The Ashes 2013

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Looks like batsmen making lots of runs has become unfashionable this summer.

[Wezil]

Translation for the North Americans?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

The Ashes. Test cricket series between England and Australia played roughly biennially since 1882. It's as big as it gets in the world of cricket (which covers about 1.5 billion people).

[ColdWizard]

Leg before wicket!

[Wezil]

The Ashes. Test cricket series between England and Australia played roughly biennially since 1882. It's as big as it gets in the world of cricket (which covers about 1.5 billion people).

"test"?

[Wezil]

Is there a quiz afterwards?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Test = International match played a period of up to five days.

[Wezil]

This would be so much easier if we spoke the same language.

5 days?! I hope they take breaks.

[Sava]

I don't understand anything about cricket whatsoever. But I did see this hilarious guy who played pro-cricket on the Graham Norton show. He was at 10 Downing Street for some event and got very drunk. He wandered off looking for the bathroom and somehow found his way into the PM's office. He sat down at the PM's desk and put his feet up, pretending to be the PM... giving fake orders and whatnot. Eventually, a security guard found him and said, "All right. You've had your fun. Let's go."

So even though I don't get the sport, I like the players.

[Wezil]

So the important question.... Who's going to win the test?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

It's only the second day, so anything could happen. Wicket's were falling fast, so it looks like it'll be short (by test standards) and dramatic.

[ZEE]

wrong forum.

[MOBIUS]

No, it's the right forum. Cricket is not a sport...

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Match so far? Completely bonkers. Australia on 117 for 9, out comes the 11 bat who is a teenager on his test debut. He gets 98. 90 buggerin' 8. That's just mental.

Did the Australians decide the batting order by just pulling names out of a hat?

[H Tower]

Ok, I tried to read up on this, and have decided that a monkey was picking words at random.

No last man has ever made a Test hundred. Ashton Agar came within inches of achieving it in his maiden Test innings. His eyes lit up at the opportunity to pull Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann flung himself forward to hold the catch at deep midwicket. He was denied the ultimate prize, but his extraordinary innings will remain part of cricket folklore forever.

What the heck is a deep midwicket? Is that like deep in the outfield in baseball?

Before Agar's astonishing intervention, life was going swimmingly for England. James Anderson was producing a contented exhibition of reverse-swing bowling. Graeme Swann was finding substantial turn. Australia lost five wickets for nine runs in 31 balls. But if England had imagined that a decisive advantage in the first Investec Test was theirs for the taking, as Australia's first innings shrivelled on a parched Trent Bridge morning, they were mistaken.

contented exhibition? finding substantial turn?

Agar might have missed a maiden hundred but for the man dubbed 'Ashton Who?' two world records in a day was enough to be going on with. He walked off the ground with a smile and a shrug that won further admiration. His 98 had taken only 101 balls with 11 fours and two sixes. The cricketing world knows his name now.

Agar was a 19-year-old debutant who knew no fear. He now holds the highest score by a No. 11 of all time, surpassing Tino Best's 95, also against England, at Edgbaston only last summer. He shared in a transformational stand of 163 in 33 overs for the last wicket - another world record - with Phillip Hughes, a specialist batsman watching him in disbelief. He even gave Australia a first-innings lead of 65 and nobody, not the most one-eyed Australian alive, not his mother in her most doting mood imaginable, expected that.

I've never heard a player called a debutant. Transformational stand? What is an "over"? What the hell is a wicket anyways?

England's shock reverberated into the start of the second innings, Joe Root and Jonathan Trott dismissed by Mitchell Starc in 7.3 overs up to tea. Root got a feather on a leg-side flick - his doubts were not strong enough for his captain to agree to a review - and Australia successfully reviewed to gain an lbw against Trott, with no definite proof of an inside edge that the umpire Aleem Dar had suspected.

7.3 overs up to tea? Is that good or bad? feather on a leg side flick? Good or bad, I can't tell. An Ibw? Inside edge of what?