Positives from the cricket...

Southendaddick

In Strauss, Cook, Pietersen and Bell we have a young world class batting attack going forward.

Vaughan should be back as captain

Freddie will come good again once his ankle clears up.

Monty is quality.

Simon Jones might be back reverse swinging next year.

Warne and McGrath surely wont be about next time and possibly Hayden and Gilchrist.

Ledge

Duncan fletcher will resign a bloodY joke of a coach away from home. To ALLOW Geraint Jones to be on the selcetion panel was pathetic. Jones is a poor wicketkeeper and an average batter. Could yuo imagine him doing what Gilchrist did. Yet he's ont he selection panel so he is hardly going to drop himself is he.

oohaahmortimer

unbelievable, didn't realise that clown jones was on the selection panel, was ashley giles as well?

Henry Irving

bunch of drunken buffoons. Disgrace to the nation apprearing drunk at Downing St in front of the media. Not fit to wear the pads, etc, etc, etc.

I thought they were all heroes last year. I blame Les Reed.

WSS

"It's the wickets that killed us"

Barn Door Varney

Jones' wicket this morning was nothing short of embarrassing. He surely must have played his last game for England.

pickwick

I think even Fletcher who obviously wants to have GO Jones' children will have to admit his error....Being captain has done Flintoff no good when he is coming back from injury, should have been Strauss with 20/20 retrospect and he should have played our best bowlers prior to the third test and DF should have got the guys to send a more positive image in the 2nd. Australia are a fantastic team and to beat them you have to be in their faces in every session and 3 out of 5 does not work.

I doubt we will see Hayden/Gilchrist/McGrath and maybe Langer again, Warne however we might....

BlackForestReds

England missed three senior players in Vaughan, Trescothick and Simon Jones, made two further errors (perhaps because they were missing two senior batemen) in playing Giles and Anderson over Panesar. They didn't help themselves though by sticking with Giles and Anderson for the second Test.

They should have had more than two games before the first Test (discounting the one day slog fest in Canberra against the PM's XI) - Harmison for one needed the bowling practice.

Jones or Chris Read as keeper, in hindsight Read should have kept the job, but that decision given that England were missing Vaughan and Trescothick wasn't a bad one to make, it didn't come off and who is say Read would have done better. Jones's keeping is a lot better than it once was.

Overall Australia won because they were stronger and were determined to win the Ashes back. England failed to exploit Australia's key weakness - their bowling, and couldn't do anything (unlike in the last Ashes series) in knocking over the Aussie top order quicklt enough. In every innings at least two of Langer, Hayden, Ponting scored runs and not just heavily but quickly.