England v Australia, 1st Test, Cardiff, July 8-12

A fitting contribution from myself; to what will probably be the only Test match in Cardiff, so I might aswell get in there while the going's good.


18 Day's left until the test, or just under. They'll fly by. Let's start the build up now. We've been on the fringe of issues, such as teams, banter between players past and present and many more besides. Let's draw the attention to the First Test, right here, right now.

England will line up as follows IMO...

Cook
Strauss (c)
Bopara
Pietersen
Collingwood
Prior (wk)
Flintoff
Broad
Swann
Anderson
Onions

Will leave it to an Oz forummer to take a stab at the Aus side...

Series Odds... Aus 1.71 Eng 3.6 Draw 6.8

1st test Odds... Aus 2.26 Draw 3.1 Eng 3.95

The weather is the thing that I'm most concerned about. So far in the past 3 Glamorgan games at Sophia Gardens, atleast one day has been delayed or washed out altogether. However, they usually manage 3 out of 4 days of Cricket, hence our 1 Loss and 5 Draw ratio.


Glamorgan CCC and the "Wales" Part of the England and Wales Cricket Board, have one chance, and one chance only to impress over these solitary 5 days. The pressure is going to be immense.


Weather and pitch deterioration are going to be key talking points. The weather is out of our hands, but people will expect 5 days of sun if Cardiff is be a further choice of Test venue in the future. I assume all our forummers will be keeping a close eye on forecast in Trent Bridge, Old Trafford and Lords for that time, to see "how it could have been".

Everybody keeps predicting glorious weather for the latter half of the summer.

This'll be a washout then....

Although if the pitch spins, and the weather shines, I'll barely hear any grumbles. It'll make for intriguing Cricket.

JKLever wrote:England will line up as follows IMO...

Cook
Strauss (c)
Bopara
Pietersen
Collingwood
Prior (wk)
Flintoff
Broad
Swann
Anderson
Onions

Will leave it to an Oz forummer to take a stab at the Aus side...

Only a regular forummer would come up with a metaphor that apt.

But did you mean Horace or Zim?

or Zat or Skully or MB or anyone. There are hella lot of fair dinkum Aussies in this pit.

Yes indeed ... but not all take a knife to those selected.

Horrie adores Haddin, as does Bob loves his Prior.

Good thing Sunny's not English, would have absolutely flipped out if he had seen 'NPower Ashes' written.

Well it seems people are expecting England to go in with two spinners.

Regardless of a spinning pitch, picking Rashid is risky. I'm a big fan of the lad, but I'd like to see Australia's intent in Cardiff. Then go from there.


Training squad is picked tomorrow I believe. Fat chance of Harmy or Virgil getting picked to be quite honest. Even having Bell in the squad will be surprising and downright stupid.

Let's hope Eng Lions and Sussex ruffle some Aussie feathers before hand.

Just reading elsewhere, Cardiff spinning a mile is a bit exaggerated it seems.

In 3 games at Cardiff this year, 69 wickets have fallen and 2263 runs have been scored.

52 wickets have fallen to the seamers (at a cost of 27.79 per wicket)
17 wickets have fallen to the spinners (at a cost of 44.65 per wicket)

JKLever wrote:Just reading elsewhere, Cardiff spinning a mile is a bit exaggerated it seems.

In 3 games at Cardiff this year, 69 wickets have fallen and 2263 runs have been scored.

52 wickets have fallen to the seamers (at a cost of 27.79 per wicket)
17 wickets have fallen to the spinners (at a cost of 44.65 per wicket)

Surprise, surprise.... don't let a load of know-nothing hyperbolic shitheads get in the way of the facts, England, or else we're in for a pasting.

If the weather holds out, this should be an epic test match.