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It's offical, Warne has retired from all international, dmoestic and club cricket. There is a counterpoint though, he will honour his contract with Hampshire through to 2008. Sean

30 minutes until Shane Warne announces his likely retirement after the 5th test. Speculation is that McGrath is going as well. Sean

Biggest 2 hands I have been involved with are: My partner opened a balanced 35 count, we found out we had no 8 card fits, so despite me having 2 4 card suits headed by the J, there was no entry to my hand, so it ended in 6NT makingfor a flat board. (Interestingly I knew partner was 35+ :P ) 2nd hand was help by the opposition, opening bidder had: [hv=s=shakjt98765432dcq]133|100|[/hv] We ended up in 7♦ as a sacrifice which ended up making vs 6♥ by our teammates :( Sean

Gilchrist is on the scrapheap already? Sean

Some of these UI decisions are truly ludicrous. They basically add up to if it hesitates, shoot it. I still remember 2 decisions made against me. One I had AKQxx in a suit and was on lead, partner had hesitated during the auction. When they received a poor result, they managed to convince a director and then an appeals board that the hesitation had somehow indicated that lead and was therefore now allowed to lead that suit. :) My hand was something like xx AKQxx xxx xxx. Find me someone that doesn't lead the ♥ :) The other one was even more amusing, my hand was something like xxxx xxxx - xxxxx. Partner had hesitated over a ♦ bid. They argued that partner must be thinking of making a takeout double of ♦ (after a poor score of course), therefore partner had indicated the other 3 suits. Therefore I could not lead any suit since I wasn't able to lead a ♦. Lost that appeal too, but I think that had more to do with some of the words I used to describe the appeal board, the director and the players involved. :P This one is similar in some ways, exactly which suit is partner suggesting? And, let's say you were forced to lead a non-black card, you decide on a ♦, I bet if partner ruffed that, this suit in some way "would have been suggested" by the hesitation. So therefore by logical inference you are forced to lead a trump from Q9 I think it was? Get real. As I said, NCBOs run scared from UI, if it hesitates, shoot to kill, safer than actually looking at the problem. Personally, I think the director made a good ruling. Sean

I open 1♣ on both hands. Sean

Personally I don't like using caps when directing. If I say something to the table I try to remember to preface the 1st comment when I come to the table with "TD: " Sean

My thoughts on the auction in reverse order for each bid. :) The final pass was forced by the previous bad bidding. The 4♥ bid was his own fault, see 3♣ below. That 3NT bid is really bad, the strongest bid north can make is 3♥, this has to say I have slam aspirations and set trumps. The 3♣ bid got south into some trouble and is probably what scared south into 4♥ instead of something higher. He now thinks West has ♣AQxxx(x) and they are losing the 1st 2 tricks, which means he has wrongsided the contract by transferring. I don't even know whether I like the 2♥ bid, this must be damn close to a superaccept (assuming 15-17 NT). The 2♦ bid I don't like, I think I would have bid 3♥ slam-going with 6 card ♥ suit. Seems to fit quite well. :) The 1NT bid was good. :P Sean

Assuming they leave Fletcher in until the end of the tour, (which might be a very big assumption), how many days do you think it will take the ECB to sack him? I'll take 4 in the sweep. :) Sean

There is only one word, (or synonym [ok more tha one word then]), for this ruling, crap. Yes the bid was bizarre, yet, it did have some logic behind it. Depriving opps of the red suits has some merit. As others have said, if the director did not report the south player to abuse for cheating, he may as well report himself for cheating as it is quite possible a friend called him and received a positive result. This is how strongly I feel about this ruling. Sean

What did everyone think of Gilchrist's innings? Sean

I start at 8 minutes, then 7 minutes for 2nd round on. That seems to work well since I need some minutes for subs in first round. And yet again, welcome to the world that is Claus, I still find it hard to believe that he can find many things that are negative about any post. Sean

Damn it got quiet here all of a sudden. Sean

Perhaps they could do some new episodes of Fawlty Towers, there might even be an opening for a waiter in the series. ;) Sean

Wow! That was a shock, Damien Martyn has retired from all forms of cricket effective immediately. Sean

Agreed, it doesn't make much sense since it didn't need to send posts or anything to farm email addresses and then inform us of the glory of penis extensions or of untold wealth in Nigeria that with your small help I will give you 25% The one thing I can think of is that after enough trust was built it would insert a URL in a post with some truly nasty worm on it. Sean

It must be a strange world on Planet Claus. Sean

On another note... WTF!!!! Akhtar and Asif decision overturned by PCB!!!! Sean

Both teams were wimps in the selection room for this test and this is why this will be a draw. There is a very slim chance that Australia can win the test but England cannot realistically win it. The selection mistakes: Australia MacGill should have played for Australia, he may go for a few runs, but he gets wickets. Usually more than Warne when they are in the same team. However, to bring MacGill in means Michael Clarke would have been dropped, and perhaps Stuart Clark, so perhaps a good thing in the long run. England There is no doubt in anyone's mind that Giles can't bowl, especially against Australia; he is simply not a test bowler. Pietersen spun the ball more than Giles did and actually attacked the batsmen, all Giles did was try to contain. Mat Runs HS BatAv 100 50 W BB BowlAv 5w Ct St unfiltered 53 1394 59 20.80 0 4 141 5/57 40.12 5 32 0 filtered 8 226 59 16.14 0 1 18 4/101 55.00 0 7 0 Who has someone with a bowling average of 40 on their team? (filtered is against Australia) To claim he is an allrounder is just a waste of time. What I find absolutely unbelievable is that a test spinner with 141 wickets has never had a stumping!!! This should tell a story also. Then there is Geraint Jones, he is not a test keeper; and his batting is not good enough to mitigate this. When Alec Stewart was keeping, his batting was good enough to make up for his deficiencies as a keeper. This put England in something of a fix. Do they weaken their batting by dropping Giles and Jones to give them a chance to take 20 wickets? Unfortunately England took safety first as the option. --- Now, don't get me wrong, England have played damn well during this test. There are question marks though. Why did Freddie only bowl 4 overs today, his last ball being bowled at 11:29am? Can they keep Anderson? Are they forced to keep Harmison and hope he comes good? Can they justify to anyone keeping Giles? And if they do drop Giles, is Jones up to keeping to someone that can spin the ball? Australia has other question marks. Lee is clearly underperforming, as he has always done against England. Stuart Clark is a real find, is he now the first picked seamer? Perth takes considerable spin now, it is not a fast bowler's paradise. Perth is a more likely venue for 2 spinners than Adelaide now. Shane Watson is now fit apparently. What does this all add up to? I think Damien Martyn's career is over, Michael Clarke has taken his chance and done everything that could have been asked, his "useful" left-arm orthodox makes him a better prospect also, and then there is the age difference. I am guessing Martyn will be dropped for Watson and then a seamer will miss out. Who do you choose? Stuart Clark Glenn McGrath Brett Lee A tough choice, but realistically it should be one of Lee or McGrath. --- It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow on the last day, and even more interesting to see what happens in the selection rooms. Sean

I didn't want to catch a taxi home because that would cost too much, ($50), so I decided to wait for the first train. ($4) (We'll ignore the fact that I spent more than $46 between midnight and 4:30am :D ) Sean

4♠ for me too. Sean

This might cheer all of you up a little: McGrath is having a fitness this morning before the 2nd test. He is still suffering from blistering on his left heel (where there would normally be calluses if had been bowling his normal amount of overs) which is causing him a great deal of pain. If McGrath misses, I am sure some parallels between the last series will be used to psyche the English team up. Remember last time England were easily beaten in the first test, then McGrath missed the next one. Sean

If one has lobby chat turned off, please make it impossible to chat there also. Sean

And then when you get to know your opponents there is always the fake psyche :) Sean

The worst thing about this is the reprehensible double standards applied by many governments around the world on this subject. In many countries, when it suits the government, for instance on tax purposes or unemployment benefits or something else, then they are recognised as a couple. However, if it comes to a "god-fearing" family taking the estate of a gay person from under the nose of the couple who might have been together for years, then the relationship is not recognised. Anything to keep the majority happy, rather than be at all proactive. Sean