Thetownend.com

I'm starting it now :P The first test starts tomorrow morning in the Vidarbha cricket association ground Nagpur,in the state of Mabarashtra.Nagpur is famous for its oranges.I reckon out team will be;
Cook
Strauss
Bell
K.P
Collingwood
Captain Fred
G.Jones
Blackwell
Hoggy
Harmy
Monty Panesar
Its going to be a struggle,i would take a draw now.

I'm going to blame Larwood when we lose

Its a hard choice who i should blame when we lose but i think it'll have to be Ralphy!

collingwood? fuck off! shah instead but other than that yeah i would have that team

colly would defintely play ahead of owais shah!

a draw would be nice.  :D

yes but he shouldnt!

what about Prior as an opener?

nah

He should, Collingham can get runs and his fielding is ace.

but he cant get runs thats the point. he never does well in tests!

well he does sometimes ...

Id go with Strauss and Bell to open
Collingwood
Pietersen
Shah
Flintoff
Blackwell
G Jones
Plunkett
Hoggard
Harmison

I thought Plunkett was injured?

he was a doubt .. if he didnt make it .. id have Anderson in

Flintoff won the toss and we are batting.

Currently 89-2 at lunch.

Alistair Cook 44*
Pietersen 1*

I was amazed and happy we won the toss,after all the bad luck we have had i was sure we wouldn't win it,we just need to make it count :-))( At least we won't have to bat last,the pitch is really going to turn.
The Indians have had two chances and they have taken both,a couple of great catches they were too.
Kumble and Harbhajan are looking very dangerous bowling in tandem,its riveting stuff in a horror movie kind of way.
And the team is the one i predicted :) not that it was that hard to
guess :-))(
108-2,Cooky has made 50 :)

What a fucking stupid shot by Pietersen!  :evil: 110-3

Its such a fuck up,he was going along nicely with few worries against the spinners as soon as the seamer comes back he decides to take him on,he was lucky to have survived the first ball.PRAT!Just be patient and the runs will come.

194-4 Freddie and Collie building a solid partnership....

Ian Blackwell  :mrgreen:

Collingwood  :D

 :doh:
Glad to see we learnt our batting lessons in Pakistan :-))(
244-7 at the end of the days play,to stand a chance we really needed to get 350 plus, ain't going to happen though :(
I think they were distracted by the huge Jurassic Park like dragon flys hovering around,fucking scary things :) .

blackwell...4! woo. i made a guess of an unexpected 5 to my mates...i was close.

not a good first day....hopefully reach 300

Lets face it as well he's there to bowl not bat,and the Indian bowlers aren't bad.Strange that the seamers took most of the wickets,i'm sure Kumble and Harbahjan will clean up the tail tomorrow,at least we won't bat last and i won't have to get up at 4.20!Maybe Hoggy will repeat his Baroda heroics :wink: Oh and its 246-7,i got it wrong :oops:

The Indian pace attack is piss poo tbh.

Exactly,Pathan was taken for 17 runs in an over earlier in the morning and he ends up with three wickets :o Kumble and Harbahjan have one a piece.I think some of the batsmen must have relaxed once the seam bowlers came on,it must be a relief not to have to face the spinners.
Although it could be a good sign,i would say our seamers/fast bowlers are better then theirs :) Maybe it will be a seaming pitch :shake:

we were always going to lose though so why get annoyed?  :D

 Don't see India having to bat more than once....which means we will bat last.

:soapy tit wank: indeed

on the plus side at least Cook showed some promise

India will get at least 450.  :(

What makes the Indian seam attack shit? Loads of experience with the young lad who is very very nippy thrown in... sounds ok to me on their own patch when they know exactly when it will swing and seam about.

It's their seamers who've taken the wickets.

Because it isnt the same threat that faced us in Pakistan, their seamers took wickets because our batting was shockingly bad, we dont know how to be patient which is the main reason why the Indians and Pakistani's make big scores.

:shock: We are still batting :D  367-9 at the moment.Colly has made a century and is currently still in with Monty,great effort by the tail especially Harmy who made 39.The thing is of course is if our tail end can bat like this what the fuck are Sehwag,Tendulkar,Laxman,Dravid,Dhoni....and all the rest of them going to do?

393 all out,Colly 134 not out,Monty made 9.

Third over into the Indians innings and Sehwag is out! Bowled by Hoggy and caught by K.P,11-1.Here comes The Wall [gulp]

Tha Harminson innings was genius, munting Singh for a huge straight six  :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

It was ace, i got home and saw Collingwood reach his 100 with a couple of sixes along the way.  8)

It was an impressive display by Colly and the tailenders :) ,they certainly put some of the proper batsman to shame.India were 136-1 when they took bad light,its going to be a hard slog in the field for the next couple of days i fear :(

Vaughan is out of the whole tour :cry: Although he hasn't been batting well in the last few series his captaincy will be missed again.
http://www.ecb.co.uk/news/media-releases/vaughan-out-of-series,7467,EN.html

go blackwell......oh dear.

well another pretty unsuccessful day. yeh got the runs that we needed, but only got the one wicket which we should have pushed on from.

ok ill take that one back!  :D

Wooo hooo! 176-5

Hoggard has taken 3 wickets today and Monty has got his First Test wicket which just happened to be Sachin Tendulkar!.  :wink:

Dhoni next out for 5. 189-6  :)

Hoggy has got a five wickets now :) his figures are 29-5,India are
194-7 :shock: They have just avoided the follow on.

:soapy tit wank:  what great news, just got up. saw hoggys last wicket, good catch.

well done to monty too! and tendulkar, that is a great wicket for turbanator.

It was raining there last night,i wonder if thats had an effect on the wicket?Anyway it doesn't matter,this morning they scored 54 runs for 5 wickets,a great comeback from the lads lets just hope their tailend doesn't play as well as ours did yesterday.

We're struggling to kill of the lower order (again)... Kaif looking sound and starting to play some big shots

:D  Just seen Monty's celebration when he got Tendulkar... ace

They had the same problem as well though,its probably a result of the bowlers getting tired out in the heat and the lower order realising that they will have to graft for the runs.I'd sooner it was Kaif and Kumble out there batting than Dhoni and Tendulkar.

:?

Not a bad end to the day - 2 wickets near the end to need us leaving 1 to polish things off tomorrow morning, hopefully with a lead of around 60.

After our efforts with the bat, I think the lads will be delighted with todays events, having made the most of some favourable conditions in the morning session.

Still plenty of time for a result wither way, but most likely a draw from here I would think.

Hope I'm wrong  :wink:

Monty's ball to get Kaif was a belter :D At the end Monty wanted Hoggy to lead the team off and Hoggy wanted Monty to :) Its scary to think that if Udal had been fit Monty probably wouln't have played, Blackwell and
Udal :-))(  I still think it will be a draw,but there is still some way to go,we have certainly played much better than i expected,its very encouraging :D

Good fighting spirit shown under the circumstances, good Email send to the sky studios saying that it was nice to see an England spinner who was actually trying to take wickets,The king of Spain thought that it was a little harsh .

another day where it was good....and we had our bad bits, can't have a decent full day.

they should have all been out for around 200-250 easily. crap bowling at the end again!

Fuck me Johno, you are hard to please.Half the team missing,two bowlers making their debuts  against possibly the best batting line up in the world ,and on a flat pitch .

He he,it must be worring the KOS a bit,here are Montys figures:
Overs   Maidens      Runs       Wickets      
 41            19            72              2           his economy rate is 1.74 :)  

The lad is doing well lets hope it continues.

Sorry if i confused you Dave earlier :oops: ,its getting to the stage where i'll need a caffeine drip to stay awake and make sense,getting up at 5.00a.m is making me sound like more of a twit than usual :wink:

Monty was ace today and of course Hoggy as well! what a turnaround although it aint over yet! 2nd innings collapse?  :-))(  i wouldnt bet against it

I might stay up and watch it. I have fuck all to do tomorrow now....

well i got up at 7.15 to watch. once again england going too slowly, but can't go nuts cause of the pitch.

got a 200 odd lead now and are 145-2. Strauss hit 40 odd and bell hit 1....shock shock horror horror shock shock horror.

India have just celebrated pietersen getting out and he has stood still as he reckons it hit the ground. I reckon he has touched it when it was touching the floor just...very close though. indian commentators saying its out, english one (botham) saying nah its not....and pietersen is actually......still in....haha!  :soapy tit wank:

from the other angle they have just shown, it was clearly out.  :beers: oh well.

and they dropped KP too! a dolley as well  :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

229-3 last i heard KP eventually out for 87! a lead of nearly 300 not bad at all!

Good to see that Bell is continuing his fine form...

I don't know much about cricket, but surely there is someone better than this retard?

he did well in Pakistan but has made a poor start. on the whole though Dave if you look at his record since his debut its not that bad at all

Every time i've kept uo to speed with cricket in the last year, he's had abysmal scores, considering he's a top order batsman.

his record is about 15 test (or there abouts) with 3 hundreds and 3 fifties. something like that. not bad for a young rookie batsman but he does need to start performing consistantly

His average looks better because he had those first lucky few innings.  Take out those freakish scores, and i bet it paints a more accurate reflection of his (in)ability.

good day by england...thought cook and colly should have pushed on at the end to maybe have a few overs at india, but wasn't to be. Good day.

Nah Bell's a good player, he had a good series in Pakistan and just needs another knock to get back on form.

Dont write him off just like Rich did with Collingwood.  :wink:

i did and i wish i hadn't i eat my own words! great day for us though hopefully Monty will work his magic tomorrow and we will win  :D

Cook is from Bedford I think, certainly went to school here, as did Panesar.

Some good things come out of Bedford!

Anyway, good performance today  8)

Panesar is from Luton i read in the paper today

He is, but went to school in Bedford. So we can take the credit for making him such a good cricketer!

cool! the blokes a legend!  :D

I hope Monty plays against Sri Lanka so i can wear a Turban in tribute to him. :mrgreen:

I'm on my night shift now. So i'm going to keep a very close check on the score. If it looks like we may have a chance of winning when i get home at 8am, i'll stay up until it finishes

Oh yeah. I don't think anybody mentioned the fantastic day that Alistair Cook had! Only the 15th Englishman to hit a ton on test debut. At only 21 years of age as well! Well done that man :king:

http://www.skysports.com/skysports/article/0,,8-1214236,00.html

Hoggy's got Sehwag for a duck!!!!! 1-1!!!!!!!*

*Does a little celebratory dance \o/ \o\ /o/ /o\ \o/

Geraint Jones just dropped Dravid off of Blackwells bowling :(

India have recovered to 63-1 at lunch. Looks like a draw at this point. We need at least 3 wickets in the next session.....

start of the session 2 now. not alot has happened, they have hit a few boundaries. not troubling them at all.

Ends as a draw

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/england/4775472.stm

Cant be pissed at that tbh, i would have taken a draw before the Test started.

bloody draw! how shit? the indians thought they could win it though  :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick: twats!

A great first result for Captain Fred, a draw in one of the toughest places to tour, with half our starting line-up out of action. Personally, i'd promote Fred to vice captain above Tresco, although this is pretty unlikely. Shows that we have a good captain in waiting for the future anyway.

Brilliant debut for Ally Cook, certainly one for the future, and should put some pressure and added incentive on for Bell. A more than able replacement for any of the top order, if/when future injuries occur.

Monty had a good debut, took a few wickets, certainly didn't look out of place in the side (well, at least not in an ability sense :D ). Will give Gilo some good competition, and when Gilo is back, we will have the choice of fielding 2 spinners. Always good to have options.

Now we've proved that this side can compete, we need to push on in the next test, work out plans for how to bowl at the Indian batsmen (ie get Jaffer driving), and try and force a victory. I must say, i'm feeling alot more confident after the first test, than i was before.

:nod:  I agree with everything you've said there Mr Village.I have to admit to be a tad concerned when the Indians started to go for it,the fact that they did have a go surprised me,but fair play to them.
I was well chuffed to see Hoggy getting the MOTM,the bloke always runs his guts out for the team,and it was very funny when he was presented with his motorbike :soapy tit wank: and then when he had a little test drive round on the pitch :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick: Hog is a legend.

Not sure about giving Fred the vice captaincy anyway... I love the bloke but his captaincy on the final day was atrocious.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/4778060.stm  :beers:

freddie as captain is an odd one, but no vaughan or tres so not alot of options. Tres can be a decent captain.

Sorry but Trescothick is a piss poor captain id sooner have Freddie over Tres as vice captain any day of the week.

look at Hoggy go on his new motor  :D

They showed him burning round the pitch on it, it was ace.

hoggy is defecting to speedway  :soapy tit wank: