1The Ashes urnJob Done — England Take a 2–0 Lead

Job done. Aus­tralia thrashed.

They didn’t really have the answer to the com­bined hero­ics of Root (massive cen­tury and a couple of handy wick­ets), Bell (a very import­ant first innings ton with a decent half cen­tury in the second (although he should have been out, caught, on 20-odd) and Swann (9 wick­ets). It has to be wor­ry­ing for the vis­it­ors when their second best play­er, Wat­son, is hav­ing his tech­nique exposed by the Eng­land attack in a big way – he was yet again a LBW vic­tim today.

What is even more wor­ry­ing for the Aus­trali­ans is that most of the Eng­land side haven’t even third gear yet. Eng­land are a fair bit off their best and have a lot more left in reserve. Yet they are still win­ning. They should have won the first test com­fort­ably and thrashed Aus­tralia in this match. It’s a shame there is now a bit of a break.

As ever look­ing for­ward to the next test.

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JSJon Scaife

You say (as did quite a few pun­dits on TMS) that Bell should have been giv­en out for the catch — but have you watched it? I totally dis­agree with the pun­dits on TMS — the pic­ture looks pretty clearly like the ball hits the ground to me. I hate to link to the Daily Mail, but they have a clear image of it. As far as I’m con­cerned the ball is in con­tact with the ground — there is no room for a fin­ger under­neath it. He may also have his hands around it, but if its made con­tact with the ground at all then it can­’t be out. If there is “doubt” — and there is more than suf­fi­cient grounds for doubt, then the bene­fit must go to the bats­man. Not­ably the com­menters on the page I linked all think the same as I do. The third umpire got this decision cor­rect. Not out.

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