Columns on the first Ashes test

I haven't found enough time to put up reports from all possible sources but here are some columns by players/commentators etc. I've also pasted selected quotes from the column.

Ashley Giles is confident that England will recover from the thrashing. But he seems more concerned about Lord's not allowing players to park their cars. So a few of them ended up walking a fair distance to the ground.

When we tried to hail a cab from the hotel on the first morning of the match, we were told "it's more than my life's worth to go down to Lord's in that traffic," and so four or five of us found ourselves strolling up the street past some disbelieving spectators. They probably thought it was a new theory about relaxing before the big game. I think my usual parking spot will be there at Edgbaston.

Note to Ashley: Not if the red button beginning with "P" is pressed

Matthew Hayden makes it obvious that he doesn't think Pietersen is English.

For England the performance of Kevin Pietersen on his debut was a plus. I love his aggression and I thought it was a fantastic performance. I simply love the way he plays his cricket. He plays like a true South African.

Mike Atherton is confident that England missed Thorpe and blasts the selectors for not picking the right side against Bangladesh.

To begin the most important series since the last time the Ashes were contested with the most inexperienced batting line-up England have put on the park in living memory shows a complete absence of planning and foresight. Ashes series come around at regular intervals and so really there is no excuse.

Shane Warne attacks Matthew Hoggard's pre-test claims on Warne and McGrath being geriatric.

I think what certain players said in the build-up was important. It was surprising to hear some of them come out with such strong opinions. I just don’t think it is in the personality of everybody to make big statements such as “so-and-so is over the top” and I think they suffered during the game by trying to live up to something that was not true to their character. You are positive with actions, not words. If they were told to do it then the tactic backfired.

Ian Chappell reckons that Pietersen's technique held up far better than some of his teammates'.

Boxing great Ali would have been proud of McGrath's accuracy in predicting Brian Lara as his 300th victim but he would have scoffed at the choice of Trescothick as the 500th on the basis that he was picking on the defenceless.

Andrew Strauss reveals why most of England's batsmen were approximately clueless against Warne.

Unfortunately, however, the lights that give the batsman warning that the ball is going to be delivered aren't particularly easy to see under the sun, and the machine is hastily moved indoors to prevent unwitting batsmen being bamboozled by it's Shane Warne-like leggies!

Tim de Lisle longs for the substitutes rule to be implemented in test cricket so that Thorpe could have walked in at 21/5 on the first day.

Bloodymindedness, the quality once provided by Geoffrey Boycott and John Edrich, Chris Tavaré and Peter Willey, Atherton and Jack Russell, is out of fashion now, and Test cricket is more fun as a result. But it is still needed: Justin Langer has it, and Simon Katich, and they were the two members of Australia’s top six to scrape 20 on Thursday.

Labels: ashes, ashes 2005