Will: I think almost every die hard cricket fan of their home country (other than perhaps Australia!) feel the same way about their cricket team. At least I know how Indian supporters feel. Every series they are hopeful, we have a good run on and off enough not write the team completely off. In a way Monday/Tuesday was the day when both England and India were brought back down to earth. Maybe it will only improve their performance..
always an optimist

hear! hear! Will. Another saddo here, with a bit more experience - 30 years watching England and my dear Leicestershire go through their peaks and troughs. You get used to coping with the gloating in a polite and friendly way. No big deal. This week, my father and 2 best friends back in the UK just refuse to talk about the cricket - another loss, forget it, life goes on.

Hussain had a good winning run, and Vaughen is taking this further. It’s actually sometimes hard to grasp the winning streak and the Ashes glory has only just about sunk in. Losing to Pakistan is some kind of strange normalcy. Weird.

But still, cricket is cyclic. Every dog has his day. Anyone remember the 3 W’s - Weeks, Worrell and Walcott from the 50’s? Remember when Clive Lloyd took over the Windies captaincy in the Mid-Seventies? Remember messing your britches at the mention of Courtney Walsh? The WIndies are now where England once were. Been there, seen it, done it, got the lousy T-shirt.

At least, England are providing the absolute best in cricketing entertainment value since years by any country, so if you can’t cope with the occasional loss, our CoU Jess has a smashing hotel in a place called Denial.

Very reasonable rates….R4 LW in every room

I would like to reserve a double room, non-smoking, sea view, with refrigerator if possible …

were it not for my completely unnecessary work hours while the tests are on (3pm-midnight GMT), I’d be up and watching/listening, too.

As for Will’s post - I see his post, and yes, it does hark back a bit. But I keep watching the Ashes DVD and I see England regrouping. Some punchy batting in the lower order. For Flintoff, read Pietersen - 0 and 3 in at Lord’s, after that, he was on fire. They’ll step up a level. Don’t forget, they could have won - they were only 2 runs from losing at Edgbaston too, but they won it. This is a different England team.

3B, how long did you say you’ve been watching England for? 30? Was that a typo? That’s like 1.6 times my entire life!

Jess dear, don’t call under graduates stupid! Not all of them are the same!

And now to Clin Clin, he’s obviouly feel a bit nostalgic for some reason.

I love the Pakistan team, and no matter what, I hate to see them lose. And a loss, no matter how exciting the game may have been, never makes me happy.

And again, this isn’t fair! You guys can’t feel happy about England losing (because it reminds you the good old days or whatever) , you should be upset. This is gloating week for me, remember?

Oh, 3B, you know what, now that you’ve said that, I’m out of my gloating phase!

Just coming back from another forum, and crash bang wallop – there was sour grapes all the way around – suddenly half our bowlers become chuckers, even those who weren’t playing! So it’s a relief to come back in the sane worlds of CoU to find someone who is prepared to say “your team played fair and well”. That just raised my spirits you know, others wise I was in a pretty bad mood. Thanks.

I hope Faisalabad is just as close. I’m really looking forward to it.

And BTW, it’s amazing that you’ve seen all those great players. I’ve never seen Gower play, but I would have love to given all that I’ve heard about him. Imran Khan remains another of those cricketers I was not fortunate enough to have seen live – although thanks to cable television I get to revisit many of his good performances. I must have seen the 1992 world cup final a gazalion times for instance.

I learned cricket from watching. No one taught me.

Amazing story SB.

But my cricket talent? Now you really made me chuckle there!!! I last picked at bat in July, for the first time since last July, and I played so crap I retired out my self to become a spectator/part time umpire …ah well, it was a rule-less back yard game, nothing serious, by that’s my point, my cricket has never been serious enough to consider playing professionally, and there’s not much scope of woman playing professionally here anyway.

You have to be very bloody minded, 110% determined, only then you get some where, I’ve read in the papers and on Cricinfo how hard our Pakistani cricket team had to work - I’m proud of them, but I’m not sure I have that kind of strength.

I do love the game, but I am reluctant player. We did not have cricket at school, and I’ve practically never even come close to a real bat/ball/cricket surface. Whatever I technique I do, it’s just picked up from TV. I’m just about as likely to have ‘cricket talent’ as Mickey Mouse.

I just don’t have the strength. People who weight six stone don’t play cricket, they sit at home, study and watch and talk about cricket. Only occasionally when their kith-and-kin drive them nuts by way of excessive leg pulling to they attempt to play cricket.

Let’s leave the cricket to those who are good enough - I’m good with my dentistry, and aspiring free lance.

Good point about getting a free seat at the ground! But my math is awful and I’m the exact opposite of what one can describe as an organisational freak - I’ll make a terrible statistician - think of untidy scorecards, flowers scribbled all over the books, broken pencils and what not! Plus, I’d miss half the action anyway - I talk too much and simply can’t watch the cricket without getting crazy, I suppose to be a scorer you have to concentrate, and refrain from celebrating etc when something in your team’s favor happens, I’d never be able to do all that. I think my best chance to return something to the game is to write about it on my blog.