Is it just me thats worried that we declared an hour or so too early? I would have played a 20-20 type hour this morning to put a target of 600+ in front of them - something that would make them feel the game was beyond winning. Then they may have felt under more pressure not to lose it. As it is, you can never write these Barstewards off and I reckon that it is now evenly poised and could go either way. The target of 209 more to win is easily within a days play of reaching. If Clarke and Haddin come in tomorrow and put on another 100 or so before one of them falls then all of a sudden the pressure is all on us. If we lose this one then it will kill us - they will wonder just what the hell they have to do to win against the buggers.
Nah, Australia have no chance. Bowlers fresh, ball essentially new, pitch turning, some cloud cover. They'll finish 100 short.
I think if we can't defend a total that's around 100 higher than the greatest ever run chase in test cricket history we need to make bowling changes for the 3rd test.
considering we declared too late twice in the West Indies I think it was the right decision. If you can't defend a lead of over 500 and bowl a team out in two full days we don't deserve to win. If Australia were to win it would be the highest ever successful run-chase and as such an exceptional result will have occured due to brilliant batting and ineffective bowling as opposed to a bad decision in the first place.
Agree with Knowlesy The nimber of times recently we have gone on batting too long, both in Windies and India, where we failed to bowl them out in a day and a half. I was thinking that Strauss has learned a good lesson already. I think he might have batted for 30-60 minutes were it not for the rain delay. Right decision, though, for sure
The Aussies will always fight tooth and nail but once we break this partnership up it should be more or less plain sailing,one wicket and we are into the tail,the biggest worry is keeping Flintoff fit for the whole series without him we are going to struggle.
