Insanity has gripped the England set-up in my opinion. Either that or some really rotten, clueless morons almost on the Venky level. Forcing Flower out was pure idiocy, doing the same to Pietersen, the most talented batsman to play for England in at least a decade, is a complete and utter disgrace. Talentless nobodies pulling the strings who are fond of knee-jerk reactions and have something against mavericks. The previous set-up won 3 Ashes series and a tour in India. When was the last time that happened and when will it happen again? Pretty furious to be honest, the parallels to the removal of Allardyce, Williams and Finn are massive.

Get in there Stuart Broad! Hope blueandwhiterover enjoyed last night.

Thank god for that. Probably be quiet for a bit now like it is when any loudmouth droner leaves a room, people getting used to the idea of being able to hear themselves think for the first time in months. Good to see Carberry in the runs and Bell picking up where he left off.

Absolute rubbish, you do anything but try to have a rational discussion. This stopped being a rational discussion months ago about 3 posts into this argument when a few people quite rightly pointed out batsmen of every country don't walk, and cited numerous examples of Indian players not walking. Your response was to totally ignore that valid and decisive point that should have ended the discussion there and then. So its not a discussion at all, and I haven't bothered treating it as one since. Its your tunnel-vision, one-sided bitter crusade that consists of constant wind-ups with the occasional retreat back to claiming your trying to have a discussion when pressured.

The guy is utterly obsessed. I know this is probably dangerous ground but considering the short shrift given to happyforeverclapper and saxoman on here in recent times, I can't help but wonder if the seemingly infinite patience afforded to BAWRs endless and constant bitterness towards English cricket has something to do with positive discrimination. Basically if he wasn't Indian would he have been banned months ago? Early indication he looks set to ruin another Ashes series discussion anyway.

Damn right!

Because a batsman's average is the most accurate judge of his ability, the things you've listed are a combination of ability and longevity. There are a number of bastmen Tendulkar wasn't as good as but he was nearly as good as them and played for a lot longer. Something else to factor in is he played half his cricket on excellent Indian batting tracks, as opposed to say an English batsman who played half his on indifferent wickets where its harder to score.

19th in average figures and not a patch on Bradman.

You're not intrigued at all. You described it as no surprise so that you can have yet another pop at English cricket. If you want a sensible answer, ask a sensible question and not some more of your bitter, pathetic propaganda disguised as a question.

That's prejudiced, stupid wumming from a prejudiced stupid wum.

Can the mods not ban this idiot again? I fail to see how he's any different at all to HappyForeverClapper. Both were banned for constant wumming, both have shown no change in approach whatsoever since their ban ended. HappyForeverClapper was immediately banned again.

The drum element is an interesting one. I know a lot of people dislike it but personally I think its quite important and adds to an atmosphere (as you said as long as its not used for every single song). The problem without a drum to keep time is usually that fans sing too fast. This is especially the case in the Darwen End where a bunch of moronic kids use the side of the stand as a make-shift drum and then bang along dementedly at 100mph to everything, ruining most songs before they've really got going.

Flippin heck, you don't want much do you? They had to score at about 6 an over to make 250 in the 4th innings, I don't know how many times that's been done in test history but I doubt its double figures. England got within about 20 runs, was a great effort.

I've never heard it made as a call to arms in the fashion Lehmann made it. Its still people who watch cricket, and people, especially drunk, have the capacity to be violent. I've been to the odd Lancashire v Yorkshire T20s where opposition fans have been going at each other in a manner never seen in football grounds these days. If the Aussie fans had decided amongst themselves to abuse Broad, all he'd get is abuse. If Lehmann had predicted some abuse, all he'd get as abuse. But Lehmann asking for abuse, encouraging the fans to do so, you don't think there's any chance some could take that as free reign to go a bit mental? Kinda of a "who gives a **** about the stewards, our country's coach asked me to get this ****!" As for Broad's cricketing education. Well Gary Neville was on 5live commenting on the Ashes during a dinner break at Old Trafford and he said cricket toughened him up more as a youngster far more than football did. Facing professional fast bowlers at the age of 15, who would constantly try to intimidate him. Yeah its cricket, and cricket is a mentally tougher sport than almost all others. And giving how charming and sportsmanlike you Aussies can be, I'd imagine Broad suffered all manner of sustained and over-the-top abuse as an Englishman playing down under.

Haha yeah riot's a bit over the top. I can see Jim's point though, Aussie fans have been known to be as aggressive in their hounding of opposition players as the team sometimes are. The national coach putting a call out for them to send Broad home crying is quite irresponsible, you never know if doing something like that might push the odd overly drunk individual into the realms of actual physical violence. Broad should be ok though, his cricket education was as an English teenager playing in the Aussie counties league, which I'd imagine is an environment that only the toughest would survive. Plus, unlike our cricketers of yesteryear, he'll have a thousands-strong Barmy Army behind him. I think its impossible to underestimate the effect those guys have had on removing the fear factor when playing down under, they turn grounds into semi-home games.

Having a bit of a stinker Kerrigan at the moment, needs to settle down. Mind you its not the easiest start to your test career bowling at their second best batsmen when he's already on a hundred. I see Lehman's putting the boot in on Broad, already trying to get the Aussie public to abuse him in the next series. Nice bloke eh, and not hypocritical in the slightest. Reminds me of a famous Atherton sledge: Ian Healy: “You're a ******* cheat.” Mike Atherton: “When in Rome dear boy”

You really are incredibly immature. I'm the only person who mentioned the word racist, and the only context I mentioned it in was saying your 30 pages of relentless anti-England posts could be interpreted as being racist. I then immediately went on to say I didn't think they were, just the bitter sulking of someone who rather be bigging up India than celebrating the Ashes. So basically it was nothing to do with DRS and I didn't even call you it. Nobody else has mentioned it full stop. So stop talking rubbish.

Overall DRS has clearly improved things. Just because its not perfect isn't a reason to scrap it. That's like scrapping the development of the aeroplane a hundred years ago because some of them crashed to begin with. They weren't scrapped because they were an improvement on the train, well DRS error is an improvement on human error. I find the amount of criticism of it completely bizarre. It'll overturn maybe 20 wrong decisions in a series, but then if it misses a few (which makes no difference) or overturns 1 correct one, its critics leap on that anomaly with sensationalist outrage. Its a totally illogical way of looking at it, which makes me think its critics either have no ability to remember all the wrong ones its overturned, or have another agenda.

His complete lack of consistency, ability to totally ignore valid points made by others, and one-track mind through 30 pages of discussion might have something to do with it. He viciously slates Broad through multiple posts for not walking, others point out India players who've done the same, he makes up a pathetic, garbage reason for why its not the same. He drones on and on and on about DRS whenever it benefits England, says nothing when it benefits Australia. He is hypercritical about the qualities of a team likely to be ranked 2nd in the world after the next test. When its pointed out to him this team have beaten India home and away in recent series, he makes up a pathetic, garbage reason for why that doesn't matter. He's a wum at best and a racist at worst. Although I suspect the reality is somewhere between the 2 and he's just a bitter individual who doesn't like the blanket coverage England get in this country when he wants to talk about India. His insertion of utterly irrelevant clips of India into this thread would back that up.

This whole topic is blatantly a platform for him to spout his anti-England vitriol. He created the topic and has dominated it throughout. Why, because he's a lover of cricket no matter who's playing? Doubtful or else every post wouldn't be dripping with negativity and bitterness. He's successfully tainted the discussion on here of an entire Ashes series. It should have been about England and Australia, instead its been about DRS and Stuart Broad not walking one time.

You're just a massive cheat, so I'm not surprised you don't like it. DRS was brought in because a decent percentage of umpire decisions were wrong, due to human error and intimidation from the bowling side loudly appealing for everything (something India are the masters at). Its not an infallible system but the occasions here it overturns a correct umpiring decision are incredibly rare. Those are the only occasions where it makes decisions worse than they used to be. In every other case it either makes decisions the same (when it agrees with the umpire) or improves decisions. From what I've seen since it was introduced the percentages work out something like: Overturns a correct decision - 1% of the time Agrees with the umpire - 80% of the time Overturns a wrong decision - 19% of the time Those figures are guesstimates but it should be bloody obvious that the last figure is far greater than the first, hence the decision-making process has obviously been improved! All you care about is that India won't get as many decisions as they used to. Look at how often now they appeal like maniacs and then don't bother with a review. Cheats, like you.

What do you think would happen to me if I moved to India, went on an Indian sports messageboard, and said the same about Indian cricket that you do about English? Cause I think there'd be a lot of people trying to find out where I lived by now. Abusing this country's tolerance and decency, and showing no tolerance and decency yourself. What a total **** you are.

Avoided this thread for about 10 pages because I had a feeling that utter prat would still be ruining it, and low and behold he is. Don't think I've ever called for anyone to be banned (even Saxoman) but why the mods are letting that bitter, one-dimensional idiot ruin an entire thread on the most enjoyable event in English cricket is beyond me. Regarding the game, well for 48 runs for 6 wickets, good god. Its like going back in time 20 years.

What a joke. The DRS has been brought in to ensure fairplay, if you're against it then I can only assume you're against fairplay as well. Its very illuminating that India are the only team in the world to refuse to use it, little wonder with a team who would appeal for an lbw for something going 5 feet down the leg-side.

Fantastic stuff from England, think all these "par scores" need to be re-jigged for this series!