stevegrant

Even though all of the information (and probably some more) has been on this forum since last week...

This is relevant to my interests... details please

No - that was centred around the names put forward by Pinnacle.

Here we go then... Brett Lee's definitely out for Australia which, having seen his performance against the Lions last week, can only be a good thing. Both teams' batting lineup pretty much picks itself, I reckon: ENGLAND Strauss © Cook Bopara Pietersen Collingwood Prior (wk) Flintoff Broad Swann +2 AUSTRALIA Hughes Katich Ponting © Hussey Clarke North Haddin (wk) Johnson +3 The Aussies clearly now have fewer options in terms of bowling, Stuart Clark's probably guaranteed a place alongside Peter Siddle, which leaves either Nathan Hauritz or Ben Hilfenhaus, who seems distinctly average to me. A lot's been made about Hauritz and the probability that he'll be left out with Michael Clarke and Simon Katich left to do the spinning between them, but Clarke has a dodgy back and Katich doesn't seem to want to bowl these days. On a turning pitch, I reckon Hauritz will be picked. Anderson's obviously in for England at number 10 bat and number 1 bowler, and then it's a straight choice between Panesar and Onions. I wouldn't be surprised to see Strauss wait until just before the toss before actually making the final decision. I'd fancy Swann to have the experience and guile to carry the whole spin attack for us, so for that reason (along with Panesar's form this year being absolutely dreadful) I'd go with Onions as part of a four-man seam attack. That way, there's also the safety net just in case Flintoff breaks again. I'm going for a 1-0 England series win, and they'll win the first test in Cardiff as the pitch will be a little bit unpredictable. The other four will have been prepared to last the full five days, so it would take something special from the bowlers or something dreadful from the batters for anyone to win any of the other four tests, IMO.

We rushed it through as soon as the hosts could do it for us so that (hopefully) it would be in place for when something does actually happen, as I would expect the number of visitors to go through the roof, and clearly we want the site to be able to cope with it. Not especially - I've heard the various bits and pieces from Solent and what's been in the Echo, but I have also heard that it might possibly be sewn up tomorrow; I'd take that with a pinch of salt at this stage, mind you.

Anyway, all done by the look of it, just waiting to hear back from the engineer at the data centre that they've done the config modifications as well.

How did you guess that?

Just in case people haven't seen the announcement above (not sure if unread ones show up in bold or not)... -------------- The forum will be down for about 10 minutes or so at some stage this afternoon while a hardware upgrade is performed. Basically, we're putting more memory into the server and tweaking the config so that - hopefully - we'll be able to cope without any problems when the takeover news finally arrives. Obviously it's not an ideal time to be doing it, but we only broke the record number of users online last week, which caused the server a bit of a problem, so we're doing our best to make sure that won't happen again. If you have any questions, please PM an admin or moderator. Cheers The Admin Team ---------------- UPDATE: Server will be down again shortly for about 10 minutes - there was a problem with the memory that was added yesterday, so the engineers will be trying again today. Sorry for any inconvenience.

On sale to members at 9am on Tuesday. If I remember rightly from last time, it was a maximum of 2 tickets per membership - I'd expect the same sort of thing again. Most of the tickets were sold ages ago, don't know if the ECB have held any back to be sold to fans of either side who aren't members.

Yes. Why should he walk straight into the side for the final when it's been the performances of everyone apart from him who have got the team there in the first place, particularly when his mind is likely to be elsewhere? I strongly suspect that the ECB will prevent him from playing anyway as it's sandwiched right between the second and third Ashes tests.

I'd much rather the ECB say they won't release the players. Prior is a much bigger threat for Sussex in terms of the extra qualities he brings to their team above that of the player he'd replace than Pietersen would be for us. We've been successful this season because we've had a largely settled side, particularly at the top of the order, and messing around with that to bring in someone just for the final who many would say is barely our player anyway would be a bad move on a number of counts, IMO. If Pietersen were to end up in the team at Lord's, presumably it would be Dawson who would be left out - what might that do for his confidence? What would we do without the option of two spinners capable of bowling 10 overs apiece? He's played in both of the finals we've been in recently, and barely contributed with the bat - 5 off 10 balls in 2005 and 12 off 26 in 2007.

Not yet - there was a slight delay as the original master copy I got sent didn't work, so had to wait for a replacement to be sent.

It's looked quite flat for most of the day, hasn't really done much. A bit of extra bounce every now and then, but nothing major. We've bowled much better overall, and the catching has been excellent. The two by Adams to get rid of Du Plessis and Laxman were top drawer.

His medical highlighted problems with his knee that was likely to cause a serious injury at some point, and the official recommendation was that we didn't sign him. Unfortunately, we were so desperate to sign a centre-back that we ignored that advice. We also paid three times more than other clubs felt he was worth. Coventry offered just £300k for him.

That's what happens when a football club goes into administration. We're no different to any other club who's been in this situation.

Yeah, thanks but for as long as there are other serious bidders, no thanks.

I suspect it's a case of "we'd like to sign you, but because we're in the middle of all this crap, we can't actually offer you a contract for a while - this may take days, it may take weeks - so if it's OK by you, we'll put you on 'trial' and pay your expenses"

And that Companies House has no reference to a Gillico Holdings.

Considering he sold two players for £2.5m in the last week, I'd have thought so.

Who's going to be the one to waste £1 to download the director listings then...

Companies House, closest match I can find: Gillico Limited - incorporated 1st April 2009 Registered address: BARCLAYS BANK CHAMBERS 2 NORTHGATE CLECKHEATON WEST YORKSHIRE UNITED KINGDOM BD19 5AA Errrrr....

You'll only shin it again...

Also he'll want to be in some sort of reasonable state fitness-wise for his testimonial on 21st July.