after this series he can sort this issue out. Ian Bell came in back at number 3 with the score at 12-1, precisely the sort of situation England did not want him to be in. He made it through to drinks with his captain though pushing the score on to 56-1 at exactly four an over. The second hour of the morning created no real alarms for either batsman, Strauss reached his fifty ten minutes or so before the break and a four from Bell brought up the hundred in the very next over. Well played both of them and England would have been happy to have avoided losing anymore early wickets, while Australia will still have felt that 108-1 could easily become 150-5 with the batting England have to come.

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