annhig

Those of you who follow such things are doubtless as excited as we are about the start of the Ashes series this evening at midnight. You'll have signed up to BT Sport, you'll have your radio tuned to Radio 5 Xtra so that you can listen to the TMS commentary with the TV sound turned off, you'll have invested in the tinnies and the kangaroo steaks and turned up the central heating so that you can kid yourselves that you're actually there, and you'll have bought an extra large supply of paper hankies for wiping your tears in case it all goes as badly as last time. Well, that's what we've done anyway. [except that we already had BT Sport - anything must be better than the cricket commentary on Sky].

I have started a dedicated Ashes thread "down under", so please come and join us!

https://www.fodors.com/community/aus...-18-thread.cfm

BritishCaicos

Great to see you back Ann.

It's a girlie game (no scrums) but I'll play

Unfortunately, I don't think Boris Johnson's Dad, some centre forwards wife and the rest of the F listers will be the only ones shouting "get me out of here. The England team will follow.

The Gabba is the quickest pitch on Earth a lot unlike Durham on a dull, damp May afternoon. Perth is the same ....so that's 2 - 0 down.

By the time the sledging is over and the middle order have had nervous breakdowns, it will be all over.

iF Cook performs and IF Ali bowls as well as he bats it may be a contest.

hetismij2

I'll probably be listening sometime in the night on R4 LW, while lying awake fretting.
I'll be happy to listen to the burble, at least until "Sir" G joins in.

I'll not join in over on the Aussie forum, but I wish you hours of listening enjoyment, and some good cricket.

annhig

Well no-one would ever accuse you of over-optimism, Dickie.

let's hope you have underestimated our brave boys.

annhig

well nice to see you here anyway, Hets. i'm sure that the Aussies won't bite, in fact they've not picked up the baton at all yet, but I'm hoping that as they wake up, they will join in.

If not, we can just carry on discussing it between ourselves, with or without "Sir Geoffrey". BTW, did you see the trick they played on his this year? He was reportedly furious but seemed to take it in good part at the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w5Wj0olGcA

hetismij2

Tuffers should keep quiet - he put a curse on Root.

I'll look at the video later when I am on my PC.

bilboburgler

"Sir" Geoffrey, Yorkshire's world famous wife beater.

You might guess not my favorite person.

hetismij2

Nor mine Bilbo, nor mine.

northie

Read and moving over to other site - love Boycott joke-

BritishCaicos

Scotland 53
Australia 24

In sport, self belief is everything and I'm afraid that the England cricket team wrote off the Gabba before the first ball. They are playing with ten men......and Alistair Cook.

bilboburgler

The "letter from America guy"?

annhig

In sport, self belief is everything and I'm afraid that the England cricket team wrote off the Gabba before the first ball. They are playing with ten men......and Alistair Cook.>>

The irony is that we had the upper hand several times, but let them off the hook. Not bowling Jimmy and Broad yesterday after lunch was very weird, and hasn't been properly explained.

BritishCaicos

Yes it was strange, it wasn't even that hot 27oC I think. Fatigue shouldn't have been an issue. The main upside for the England team should be that Australia didn't look very deep in their batting.

Perth will be another problem. I know when we were there last year, their climate is very odd. Overnight temperatures were 14oC, if anything it was a bit chilly in the morning. By noon it was 44oC, I've never known variations like it.

I know it's wrong to generalise but I'm really not keen on Australian mass culture. There's a way to compete and a way to win, they don't seem good at either.

Good luck in the next test.

annhig

Dickie, I think that the next test is the day/night one in Adelaide; the third one is in Perth. Whether it was tiredness or something else, who knows?

The Aussies who sat near us when we were at the Gabba 4 years ago were delightful - so friendly - even when they insisted in showing us pics of their family with Ricki Ponting [they were from Tasmania, like him] but as a group they were pretty unpleasant; the baying at Broad was very intimidating. Ironically he was the one english player who didn't seem to be affected.

I know that the Barmies can be OTT sometimes but at least it's humorous.