First Ashes Test, Cardiff, day five:
England v Australia
LIVE TEXT COMMENTARY (all times BST)
By Ben Dirs
606: DEBATE
Your thoughts on the action
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ENGLAND SECOND INNINGS
1040: Personally, I’m plumping for all out shortly after tea. And the only possible way England can escape this game without any mental scars is if they’re only five or six wickets down at stumps, with a couple of tons in the scorebook. Replay of Mark Butcher’s 173 not out at Headingley in 2001 on the telly, my God we could do with another one of those - but who’s going to hold their hand up today"Waiting for this morning’s action is a little like those days of watching Dr Who as a kid - you know it’s going to be scary, and you know those nasty creatures are about to try to destroy the good guys to continue their quest and for world domination, but you just have to watch anyway."
Ian, hiding behind the sofa in Muscat, in the TMS inbox “Why are we surprised at how England played Nine of this 11 participated in the last whitewash series Down Under…”
** Andy in Aberystwyth in the TMS inbox** “England are up the Taff without a paddle in this one, all over by tea me thinks.”
Peter in the TMS inbox****1033: Yep, Freddie, you’ve just got to bat out the day… simple as that mate…“We’ve got good players, we’ve just got to bat out today. We’re an attacking side and we’ve got to play our natural game, we can’t just play for a draw. It’s going to take someone to get a hundred, or maybe a couple of us, to save the day.”
England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff
BBC Sport’s Tom Fordyce on Twitter:](http://twitter.com/tomfordyce)“Sunshine in Cardiff. Shadows all over the place. If anything’s going to save England, it’ll be partnerships not precipitation.” “What depresses me so much about this gutless England Display is what appears to be the total lack of desire to win from the England team. This is a very average Australian team but as usual they bring it to the opposition hard despite their limited talents.”
CourageDirectors
Tom Fordyce’s Ashes blog1019: I’ve just heard the shocking news of Arturo Gatti’s tragic death. Now, if England are going to attempt to emulate anyone today, they could do a lot worse than Gatti. In fact, Gatti probably would have won the match from here.
1010: Bright sunshine in Cardiff, and my immediate reaction is “good”. England don’t deserve to be saved by the weather. Throw them a shovel and tell them to dig their way out of this mess. Prove us wrong England, show us you’ve got some stones…