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"The Ashes"

Discuss the Ashes here.

First up, which would you pick - Chris Read or Geraint Jones?

It would have to Chris Read for me. I just think he's better in all areas of his game than Jones. Fletcher doesn't seem to think so though...

Damien Martyn has quit cricket for good half way through the Ashes as he felt his heart isn't in it anymore.

Fair play to him doing it at this time at least he's honest to admit it.

That was appalling in my opinion. I know I keep going on about it but Ashley Giles needs to be dropped for Monty. He got 32 wickets in 10 Tests and currently Gilo has only 3-262 in this series. Monty can do so much more with the ball, it's time to launch a serious bowling attack and not rely on the batsmen (especially Collingwood and KP) to win Tests.

To be fair, the pitch was pretty poor but it just showed that Australia have the edge with bat and ball.

Strauss was really unlucky to get given out when he made no contact with the bat. Warne was getting so much movement. He bowled to Pietersen outside leg, bounced and turned right behind him and flicked off stump. England struggled to get any runs at all. They were hovering around a run an over about lunch.

Australia found it easier to score runs and frustrated England with the ball.

England now must win 2 and at least draw 1 to retain. It's pretty much over I think.

What an absolute pile of crap England are. They now hold the record for the highest 1st innings declared total and then going on to lose.

9 wickets lost for 60 odd runs to snatch defeat from the jaws of a draw.

Think the ashes are going back to Australia :(

Looking like a draw now if we'd made those dropped catches it could have been a lot different in our favour.

At least it won't be another defeat and the performance was a lot better than the first test so hopefully it will give us some confidence back and we can improve further in the 3rd test.

A little disappointing that England couldn't quite get the key wickets a little cheaper. With 2 days to go, it's going to be tough to win the game.

That's something to hope for, but is it really that easy to achieve over two days?

Nice work by Hoggard. Shame Giles dropped the catch that would have dismissed Ponting for 35. But he's gone now, hopefully England can finish them off, bat for the rest of tomorrow and then bowl them out the final day.

Highlights: BBC
And on BBC2 around about 11/12ish I think.

Edit - sorry 10pm

It's quite an improvement, and hopefully the pitch will start to deteriorate tomorrow to give the bowlers an advantage... be nice to get some more early wickets as well as Langer!

Very, very well done to Collingwood and Pietersen. Now, where can I watch some highlights?

Good stuff there from England the improvement from the first test is better than anything I could have hoped for.

Over to the bowlers now to put in a good performance and if we can force the follow on and the weather stays fine we have a good chance of leveling the series.