The Village Cricketer

When I turned the TV on at 5am today I was very tempted to go back to bed. Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin were still batting and we hadn’t taken a wicket in over 24 hours. I have to admit it, but they both batted terrifically well.

Stephen Finn’s six wicket haul was a terrific achievement for him. He’s come a long way in the short amount of time he’s been playing for England. Quite whether it will be enough to make much difference in this test is another matter. England are 208 runs behind at present, and have a battle on to save the test.

Fundamentally, England need to bat for the best part of two days. If we bat until tea on day five we’ll be 250 – 350 runs ahead. If we don’t last past lunch Monday the game is Australia’s.

A very interesting scenario would be if England were to bat to just past lunchtime on Monday. Were we to be bowled out with a lead of 200 – 250, there’d be a very interesting couple of sessions during which the Aussies will have to go for reasonably quick-ish runs to win the game, and England would have an outside chance of an unlikely win on a last day Gabba pitch.

England are 12/1 for the win at Ladbrokes and 14/1 at Paddy Power. I’d want better odds than that to be worth a flutter though. Anyone know a Karachi bookmaker?

So, an encouraging day for England. There was enough in the wicket for the current holders of the Ashes to take wickets and establish a promising position against Australia earlier in the day. Stuart Broad troubled the Canary Yellow openers, James Anderson is in the wickets (and well on course for the five wicket bag I predicted), while Stephen Finn looked a handful at times.

It could have been better though. The partnership between Michael Hussey – who seemed to have a little too much to pull – and Brad Haddin – who didn’t do too much, puts Australia in front, but within reach. Hussey played Swann really well, the best of any batsman I can remember.

But England have a brand new ball and fresh bowlers in the morning. It’s going to be a big first session tomorrow.

197 for 7, and Peter Siddle has just turned the innings on its head with a hat-trick. Alistair Cook, Matt Prior and Stuart Broad have all gone. I don’t like the first day at The Gabba, too many bad memories.

Didn’t look too bad 10 mins ago. The Aussies weren’t on their way to 600, no-one had suffered a career threatening injury, and none of the bowlers had hit second slip. We are batting, which is the right thing, but we need to play very well for the rest of today to stay in this game.

The ball is still swinging after 60-odd overs, but England really want to be scoring 400 plus in the first innings here. You have to score big in Australia. Right now, I’d take anything over 300. Come on Ian Bell.