The Ashes, Match One, Day Two

So the first match of "The Ashes," the big cricket showdown between England and Australia, started in Nottingham, England on Wednesday.  England won the toss and chose to bat.  They scored 215 runs before making 10 outs.  Then it was Australia's turn.  The Aussies were soon in terrible trouble.  In fact, they were down to their last out after scoring only 117 runs.  And the last out in cricket doesn't usually count for much, because teams usually bat their worst player as the last man.  And Australia's final batter was the 19-year-old Ashton Agar, who had never played in a test match before.  But then young Mr. Agar shocked the world.  He scored 98 runs -- the most ever in a test match by a number-11 batsman.  Furthermore, the partnership between Agar and Philip Hughes combined for 163 runs -- the most ever in a Test match by the final partnership of an innings.  So instead of falling way behind, the Aussies found themselves leading 280-215 after one innings.

England, somewhat shaken by that surprising conclusion to the opening innings, got off to a shaky start in its second and final at-bat, losing two men in a row after scoring only 11 runs.  But after that, a partnership between England's first and fourth batsmen settled down and kept batting until play ended on the second day.  So England now lead 295-280, and they still have 8 outs (or "wickets," as they are called in cricket) to pad their lead.

By the way, as someone who loves scoreboards, I have to say that the scoreboards for cricket are terrible.  The typical cricket scoreboard tends to look something like this:

ENGLAND:  215 and 80/2
AUSTRALIA:  280
England lead by 15 runs with 8 wickets remaining

Whereas to me, it would be much simpler to have a scoreboard that looked like this:

ENGLAND  295
AUSTRALIA:  280
INNINGS: Top of the 2d
AT BAT:  England
WICKETS REMAINING:  8