Jonathan Trott Rescues England

Jonathan Trott came to England’s rescue today in the first test after hitting his second double century in Tests for England when England reached 491-5 against Sri Lanka in Cardiff.

Sri Lanka initially scored 400 in the first innings and after rain had interrupted play on both days, England replied in fine fashion with Trott resuming on 125 after the morning session was effected by the rain. Trott put on 160 with county team-mate Ian Bell, who was left on 98 not out at the close of the play.

Alastair Cook was out early on only adding four runs to his overnight 129 while Kevin Pietersen made only three runs when he was caught lbw by the TV umpire following a referral.

Andy Flower Ponders Changes

England cricket coach Andy Flower has suggested that he may make some changes to his bowling line-up when they play their fourth Test in Melbourne. England slumped to a heavy 267-run defeat as they struggled to break down the Aussies in the Third Test.

Australia’s fast bowlers dominated in Perth and it is thought that Flower may turn to Tim Bresnan or Ajmal Shahzad. Both have yet to feature so far this tour with Chris Tremlett deputising for the injured Stuart Broad

"A five-Test series is hard on everyone, both physically and emotionally. For the fast bowlers even more so, I would say," Flower said. "We've got a few days now to reassess prior to Melbourne and the bottom line is we'll pick the XI that we think will have the best chance of winning in Melbourne.

"The workload on our bowlers is heavy. In the absence of a quality all-rounder we're sticking with our four-bowler attack and we've shown over the last 18 months that it's served us well."

Andy Flower is considering promoting Ian Bell up the order after Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood have failed to deliver in the middle order.

"We are always looking at ways to improve our side," Flower said. "Ian Bell looks in very good form, he's very confident and he's played beautifully throughout this tour.

"Jiggling with batting orders and personnel is always an option but you also have to be careful about altering a side that's been very successful over the last 18 months."

England Close In On Victory

Can England bowl Australia out

England will be hoping for six quick wickets tomorrow when the final session gets underway, England had earlier declared on 620-5 after adding 69 in nine overs, with Pietersen out for a Test-best of 227, Ian Bell reached 68 and Matt Prior 27.

England left themselves nearly two days to bowl out their hosts at the Adelaide Oval. In reply Australia notched up 238 runs, with Pietersen taking the key wicket of the session,

Australia started there second innings with Shane Watson hitting 57 and Simon Kaitch who was struggling with an Achilles injury registered 43 runs, the Aussie’s started to fight back with an opening stand of 84 before Watson was bowled by Finn and caught by Strauss.

Graeme Swann took two early-afternoon wickets seeing off Simon Kaitch and Captain Ricky Ponting who only managed 9 runs after being caught low down to his left by Paul Collingwood at slip...

Michael Clarke then went on to hit 80 runs and Mike Hussey 44 not out, they were a constant thorn in England's side, having frustrated the visitors. The tourists had done well to reduce 134-3, with Graeme Swann (2-72) striking twice and Steven Finn claiming his eighth wicket of the series.

With the last ball of the day Kevin Pietersen bowled Michael Clarke, who refused to walk but after an official review the decision was made that Clarke was given out.

Graeme Swann has said that if England is able repeat the level of performance they reached today then they can secure the win.

He added; "We need a bit to go our way in that first session and we need to bowl as well as we did today,"

"I think that if we can do that we can win this game.

"Is will be a case of sticking to our guns and seeing what happens."

Speaking on Kevin Pietersen’s last ball, who earlier had a record-breaking test score of 227, the spinner added; "We toiled hard in the last session and a half with very little luck so some time you need a bit of inspiration," said Swann.

"Who else but KP to come on and give you it?

"He went straight in and said 'I'm an all-rounder, I'm an all-rounder' and I still think he is in there shouting it now."

Can England do it or will Australia bat out the whole day with only seven wickets remaining?

KP scores 213 not out

England picked up where they left off in the Adelaine Test. Kevin Pietersen smashed an unbeaten double century after turning the screw on Australia.

The English team are now more confident of victory than ever - particularly after Pieterson's extraordinary unbeaten 213 runs from 296 balls.  This now puts England 306 runs ahead of their Australian opponents with just two days of the second Test left to go.

England resumed play on day three of the second test match. Alastair Cook went for 148 in the morning, but with Paul Collingwood hitting 42 and Ian Bell scoring 41 not out it helped Pietersen to be the only fifth English player to hit double centuries in Australia and the second in two days.

Kevin Pietersen, who scored 213 not out, hasn’t registered a century for England since March 2009 in Trinidad, but has now reaffirmed his status in the England batting ranks.

Australia appeared to have run out of ideas. England totalled 551 for 4 wickets when the umpires called a halt to play when rain started to fall in the middle session.  The covers went on and the players went off to tea. The conditions didn’t improve enough for the players to take the field again.

Speaking on Sky Sports, he said: "You go through tough times in your career, it's how you get through that.
"I knew doing the basics and keeping things simple I would come good. To get some time in the middle in this fixture has been great."

Pietersen also paid tribute to coach Graham Ford after going back to basics, gh said: "It came back then. He just went through bits and pieces I had forgotten."

Pietersen now wants to help the team press on for victory. He added: "It's about the team's position. The Ashes is still nil-nil and we now need to go about winning a Test match.

Alastair Cook Puts England In Command

Alastair Cook scores another ton

Alastair Cook hit a successive century as England set a lead of 72 against Australia in the second Ashes Test..  Cook hit an unbeaten 136 with the tourists reaching 317-2 in their first innings. The Essex left-hander, who also hit 235 not out in the first test at the Gabba took his aggregate score to 371.

Following Andrew Strauss' dismissal in the first over bowled by Doug Bollinger for no runs, the tourists made a bad start to the day. But Alastair Cook & Jonathan Trott (78) put England in command and once Trott was dismissed Kevin Pietersen then hit 85 not out, helping England rack up the runs in Adelaide.

Alastair Cook said, "It's important to cash in when things do go your way,"

"(I learned after the first Test) what had gone had gone.

"It's about not getting complacent; it's a mental switch that you have to start at nought again.

"That was one of the challenges I had this week - trying to back up what I did last week."

The Essex batsman speaking on the batting conditions, he added: "They bowled really well up front so to stick in through that and go on and bat all day was especially rewarding.

"It was almost ideal batting conditions.

"A lot of credit must go to the way our guys bowled to put us in that position.

"But there is still a lot of hard work to do."

Pietersen sorry for Twitter rant

Kevin Pietersen has apologised for his twitter rant, the 30-year-old batsman announced he had been dropped via Twitter, England's batsman has now said sorry and hopes to put that matter behind him. But key figures is cricket have hit out at the way Pietersen has handle the news of being dropped.

Pietersen added, "It came out in the way that I didn't want it to come out,"

"It wasn't meant for the public domain, I apologise for it entering the public domain and I also want to apologise for the language I used." he said.

Former England captain Michael Vaughan
criticised Pietersen while speaking on BBC 5 Live radio,


"What he did on his Twitter account was totally wrong,"

"I think that's something Kevin will regret for a long time. I actually think that England have managed it in a good way.

"They feel that he needs more cricket and a couple of four-day games rather than playing the one-day series against Pakistan just to get that form and feel for batting again.

"I don't see it as a dropping. I just see it as the management of a player who needs to be playing more of the longer format of the game than the one day to try to get him into some kind of form leading into the winter."

Kevin Pietersen dropped from T20

Kevin Pietersen has been dropped from the England's T20 squad, Kevin Pietersen form has been lacking in the recent test matches only scoring fifty out of 8 innings, failing to make big runs consistently and Pietersen sent a message to his twitter account earlier today before it was deleted. It said, "Yep... Done for rest of summer!! Man of the World Cup T20 and dropped from the T20 side too... It's a f--- up!! Surrey have signed me" at which is where his tweet ended.

CRICKET: Strauss - Pietersen will come good

England cricket captain Andrew Strauss has said he has no concerns on Kevin Pietersen lack of form recently and his backing his talisman to bounce back against Pakistan in first test match which is due to start on Thursday 29th July at Trent Bridge. Pietersen has lacked runs recently for England, with his last successful spell being an unbeaten 111 against India in November 2008.

Andrew Strauss told Sky Sports News, "Kevin has just turned 30 but he has got a lot of cricket left in him," said Strauss. "He has had a tough time, there is no doubt about that.

"He has not scored as many runs as he has done in the past. But he is a high-quality cricketer and he will come back and play match-winning innings for us.

"He has had a bit of a break and that has been well received. A new addition to the family changes your priorities a bit and you need to get your life in order. I think he will come out and play really well against Pakistan.

"Kevin wants to be a great cricketer and he knows the way to do that is by scoring runs consistently and putting in match-winning performances and I have no worries that he will do that."