´óÏó´«Ã½

Brilliant. But I'm not sure the authorities over there will see it the same way as Skype is banned and blocked in the UAE.

Typical jobs worth comment, that's what's wrong with people's attitude. Nothing is impossible, the impossible just takes a bit longer

Excellent stuff guys! I must admit the lack of the crowd's hum threw me for a while. I wondered if the lackluster performance of the English batsmen had sent you into hiding.

TMS is always a pleasure to listen to. The combination of banter and expert knowledge is a great combination.

Well done today. As always insightful entertaining and very enjoyable

Why is there no place to comment on the actual game? I'll just do it here then. Won't take long....

"Ruthless, Consistent, Brutal"?
Laugh, Out, Loud.

Great story. Skype was the first thing that came to my mind when I heard the regular broadcasts line weren't working.

Any pictures or video of the iPad being passed around and spoken into, by any chance?

Great work, gents!

Now, England must seek redemption from this humbling defeat!

Very good job Adam. And vey nice to have a full squad TMS team here in UAE. I listened to the whole three days while at work just across the border in Abu Dhabi emirate. Is there any chance of being able to meet the commentary team and yourself somewhere? It would be an honour as I have listened to TMS for the last 25 years or so. Regards, Simon

shame on b.willis for complaining about ajmals action....better served improving skill rather then blame others just like the football press...

Great work as usual from the TMS team. By the way re No. 1 Skype is not banned in the UAE

@5: That was a comment on England's bowling unit (who performed well), not it's batting.

Still, let's not let the facts get in the way of a good wum eh?

Wow, what a story! Such improvisation under fire-makes you proud to be British eh? If only the ´óÏó´«Ã½ could get TMS back to being about commentating on a game of cricket instead of tired ex-plyers chatting away about their breakfast, hotel, what they said on Twitter, etc ec etc. They seem to have forgotten that the medium they work on requires them to paint a picture for us listeners!
Michael Vaughn is probably the worst culprit-he'll talk about anything but the current action (I am sure he is an advertising agent forTwitter and Facebook). Even Aggers has lost his way. He used to describe the on-field action quite nicely, but even he thinks we can all see what he sees!
Come on TMS, wake up and commentate on the action.
Johnners would be most irate!

My heart bleeds for you all. Next you'll be saying you want a beer.

Sorry Daniel Kyle, Skype is not banned in UAE. You cannot set up a Skype account here but if you already have one, then it works perfectly - I Skype my family back home in Ireland every evening! Well done TMS, enjoyed your new-style show!

Great article. How can Skype be banned in the UAE if TMS used it?

re comment 12
TMS has always been a group of intelligent articulate cricket enthusiasts describing the play and chatting amongst themselves. I hope it always will be and won't descend to the self-glorifying mumbling poorly-spoken football pundits.

Michael Vaughan brings not only an expert, well spoken view but a sense of great enjoyment of the game and of the environment of a Test Match. His sense of humour matches that of the great Johnners and is stopping Aggers becoming a grumpy old man.........which he was in danger of doing.

Big deal out of nothing. So the team used technology that is commonly available in public domain. There are many amateur and professionals who use skype/youtube etc media to take distant classes for say classical singing or classical dancing or maths etc.
As someone put it, TMS has gone down in quality. Comms look at themselves no less than being celebrities snatching all the limelight, forgetting what they're essentially there for. And it applies to radio as well as TV comms. Quite evident the way Aggers, Athers, MV conduct themselves. TBH, less established comms like Mark Butcher, Croft, Ramprakash sound lot better and lot more sensible than these pompous wannabies.

I listened to TMS on the way in to work yesterday and they consistently mentioned Skype and iPad. Yet other ´óÏó´«Ã½ radio stations are always very carefully about mentioning Branded products. So what is the official ´óÏó´«Ã½ line on Branded products?

@16
Michael Vaughan..... Well spoken?
Sorry, but to qualify as well spoken you should be able to pronounce all 26 letters of the alphabet. Vaughan's "now you see it, now you don't" approach to the letter "t" is unacceptable. How come he can say fifty but not forty?
I want to hear him try to pronounce "positivity" then we'll see about "well spoken".

I don't understand the head or tail of this story. Bottom line: This English team lost comprehensively. Don't try to find faults with the action of a first class bowler on the opposite side and learn to digest defeat. Still more is to come - strengthen yourself instead of considering your opponent as weak.

Am I the only TMS listener who has become irritated by Sir Geoff Boycott's Podcast contributions? I respect SGB as an ex-player and, to a lesser extent as a journo, but I think he's been disrespectful to the Pakistan team (day 2 Podcast) whilst going on and on ad nauseum about the fundamentals (the basics) of the game. Later he suggested that England should have prepared in India?@? Failing that, England should drag England A around with them to provide meaningful opposition.

Frankly I'd rather hear Aggers' thoughts combined with those of (e.g.) Michael Vaughan.

The TMS podcast has become a comic vehicle, an object of derision. So it was with a Vaudevillian sense of inevitability that SGB was to invoke Sir Fred "We didn't have bats in my day" Trueman on the final day. Shocking stuff.

Adam, judging our lads performance, it may have affected one of the TMS team, so badly, it led him to led to desperate measures. Have you investigated the possibility of sabotage?

The beauty of the TMS commentary, absolutely nothing changes but it is like a breath of fresh air. I have been listening to the guys for over 50 years and long may it continue. To be without it, 'just wouldn't be cricket old man'

Great Thinking!And to all the cynics who thought iPad is something not required here is another application of it! Great Blog always enjoy reading Aggers and your blog. Maybe someone like Michael Vaughn should also put his perspective on a blog.

R Brooker
@21

Whilst agreeing with you, regarding Boycs, TMS has always had that affect. Jim Swanton, Trevor Bailey and Fred Trueman could certainly rattle a few cages just as easily. But it is part of the appeal of TMS.

Not sure the point of this blog, would have preferred one about the performance.

Will give me 2pence anyway. One bad performance doesn't make a bad team.

Very impressed with the bowling unit and i'm not calling for Monty to be included unless the next pitch is as much of a road as they seem to think. Swann has been off his game for a year or 2 now and i hope to see him return to some form, similarly with Strauss.

Batting line up shouldn;t be changed till after this series with the obvious question being Morgan's test contributions. Pieterson doesn't have time on his side but as people have pointed out i think he averaged 80odd for the lastg 8 innings before this test.

When does the A team kick off, i think a few of them should be vying for middle order spots in the future if they can put on world class performances.

Like Kuwait and most of the GCC, Skype IS banned in UAE. They want you to use their extortionate international calling services if you wish to call overseas. If you already have a skype account and skype is installed on your machine then you can use it. The ministries of Communication in these countries have found it nigh-on impossible to filter out the skype service. But they can filter all Skype web pages so that you can't view them, download skype or add funds to your account to make skypeout calls. If you're coming out to the Gulf (to commentate on cricket matches) make sure you've got all these services set up before you arrive.

I loved this post, my 23 year old son is a TMS fan, a habit learned from his Cricket mad Grandmother, 80. Son 2 has struggled with me since Christmas trying to get me to a)use an iPad, b)use Skype. I think he thought this was a heaven sent opportunity to persuade me on the if they can you can basis. Well done - but the T-Shirt and jumper dress code has shattered my illusions of Commentary Box Dress Code! I'm going to retreat to 'steam radio'....

An amusing story. Not the main issue of the day however. That is the utterly bereft of hope batting display in the first test. Why oh why do people keep extolling the virtues of one Kevin Pietersen. He is finished, done for, over rated and has been playing appallingly (with one exception) for 3 years now. He simply must be dropped. The ego has, is and always will get in his way. He is just nowhere near good enough at the moment and how anyone can even vaguely begin to dispute that is beyond me. He will no doubt whatsoever continue to play just as badly through the rest of this series but extraordinarily will keep his place. It defies belief. I must also take serious issue with aggers in a blog he has done elsewhere on the bbc website today. To try and defend the shambolic first test display by claiming he has sympathy with the team because they were 'undercooked' is utter rubbish. He goes on to say it's not their fault as there are simply no other teams they could have played out there in order to be 'acclimitised' to match conditions is just arrant nonsense. It begs so many questions but i'll leave it at just this - how come pakistan (minus at least 3 of their best players who are currently residing at her majesty's) were not undercooked then? Who did they manage to play in order to aclimitise? Did the apparently legendary pre-match preparation of messrs strauss/flower not realise they were not going to be match sharp and why did they not do something about it? Just delusional stuff at best from aggers there i am afraid. He should be a bit more honest - England were utterly disgraceful in the first test. Some appear to think thay have made it already whereas in fact the great teams and great players know only too well that the really hard work only begins when you are initially successful.

crello
@27

Nice one.
I think the days of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ dress code are long gone. Or maybe not, we could start a petition to ensure the guys, if ever they are seen, wearing the full dinner suit including a dickie. Now that would give Boycs something to moan about.

@28 - I am curious as to whether the one exception is the 175, one of the pair of 63s or the unbeaten 202 against India, the 85 and 72 against Sri Lanka, or the 227 at Adelaide or the 51 at Melbourne (all in his last 11 tests)? But I agree, pretty appalling...

@Wirral18, 25

would you persist with Morgan? I would drop him in order to make way for Panesar in near-Asian conditions. Prior has shown time and again that he's the best keeper-batsman in Test cricket. That normally means you'd get into the side on the strength of batting alone (e.g. Gilchrist without doubt, B. MacCullum with a few, unsure of Boucher).

I also agree that a blog about the game seems more to the point than techno-heroics.

Skype and i-Pad - made for the 1st tough test right the way through to the last tough test. I should be in marketing.

Re: 25, 31

incidentally I wouldn't reinstate Morgan even if Monty P was surplus to requirements. Back to Ireland I'm afraid.

Very interesting, but why can't i get TMS on my IPad when i'm overseas?

@24, Londoner in exile returns

Only Jim Swanton is before my time. I have very fond memories of 'The Boil'. Sir Fred, great in his time of course, became a veritable wireless fossil even in my time. I suppose this ties in with original blog's technological point: SGB, like SFT before him, belong to the era of TMS by semaphore.

But perhaps you're right about the tradition of it all. Look at Sky and Bob Willis! At least there's something relatively harmless about TMS. Not sure if that's a compliment though.

@ R Brooker

Yeah interesting with the Morgan situation, definitely worthy of his one day place but certainly not made a single decent score in test cricket (as far as i can remember anyway).

Bresnan's injury is disappointing as i wouldn't hesitate to drop Morgan then for Panesar but with a tail of Broad, Swannm, Tremlett, Anderson and Panesar isn't ideal.

I understand the opinion that your batters bat and your bowlers bowl but time after time we have created a winning position because our tail has put on another 100-150 runs.

Wirral18,

I agree. Look at e.g. Warne and Gillespie in their pomp. A destructive tail if not always dependable. But then they rarely needed to be dependable. The question is do England plan on lower order runs? That's dangerous. Our batting line - refigured with Matty Prior at 6 - should make enough runs anywhere.

Having watched a lot of them both, I see Broad as the better batsman than Bresnan. Not by much. I go along with Flower and Strauss. I back their decisions. They've earned that right. But.....Morgan....no. Nothing to do with conditions. He's not a Test batsman. And finally, to reopen a turning can of worms, whilst I'm uncomfortable having so many South African born men in the side, it's worse having a man who can swith-back to his home nation should things not work out. KP and Trott cannot do that. They made a choice which gave absolutely no guarantees. Morgan has options. But perhaps I'm now too far from this blog's purpose.

@ R-Brooker

Not too sure what the actual purpose of this blog was!!

Yes our top 6 (in theory) should be good enough to score the runs required to win tests but in future series i would drop Morgan for another batsman. I think our bowling unit is good enough to take 20 wickets and with Finn lying in the wings we do have options in who the 4 should be. If Bresnan comes back then between him and Broad you have enough batting to possibly warrant dropping Morgan in favour of a 5th bowler. But without Bresnan then i would hestitate to swap a batsman for a bowler.

Firstly, I am very, very happy for Pakistan. They have had a hard old time of it lately and this will be a great boost to a nation that is sorely in need of a boost.

Secondly, I wouldn't chop and change things too much. It was a bad result and England have bounced back from them before ( West Indies - all out for bugger all not too long ago ). Maybe a tweak here or there is required.

This is where the best teams are forged - tricky overseas conditions.

Thirdly, kudos on the techno fix. I usually chuck gizmos that aren't working at a wall and, surprisingly, this does not appear to be as successful as you might have thought.

@5 waldovski
"Why is there no place to comment on the actual game?" - my suspicion is that it's because the bbc don't want this website to be infected by all the intellectual dead ends who plague a famous cricket website with their endless back and forth, crowing mindlessly at the end of every day's cricket, seemingly with no ability to see the bigger picture, nor rise above the basest forms of nationalism.

i wonder how much the bbc get paid for there constant advertising of the apple ipad? before its always been a comment here and there , a few well placed devices in a presenters hand or on a desk but now a full blown article about one saving the day ! license fee is clearly not going as far as it used too!

anntrodd *16

I have no objection to the chat, but I do want to know what's going on during play!
Example: Banal chat re hotel situation, brekkie, twitter, dressing room at Yorkshire 30 years ago- and that one went wide down the leg side...
Johnners always said the cardinal sin would be to miss any delivery on TMS-this does not seem to apply anymore.
And as for comparing the morose Vaughn with Johnners......well!

@41 no1much:
"i wonder how much the bbc get paid for there constant advertising of the apple ipad?"

Thinking the same: if the they'd had a bog-standard Lenovo laptop with Skype the result would have been the same, but wouldn't be so sexy I guess.

Sorry #42, but I have to take issue with your criticism as well. In many years of listening to TMS I don't think I can remember a time when commentary on the game made up the bulk of the chatter.

TMS has always understood CLR James famous saying, "What do they know of cricket, those who only cricket know?" It understands that for many test match lovers, the actual match itself is only a part of their enjoyment and quickly becomes joyless when taken outside of its non-sporting context. Thus, for so many of us long time listeners, chatter about cakes, buses, seagulls and the night before is as much a part of the programme as the actual cricket.

Oh, and the more recent additions to the TMS line-up - I'm specifically thinking Vaughan and Tuffers - have been fantastic. They have an insight to the modern game that many of the old guard, wonderful though they are, struggle to provide. Tuffer especially is a revelation. He has a tactical acumen and intelligence that came as a complete shock to me last Summer. If it wasn't for pretty much everything else about him, he'd have made a pretty good captain!

Just read Michael Vaughan's piece in the broadsheet. It's on-line. Excellent assessment of the technical, tactical and mental adjustments England's bats need to make. Quality. It reinforces my earlier point about the podcast. Just saying!

A good piece Adam. It would be nice to know why radio suffers more from this than tv?

A very clever way to avoid talking about the humiliation at the hands of the Pakistanis.
The no.1 world test team (in the only format that matters).
Maybe a old proverb is apt " Even a dog is a lion at home ".

More to the point why are the ´óÏó´«Ã½ wasting licence fee on iPads? Any tablet can use skype and the ipad is the most expensive.
Then again as the Apple advertising agency it probably cost them nothing...

What a great advert for Apple from Adam and the ´óÏó´«Ã½. I hope you get the rich rewards that you are so clearly after! ;-)

48 -SuperSonic4

I had the distinct impression from Adam's piece that the iPad was Agger's personal property. What makes you think the licence fee paid for it?

Here we go, a bunch of moaners on here, oh please do be quiet. TMS is a fresh breath of air that sets even Football Commentaries to shame.
TMS with Aggers, Blowers, CMJ, Vaughan, Boycott to name but a few is very funny.
I tuned to TMS at Edgbaston when we played India last summer and was relieved to hear the joyful tones and anarchic comments to come from the guys.
Blowers hotel was mentioned, Boycotts boast of smashing a ball over a stand to be proved wrong in the process.
When I heard the test match special team were going over, I had the TV on Digital Radio to listen to it and Blowers complain about the lack of buses going past but joyed when he could see cars going past.
I didnt hear the incident in the blog but sounded like a nightmare...but I bet Aggers must be relieved his ipad survived and to heard about Boycott confused on what he needed to do made me laugh at work reading the comments and a few raised eyebrows towards me.
Sad that Tuffers couldnt join you but hope he's back for the England Summer Commentary and I hope he and the rest of the TMS guys will keep me enterained at Trent Bridge when the Windies come to England