sport *sigh*

So the funniest thing on the sports news this week was:

New Zealand beats south africa (this is the voice over)in the tri-nations tournament last night thus keeping their hopes of a tri nations finals berth alive!!

keeps their hopes alive?? youre kidding right?
the only team who hasnt won a bloody match is Australia. Heres a tip tv guys...
the tri nations final series will be between South Africa and New Zealand. The third team (Australia) hasnt a snowballs' hope in hell of reaching the finals - to do that you actually have to WIN sometimes.

so good on the bloody poms for winning another test match. yay England
they played VERY well - nearly all of them played their best cricket.
They STILL nearly got beaten by an Australian team who were playing so far below their best I felt like NSW could have beaten them.
I think nearly everyone who is commenting on the ashes seems to be losing sight of that fact. Australia are NOT batting well nor are they bowling particularly well either. N if we could hold a catch itd be nice. and we STILL only lost the 2nd test by TWO runs. To put it in perspective if each of our top order batsmen made just ONE more run each in EITHER inning we would have won the 2nd test. This in a test where it is admitted we played poorly.
They NEARLY lost the 4th test too.
Lets not get carried away by the hullaballoo - they NEARLY lost the 4th test. That after being 258 runs ahead on the first innings. Again if our top order made just say 5 runs each extra I think England would have looked silly. I know its easy to say 'only 5 runs each extra' blah blah but look at it overall its not much per player is it?
The other factor which has to be looked at is at least 3 totally dodgy leg before wicket decisions. Ponting hit it. Martyn hit it (damn near off the middle) n katich was well outside leg stump. 3 wickets which were not out.They werent tough calls either they were pretty damn clear. England has had much the better of the close umpiring calls this series. And in my opinion been the happy recepients of some downright bloody shocking calls.

when England beats us by an innings n 200 runs a couple of times then they can get cockahoop. So far theyve been lucky as cats with nine lives. Look at the first test folks - we won that one by 240 odd runs. Yeah... a flogging. Look at their two wins - 2nd test by TWO runs, 4th test by 3 wickets.

So I say again
Australia has played poorly (we have had 2 players playing well n 9 not), England has 10 players performing and one not (the keeper is a putz) and they STILL nearly lost BOTH the tests they won. Note that nearly LOST them - not nearly ended up a draw - Australia were a lick n a SPIT away from winning both from behind. This is no dominant performance - England have avoided (on my rough calculations)by about 75 runs being on the end of a 3 nil drubbing. In other words - if Australia got 2 more runs in the 2nd test we win. If we got maybe 70 more in the 4th test we win. Indeed in the 4th test I think 20 runs might have been all that was needed - we were WELL in the tail after all. They only won by 3 wickets. Thats after having to chase 129 for the win. Yeah. Not many to get and they STILL nearly tripped over at the line.
Basically if Australia gets a decent 1st innings in the 5th test n the umpires dont give inside edges out LBW we should bloody win it easily.