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So can England win today at the Oval? Or indeed can they finish the game by the end of play Monday? If they do, I shall be opening something nice to celebrate - and warm up for Wednesday!

We shall see - I seem to be much less confident than most commentators that I listened to this morning - they seem to have assumed that the game is already won. At 80-0, chasing 500+, if we haven't got the Australians out by the end of today then they will be seriously looking at a win.

I am of a similar mind. England should win, but if any team are capable of setting a new record, it is Australia. And as Usain Bolt has shown, records are there to be broken!

On the balance of probabilities though, we should win. There does not seem to be an icon for "fingers crossed " though!

This has even got me interested

We have a very tough job ahead if we're going to win but I'm sure the lads are up to the challenge.


...let's just hope the Limeys don't get lucky and bowl us out too quickly

BBC live scores, as Ponting is run out. At 217 for 3 Australia are not yet defeated.

Great atmosphere here at the ground now Clarke gone too!

From that BBC page: From Dafydd Rees, TMS inbox: "I write this from a rainy Cape Cod, Massachusetts, having seen Hurricane Bill pass us by with little more than it being a usual rainy day in England, and thinking about seeing my first Test at the Oval in 1957. Anyway, to make all English fans feel better, I thought you'd like to know that if the remaining Australian batsmen all match their highest ever scores against England, they would be all out for 540".

We won: hurray!

jdaw1 wrote:We won: hurray!

I think you will find that the word is "Hurrah!", s'cricket dunchanur?

Good show chaps. Jolly well done.

Carry on now.

Great win and well deserved, hell it was 197 runs.

However, the debate about Flintoff caused by the scotsman (not The Scotsman, that's chip paper) influenced me to check his record against that of Botham. Ignoring the fact that Imran Khan, Kapil Dev, Garfield Sobers and Jacques Kallis make claims to be the best all-rounder as they are not very English. Here's the direct comparison:

Matches: Botham 102: Flintoff 79
Wickets: 383:226
Runs: 5200:3845
Batting Average: 33.54:31.77
Bowling Average: 28.40:32.78
Catches: 120:52

That's raw data and Botham wins on all fronts but the truth about a player is his ability to win a game, which means centuries and four and five wicket (Michelles are in addition to Forfars) hauls plus ten wicket matches:

Fifties: 22:26
Centuries: 14:5
4-wicket innings: 17:11
5-wicket innings: 27:3
Best in innings: 8/34:5/58
10-wicket matches: 4:0
Best in match: 13/106:8/156

Interesting that he is closest with batting stats.

Not wishing to damn Freddie with statistics compared with Botham as his figures are very good for an all-rounder but it shows that he is a good cricketer with a lot of charisma. Botham was a great cricketer with a ton of charisma. Botham had to wait until his fifties to be knighted and did a hell of a lot of walking to get it. Flintoff had better get his walking boots on.

Stats, courtesy of http://www.cricinfo.com

Best statistic I heard during the whole game was that when Trott scored his century, he became only the third English player, born in South Africa, to score a century in his first test.

AHB wrote:Best statistic I heard during the whole game was that when Trott scored his century, he became only the third English player, born in South Africa, to score a century in his first test.

Sounds like an ideal candidate for the Scotland rugby team!