Ashes

[sunny-dave]

Spoilers

[sunny-dave]

Just the most extraordinary match ever - and a stupendous feat by Ben Stokes.

[sunny-dave]

Utterly ridiculous - proving that Test Cricket really is the best game in the world.

[sunny-dave]

Now if I can find the noisy Aussie who was yanking my chain in the village yesterday ....

[ladybirder]

What's happened? I've been out today.

[whurules]

Not bad for someone who should be in prison

[Tilly2]

Thrilling and unbelievable!

[sunny-dave]

England won by 1 wicket - Stokes made 135 - they still needed 79 when the 9th wicket fell - Stokes just incredible in making all but 1 of those runs

[ladybirder]

Tut really annoyed I've missed it.

[bednobs]

i dont *** believe it. After the whole "england have too high a run rate needed to win, so ill put the kids to bed" debacle ive been scuppered again!!!

[ladybirder]

I'll watch Cricket on 5 at 7pm this evening. Thanks Dave.

[Sqad]

Amazing...absolutely amazing.

[webbo3]

An amazing innings.

[ToraToraTora]

this was uop there with the Botham test, wonderful, there'll be alot of whining aussies about! what part of Australia are you from whurules?

[choux]

whurules, I think he showed he could break out of anywhere today ;)

[margarettom]

Stokes should be Sports Personality of the Year, not only for today's heroics, but for what he did in the World Cup earlier this year. Amazing cricketer.

[Cloverjo]

Well done to Leach for sticking with Stokes and doing what he had to do. I thought we’d lost it when Archer started going for crazy shots.

[Stephen_G]

This tops the 149 not out by Beefy, in 1981, by quite a margin. Beefy's knock (And his partnership with Graham Dilley) was to force the Aussies to bat again, to win the match. If it hadn't been for Bob Willis and that spell (15.1 overs/3 maidens/43 runs/8 wickets) from the Kirkstall Lane end, there might not have been a `Botham's Ashes' to speak of. Good old Kim Hughes taking his foot off the throat of the English and not enforcing the follow-on...

When he was batting with Jonny Bairstow I kept thinking `It's the fourth day, you've got more than enough deliveries to take a run a ball and still make the total, comfortably. There's no need to play extravagantly. Oh... you've got yourself out. Well, Chris Woakes can hang around. Oh... you've got yourself out too. Well, we've made a right Horlicks of this then...' Thankfully I stuck with it to the end.

Ben Stokes is not human!

[Barmaid]

Some smart Alec updated the wiki entry earlier on The Ashes to read "the ashes is a series of cricket test matches played between Ben stokes and Australia".

[brainiac]

Annoyingly, I went out when Leach came in, assuming the game was up. Just could not believe it when I came back and Paine was being asked about how gutted he felt.
Quite apart from the amazing shots towards the end, Stokes really dug in at the start - I think he faced about 50 balls to make his first TWO runs. Proper, proper Test cricket, and the crowd played a magnificent part. Bad luck, shackledraggers!

[BAKERS DOZEN]

Watched every minute of it. Absolutely brilliant.