It's because every test match has a time limit of 5 days. He wants to ensure that he has enough time to take 10 wickets and win the match.

Hi

It's usually to do with time remaining in a match, and conditions of the weather/ wicket.

e.g. Theres no point getting 500 runs clear if you will only have 50 overs to try and get them out. The wicket will also deteriorate making scoring harder and slower.

You also want to give them a target where the batting side think they could have a chance, so they play more aggressively, but also risk losing their wicket.

Hope that makes sense.

Im not sure where it would place him, probably inside the top50, but i wouldnt be surprised if he doesnt make it. Money in sport is ******ed anyway.

I know Sachin Tendulkar used to have a **** load of decent sponsorships

afridi has a screw loose, faced 19 ball in the whole test match and out slogging both times. great example to set to your young team, he's a disgrace really with all the discipline problems he's had in the past, just shows how lol pakistan cricket is that he;s the national captain

I do always look forward to watching him bat, short and sweet guaranteed.

lol, afridi's obviously been reading my posts and has decided to retire

"My temperment is not good enough to Test cricket ...". no ****. http://www.cricinfo.com/pakistan-v-a...ry/467580.html

and i agree he's great to watch

Aside from The Ashes, Test Cricket is a dying game. shame.

if you're going to slog, at least do it properly like iqbal does.

The Australia India test matches have produced some classics in the recent years, but yea apart from those no one seems to give a **** about it anymore.

I dunno test cricket seems like a better game to follow the online commentary or post about on forums than actually watch. Pretty much any sport could get boring if you watch 30 hours of it in a row.

about the declarations, if you dont bowl out the other team, you dont win even if you have more runs...

To put it in soccer terms, say a team has to score two goals to win a match in 90 minutes, otherwise its a draw, if u are up 1-0 with two minutes to go, you want to push for a win and attack, declaring is the same in a weird way, give them a chance to win to give yourself a chance to win

whose coming with me to australia to watch the ashes this winter? tickets go on sale to brits tonite. cant wait. should be amazing, my prediction is we lose 4-0 or 4-1 but who cares

Would love to, my brother went last time and said he had the time of his life, even though we got thrashed.

Ashes trip with Barmy Army would be amazing. Anyone got any idea how much it costs roughly?

bout a fortnight of hangovers

Anyway Muralitheren in his last game trying to get 800wickets vs India

Currently on 797, hope he gets it.

India struggling in second innings.

85-2 in the follow on.

Go on the chucker!

EDIT- Rudy Koertzen retiring after this test (Aus v Pak)

Great Umpire (most of the time)

Yeh would be great if he could do. Never be passed I doubt.

Aussies getting crushed this morning too, 60-6 with 40 mins to lunch

i wish steve smith was english, i hope hes not going to be as good as he might be. i can see him been a quality batting no.5 and beeing a decent legspinner.

as for the ashes trip, i dont know the cost of going with the barmy army tbh, the actual test tickets are cheaper than england thankfully( 5 day pass for brisbane ~ £70, sydney £160 for first four days). perth and melbourne tickets on sale tonite- not going to adelaide. personally i dont really like spending 1/2 my trip money on boos, id rather watch the whole tour as iv got plenty of time. the real cost on these trips is airfares.

always good when india and australia are losing so keep going sri lanka and pakistan.

jesus, at that price it's almost cheaper to watch the entire test in brisbane than it is to watch an entire test at lords

Did the Ashes tour last time round in '06-'07 as part of a tour group. Didn't feel like a holiday at all, more like a gigantic school trip where you had to be in a certain place, at a certain time, all the time, as you got ferried on and off buses, planes, ferries etc. Bloody exhausting, and by the time I got back I felt like I needed a holiday.

If you want to do it then I would advise you just get tickets for a couple of the days at each test and otherwise set your own itinerary. I spent all that time in Australia and hardly saw any of the country, and I really regret that. Irrespective of the fact that we got absolutely thrashed.

I say this even as a cricket fanatic, but spending five days at a test match, for test after test, is not great fun. Unless you can luckbox a spot in a nice comfortable corporate box... It's not the cricket bit, that's brilliant. The bad bit is the sitting for hours on end, day after day, in a seat that's too small and very uncomfortable, while people walk past all the time treading on your toes and spilling beer on you.

If you go then do it your way and have a great time.

And lolaustralia88alloutaments

Brilliant from Australia.

Murali needs 2 more wickets of a possible 5 remaining to reach 800.

Play closed for today.

thanks for the great advice.

bought my tickets for sydney and brisbane, tickets for perth and melbourne go on sale tonight(leaving adelaide out because as u say all the travelling and sitting gets to be a bind) but fortunately i have no job or reason to curtail the trip short so planning to spend 3+ months in aus and then visit new z afterwards. i agree half the fun of these trips is doing what you want and exploring.

australia doing so averagely on this trip to england is unwisely raising my expectations for the winter

Murali gets his 800 wickets.

Although sky sports news did report over 25% of those came from Bangladesh + Zimbabwe, where Warne only picked up a handful due to fewer games.

Wickets vs Nation







Congrats.

Would be an astonishing achievement to beat that.

Tbf a lot of the wickets earlier in his career were when Sri Lanka weren't a very strong test team, so he always had that added pressure as well. I think that makes up for all the wickets he got against Zim and Bang. Shame he's retired now.

Murali's awesome. Seems like a great guy too, never seen a pic of him where he doesn't have a huge grin on his face.

Sucks that we lost the match in 4 days but we deserved to. The whole team looks tired and jaded and no one looks like they want to be there. When your match fee is 1/100th of what you make from sponserships, I guess cricket becomes a secondary passion until you're in danger of being dropped.