What ever happens I just hope we win.

Well if it doesn`t rain over the next two days and we send you in with a target of 150-200 with a wicket perfect for Warney and you manage to stay in then you definately deserve to win, but with the desperation and ability of the Aussie team I think we may be able to do it, as long as it doesn`t rain..........''prays to the weather gods"........

well what a day super freddy flintoff destroying the australian innings with his seem attack he had the ball swinging all over the place australia did not have a reply. 367 all out

Bah, once again this series our middle order lets us down. Well now its all up to Warney to pull off a miracle!

It doesn't look like that miracle is going to happen.

what a innings from peiterson 158 i think i can hear the fat lady entering the stage holding the microphone LOL

I think it is pretty safe to say that it is looking good for England, now.

lol. Lets just hope so.

giles just got a great 50 what a great supporting innings but ian bell should not play again for england

Well done Giles. I don't think he is that good but he hasn't been doing bad lately.

looks like bret lee is geting nasty with the ball must be hard to take for him

england have regained the ashes get in there up the england

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

COME ON ENGLAND.

congrats to england. hate ncricket maselfd but its a great acheivment.

Wicked! Well done England!

We worked hard and deserved the win.

Well, just thought since people were letting this die I'd re-ignite it.

Well, at least one person who predicted england would take the rest of the world and smash them, it appears as though that was a bit premature.....

Australia vs South Africa looks to be intersting, after australia demoished the world 11 and then the west indies... (not that the west indies rank that well)

Whats next for england?

^A sound thumping from India I do believe.

What a wonderful effort by the South African batsmen to hold on for the draw. Few could survive against Warne and a fifth day wicket.
I do believe Australia should have won this match but there are still two more tests down under left with MacGill and Jacques to come in for the Boxing day test. Kallis may even return for the proteas.It shall be an interesting match indeed.

Well it has been an interesting first day. It started with the discovery that the pitch had been watered too much delaying play for half an hour. Ponting won and decided to bat which seemed to be paying off as Australia cruised to around 200 for the loss of only three wickets with ponting scoring a century. But then once aagin we suffered a middle order collapse with Hodge only making 7,Symonds out for a duck and Gichrist out for 2.
In their defence the pitch is not ideal for batting but then again Hayden and Ponting didn`t seem to have any trouble with it for most of the day.

It will be interesting to see what our bowlers can do with this wicket tommorrow!

Well, it does look like australia have this match won.....

wonder how the next one will go.

Right you are there Subby, Australia claim the win in this second test after Pollock and the tail managed to do a little wagging first.

You have to laugh when after Englnnd won the Ashes they claimed they would surpass Australia as number one yet their ranking has fallen to three with no test wins since. While Australia has won all their tests except one which was a draw.

Finally a cricket thread!
Well done Australia! Though their middle order still seems suspect, they pulled off a very good win. The south afraicans just can't handle good spin bowling.

Too much has been said about England's Ashes win, look where they are now after
getting beat by pakistan in tests and one-dayers. Their bowling is quite decent but their batting isn't that strong. They are due to tour India soon and we hope to give them a good thumping too but at the moment we are all getting ready for the India-Pakistan series, it's gonna be one humdinger! Pakistan is fresh from a comprensive performance against England and we too come after drubbing Srilanka 2-0 in tests and 6-1 in the one-dayers.

Adam Gilchrist - is his best behind him??????

Ok, I'm not really a cricket fan, don't know much about it, I'm just repeating what i hear in the news. Whaddaya all think

Regards, PA

You can only ever look at those things after his career is finally over, to see whether it was true or not. His form hasnt been great lately, nor was it in england.... But EVERY batsman goes through patches like that.. and eventually you'd think he'd work through it.

That being said he was so good early, I cant see him being as damaging as he used to be.

India all the way! Sachin Tendukar is one of the greatest ever!

Well after years and years of being both a wicketkeeper and batsmen it has to catch up to you sometime. His workload is just massive and yet its taken until now for any cracks to appear.

Well...he sets such high standards that we expect him to demolish the opposition all the time but having said that, it's been quite a while since he's played a really explosive innings. Perhaps, he should be rested for a series.

^Well we tried to do that against New Zealand but as we were already resting Glen McGrath we weren`t allowed to rest him as well.

Well South Africa have finally gotten a break over here winning the toss and getting to bat first on a wicket that should allow them to get a big score. They finished day one at 3-230 and are looking good.

Well "Punter" or Ricky Ponting as the rest of the world know him has just scored his 27th test match century in his 100th test match. He has also surpassed 8000 runs and it looks like by the end of his carrer if he keeps up his current form he will be the highest scorer in test match history.

Gilly just got his 50

^Indeed Gilchrist seems to have refound his form with the bat and made 86 before being caught. That very important knock has helped Australia to be less than 100 runs behind with South Africa going in to bat again. They only had to face a couple of overs last night and ended at 1-4.

Not likely. Tendulkar already has more than 10,000 and still has about 5 years of competitive cricket ahead of him. Punter just reached 8000, he too has about 5 years of cricket in front of him but he has to catch up on a two-two and a half thousand run gap, which is very difficult.

The difference being that tendulker is seemingly having many injury problems in the last couple of years, so he may not play as many mathes as youd think in the next five years....

However I doubt ponting would catch him.....

^Well he will get close enough. He has just scored another century in Australia second innings which will result in a victory unless it starts to rain anytime soon. Australia only need 37 more runs with 8 wickets in hand. There is also over 20 overs remaining in the day so thank-you Greame Smith for declaring so early.

Yeah a good win . I thought the declaration was pretty good (290ish from 70ish overs?) considering RSA had to bowl Australia out to level the series. Not much point going for the draw. They just didn't bowl well whereas Australia batted well.

How does South Africa always manage to do it, I mean losing from almost commanding positions. I guess I'll never know.

I guess they had to declare, there's really no point going for a draw, if they had gone for a draw, they would've lost the series anyways. South Africa's bowling is not of the "attacking and wicket taking" kind to fancy getting any opposition out in 75 overs, let alone australia, they're more of the restricting & frustrating type. Their primary strategy is to frustrate batsmen and get wickets. Neither do they have a good spinner, nor a really good wicket taking pace bowler to help their cause but for me, the real culprit is Kallis. How can anybody score 50 of 180 balls when time was running out? Stupid really! Even in the first innings, he scored something like 110 of 275 odd balls. Way too slow.

I wouldn't call it a commanding position..... that would be 200 runs ahead after the first innings, really all they ad was there noses in front and had to take a chance, which didnt work out.

As for the speed, i would never blame the batsman for his speed. While out there they are privy to instruction, and im sure if they needed to speed up the message would have been given. I think there was only 2 batsman in the SA first innings who had a better then 50%, and one was pollock.

Watching Kallis bat for me became painful after awhile. It was just so damn boring.

South Africa should still be very proud of the effort they put in throughout the entire series even though going down 2-0. They were never far off and their survival on the last day in the first test was trully inspiring.
It will be very interesting to see how we go over there when we have to play them again after the one-dayers in three more tests.