For our American cousins - since hitting the ball to the boundary gets you 4 and hitting the ball over the boundary 6 that is very very close...

Simon will be along later to tell you how good it was to watch;-)

And I missed today's play -- I was on my way back from Bournemouth, got stuck in traffic on the M27, but was still looking forward to watching the last few hours. I turned on the TV, and everyone was walking off the pitch...

GRRR!

Wondered where you lot were, thought perhaps you were hiding behind the settee too aghast to watch. Anyway some breathless commentary is way down here:

http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?off.9.177033.52

Summary: Jones saves the day.

BTW very hard to cook dinner with that level of attention required by the TV. We still have a contest. This is extra good.

What a match !

England just about managed to win. Brett played superbly I thought.

I thought the match was Australia's when Simon Jones dropped that catch.

Mat, TIVO hasn't reached UK yet?

I didn't saw the match. I am not very fond of test match.
We are having a Srilanka, West Indies and India trinational series going on in srilanka. Today, we are having a one day match with West Indies. We made 262/4 in 50 overs and and and west indies are 114/6 in 25 overs. So we also have a good chance of winning.

TiVo is available here, and I even have a self-built PVR machine, but I was planning on coming home last night so hadn't bothered setting it to record... *sigh* I shall have to make do with the highlights tonight, I guess.

And we have won the match with 7 runs. We are in the FINALS now. :)

Mat, what were you doing in Bournemouth?

A friend of mine lives in Boscombe, so I was drinking beer and carousing... :)

I'm sorry. I never knew you were friends with a heroin addict ;-)

Hehe. We did pass a few unsavoury characters and ladies of dubious moral character on the way home, but it's not all that bad really -- I've lived in worse places, and at least he has the advantage of being within spitting distance of the beach...

Just watched the highlights, and even though I knew the result it was still pretty tense. Second closest test match ever, apparently... It sounds like McGrath may be fit again in time for Old Trafford this week, which is both a curse and a blessing -- he's a great bowler, but not the greatest batsman. Vaughn's track record as captain gives me confidence -- he's won something like 25 of the 30ish tests that he's captained, so he must be doing something right.

Roll on Thursday! (And I shall have to get to work on assembling my aerial so I can follow the match this time. :)

Insulated wire is best. And that's all I know. Bare one end (of the wire) and attach to radio antenna.

Here's the justly famous photo from the tied match in Brisbane 1960/61.

http://www.thehindu.com/th125/stories/2003091300712000.htm

> Second closest test match ever, apparently...

No Matt... There are two tied test matches that could have been more tense. Aus Vs West Indies, and Aus Vs India.

Aus Vs Windies in which Lara and Walsh helped Windies win on the ninth wicket was also better than this one.

I dont like Aussies to win, but if they did, I would only blame England. None of the English bowlers bowled on the 'corridor', they were bolwing at the body.

It was tense enough, sitting there with the Aussie contingent counting down the runs '97 more runs to go' after almost every run.

The atmosphere was more like a football game (real football) than cricket but it was all the better for that.

There were two things that irritated me. They use the big screen for adverts now, TV type adverts with the sound blaring through the ground speakers and they persist in the presentations with putting up the little poxy stand they give them on facing away from most of the ground and spectators. Yes you can see it on the big screen but its another example of TV dictating what happens and not the game.

But it was a great finish to one of the great modern Test games.

Ok, second closest non-tied test match ever. Picky. :)