Day two: Oh my Tavare and Boycott long ago!

With Australia squandering anywhere up to 37 overs of playing time in the gloom of Friday afternoon in Kennington, it is becoming more and more likely that England are three days away from reclaiming the Ashes. If only Geoff Boycott and Chris Tavare were about thirty years younger, then we call this Test a draw and declare England home and hosed right now.

Langer was playing splendidly until the somewhat cautious decision to accept the light at the end of the tea break. Maybe he and Matty were waiting for the floodlights at The Oval to kick in. They'd probably need to lodge a DA with Lambeth Council first...

Have a listen to Jim Maxwell's post-stumps interview with Langer (MP3, 1031K, 4:23). Langer clearly believes there is time enough over the next three days for Australia to wipe off their 261-run deficit, beat England and retain the Ashes. But surely he was getting tongue-tied when he told Maxwell that a "500 lead" would be good. Does he expect to personally be at the crease when Ponting declares at 873?

Yet again, that Durham Dynamo Gary Pratt made an appearance as substitute fielder (if there is a valid cricketing context for that ghastly term "supersub", here is it). It's perfectly legal, of course, and indeed constructive, for England to send their excess twelfth player back to the counties and bring someone in who doesn't have a game on at the time.

However, there is no doubt that England has an unfair advantage over other Test countries, what with eighteen county teams all within a compact distance from which to draw some decent fieldsmen. No other team has such a pool of dead-eye dicks at their disposal when they're playing at home.

Good to see that, according to Mal Speed, the ICC will take a look at the substitute fielder rules at their next captains' meeting. There need to be some parameters placed on who can be used as a substitute fielder. Otherwise... well, The Bladder reported it last week:

Dr Waring said he was astonished to turn up at Trent Bridge on the fourth day with Australia batting, to find there was only Michael Vaughan, bowler Freddy Flintoff, keeper Gerry Jones and eight substitute fieldsmen on the park.

“It was strange really. Nobody in the crowd knew any of the substitutes but it turns out one is a crack outfielder for the Boston Red Sox baseball team, several of the outfielders were Olympic 400 metre hopefuls and the entire infield was made up of crack knife throwers from a visiting circus.

Getting back to the bad light, Justin Langer's apologia appears in his diary for BBC Online. Alas, he doesn't repeat his expectation of a 500 lead. Comment also from Andrew Miller, Lawrence Booth, Jon Agnew, Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Geoffrey Boycott, Simon Briggs, Jim Maxwell, and the SBS Ashes Website forum (damn, there I go taunting Google again).

theashes.typepad.com has an action shot of Billy Bowden's LBW decision against Wheelie bin Giles, however there is no better match report of Friday's play than that compiled by Nick Whittock.

Gideon Haigh takes the award for making not one, but two, tasteless quips in his prolific scrawls - a reference to Stevie Wonder on CricInfo, and a joke involving the New Orleans Superdome in the Guardian.

A shortened day's play Friday, so the Midwinter-Midwinter points go like this: 2 pts - Justin Langer, 1 pt - Matthew Hayden.