We were well on our way to scoring 600 + to win a Cape TOwn test in the days of timeless tests back in the 30's. But I agree a win is very unlikely and unfortunately the weather sites I have been on are not predicting rain tomorrow in Brisbane I suspect wishful thinking.
A little pride was restored on day 4, but not enough to paper over the many cracks and that was promptly lost on Day 5, more worryingly while I'm disappointed by the defeat the way we lost is more of a concern. In just about every department we outplayed, in total the Aussies scored 800 runs for 10 wickets, while we mustered just over 500 runs for 20 wickets.
Firstly, in terms of the team for Adelaide I think that the only changes should be Panesar in for either Anderson (if the pitch looks like it will take spin) or Giles (if it doesn't) plus Mahmood for Anderson if play one spinner. That is not because Anderson is a bad bowler, but Mahmood a few yards of pace on Anderson and though he is erratic, he might just produce one of those spells where he surprises the batsman and we need bowlers in there who can take wickets, the Aussie tail wagged, but that was hardly surprising considering that England were bowling poorly and that the bowllers would have been knackered by the time that Warne, Lee, Clark etc came in.
Whatever the issues with the batting (and there were plenty at Brisbane), the fundamental issue is that England has to be able to bowl the Australians out twice.
Raking over the ashes (whilst we still have them!!) of Brisbane, how do we assess performances?
Strauss - looked in little trouble at all until he got out to the pull shot in both innings. Class bat capable of scoring big runs but needs to do some work on that shot in Australian conditions - and specifically when to play it. He is a good player of the hook and pull shot, but it's dumb to play that shot and in the air when there are two fielders in place for it. Sure he might succeed once or twice but sooner or later he'll perish playing it and so it proved. Without Trescothick and Vaughan England need him to hang around and score runs. Having your opening batsman and main threat back get himself out twice cheaply is no way to win a Test, especially when crease occupation is the name of the game.
Cook - looks the part. He'll have to develop his game against Warne, but that applies to any batsman in the world in their first series against him, hopefully now he's had a look he'll be prepared.
Bell - excellent effort in the first innings, though perhaps a little lazy having worked so hard for 50 to play a loose shot to Clark. But worrying that he was undone by the slider in the second innings. I suspect that Warne still fancies him.
Collingwood - he continues to look technically flawed and could have been out several times before he got going in the 2nd innings, but he battled through and took the fight back to Warne. Getting out the way he did - going down the wicket to Warne is always a risk, especially as England were on top and close to stumps.
Pietersen - great first Test in Oz. Batted responsibly in both innings, got a poor decision in the first innings and showed with Collingwood that the Australian bowling can be taken on. Also bowled pretty well and was one of the few England players who manged to keep his head up and look up for it when the bolwing was being pummelled.
Flintoff - the big upside is that his bowling is back, without which we really would have been in trouble. Disappointed with the bat, but that is Freddy and it'll return. A poor shot to get out to in the second innings, especially given the circumstances. Captaincy-wise - the jury remains out, he tries to lead by example and kept the bowlers going in the first in search of a break through.
Jones - showed enough with the bat to just about justify his selection. He looked fantastic in his short short second innings and was undone by the pitch rather than the bowler. I didn't see enough of England in the field to really comment on his keeping, but he seems to have had a relatively good Test with the gloves.
Giles - performed OK as a no 8 batsman, though in a peculiar way he was not really in pressure situations and arguably he chucked it away in the first innings when time meant more to England than runs. But with Anderson down the other end it was probably academic in any case! Bowling wise, he didn't really exert much control, going at 3.6 rpo in the first innings and barely being bowled in the second but he didn't threaten to take wickets. Unless we are playing two spinners, he has to make way for Panesar because someone needs to get the Australians out.
Hoggard - bowled steadily but largely without threat in the absence of swing. There could be an argument for leaving him out unless the conditions look likely to be favourable for swing, but I can't see who else you can trust to at least deliver the ball consistently on line and length.
Harmison - the enigma. Was pretty much dreadful though he did improve. He was arguably unlucky at the start of the Test in that Langer was continually carving him in the air through and over the gully area, but the balls deserved carving rather than wickets. It might have been different, however, if one of those carves had gone to hand and he had got his tail up. For me he has to play because unless he finds his form England do not have the bowling line-up to bowl the Aussies out.
Anderson - didn't bowl as badly as his figures suggest, but that is what the Australian batting will do to you. He couldn't find either his swing nor the consistency of line and length to "survive" at Brisbane. I don't have a huge degree of confidence that Mahmood or Plunkett will do much better, but I suspect that they will be given a try if England don't play two spinners (or seven batsmen!) at Adelaide.
As for the Aussies...their batting was everything I had feared it might be, although poor bowling by England meant they were given every opportunity to prosper. Although he had a good Test match, I suspect that Clarke (or Martyn) will probably be sacrificed if Watson is fit because frankly they don't need seven (inc Gilchrist) specialist batsmen and an additional bowler would balance the side better, even if he wasn't needed at Brisbane.
To inject a little controversy...I think the Australian bowling performance was mixed. McGrath was awesome - if he says he is 97% at his peak, then I believe him, but he can be attacked, although doing so almost invariably brings risk - see Strauss's dismissals. Clark also looked extremely useful and looks a useful (if short term) potential successor to McGrath. Great line and length at useful pace and some movement and very much not the weak link that I was hoping for! I just hope that on slower wickets with less bounce he is not quite so much a handful. It remains to see what he's caopable of when England get after him.
Warne was Warne, attacked and bowled wicket taking deliveries but I don't think that he looked close to his best from what I saw of this Test. On his favourite track in what must have been pretty much ideal conditions he threatened but didn't dominate. And England did take the game to him pretty successfully - which may of course be at least part of why he did not dominate. Psychologically that is one upside of the First Test for England - though I still expect Warne to take 30+ wickets in the Series.
Brett Lee however looked like cannon-fodder - albeit very fast cannon-fodder but cannon-fodder nonetheless. He took two wickets in the match, both big ones - Flintoff with a good yorker in the first innings and Pietersen to a loose shot to leg stump half volley in the 2nd. But in between, in the context of the match he was expensive and bowled only a limited number of threatening balls. I think that if Watson is fit he might just be dropped for Tait or Johnson - or MacGill if Australia play two spinners.
It is just possible, if they can reduce the number of errors of judgement, that the England batting could do to the Australian bowling what the Australian batting did to the English bowling at Brisbane - particularly if McGrath is already carrying a heel injury.
But to be honest, I'm looking for crumbs of comfort. The main thing that needs to happen is that Flintoff needs to be given the bowling support to get the Australians out twice. Without that - and I am not certain where it is going to come from - the Ashes are lost. Hopefully Harmison can click into rhytym and with Hoggard to support him take two/three early wickets and then Flintoff and either a second seamer plus the spinner whoever it is (or both) can attack the middle order. I think with some discipline against a not particularly strong Aussie bowling attack we can score the runs, but bowling the Aussies out twice is going to be the way to win it.
Not much to disagree with there, it was very negative not to play Panesar and with the top order not clicking it really hardly makes a difference if you score 25 or 5 runs, particularly if Panesar had taken a couple of wickets and bowled 20 overs at 2.2/2.6 rpo.
Jones did OK and I understand why he is back in for Reed. Need a proper opening stand in Adelaide whether we bat first or second 150 for 1.
04 you were quite confident on the draw, saturday and was prepared for abuse when we lost. As England cricket is so charlton like, I cant be bothered to give you grief, fella. Maybe Ketman will?
Stauss as the senior batsman has to do a Boycott and be prepared to bat all day. Never mind his normal game, we need a couple of big partnerships up the order. The Aussies can and will score runs while I still think their weak link is their bowling.
On the bright side Michael Vaughan is aiming to be fit for the fourth Test. Hopefully this means he'll get a chance in one of the prep matches before that Test.
It would be good to see Vaughan back (though not for one of Englands 2/3/4) I genuinely thought we would never see him play test cricket again after the injuries and recurrence of them.
However we still need to play Panesar, Strauss does need to do what you say. And we need Flintoff to continue in similar vain with Harmison finding his Radar.
It's there for England to go on and score a big total. McGrath is not 100% fit, Warne is bowling ok but struggling, I think England have done some home work against him. Lee is fast but expensive, and only Stuart Clark has bowled ok. As I've been saying - the Aussie's don't have much in the locker to fall back on regarding back-up bowling, that's their weak link, England have to exploit it.
[cite]Posted By: AFKA Bartram[/cite]Unchanged team, no Monty. Think they have dropped a ricket here.
Anyone staying up for it ?
les stayed up to watch it. i managed to stay up till 12.45 before my sleepy eyes got the better of me.
he got into bed at 7.30am!
setting up the bed in the living room for the weekend as ms latimer is coming over, she can have my bedroom and we're camping in the front room with the sky box.
The problem (hopefully) won't be getting runs, it will be taking 20 wickets. Not picking Monty was a shocking decision. If we can't get the ball to reverse swing then a draw is the best we can hope for.
Managed to see the whole day, probably explains why i've only just woke up though.
Positive day compared to our last performances with the bat but still should be doing better on a flat slow pitch like it is. Less than 3 runs an over which isnt the best. However, a decent bat up until tea could hopefully see us declare & get stuck into them for the evening?
I thought the pitch was the reason for the slow scoring, yeah it was flat, but the ball wasn't coming onto the bat, the only player with explosive power is KP, and he had to use that a bit to get the ball flying
didn't make it to work til half hour ago after keeping awake for most of it.
most painful moment was after lunch when we faced 21 balls without scoring, only 2 boundaries in the whole innings by that point. glad i stuck with it, kp and colly had warne frustrated and the run rate picked up. just wish colly got his century before close, it'll be a restless night for him.
Worse bit was when Ian Healy was saying that Cook was lumping pressure on himself, Gower assured the nation it weren;t the case, then Cook went nibbling at a wide one from Clarke.
551/6 declared and langer already out, the Aussie batsmen like to attack but they'll have to bat steadily tomorrow to save the follow on. The ball is still relatively new and England are playing from a position of strength for once.
Comments
Link
Jones - wicketkeeper.....
See where I'm going?!
;-)
Let's hope it is!
The weather has cheated us often enough in the past.
A little pride was restored on day 4, but not enough to paper over the many cracks and that was promptly lost on Day 5, more worryingly while I'm disappointed by the defeat the way we lost is more of a concern. In just about every department we outplayed, in total the Aussies scored 800 runs for 10 wickets, while we mustered just over 500 runs for 20 wickets.
Firstly, in terms of the team for Adelaide I think that the only changes should be Panesar in for either Anderson (if the pitch looks like it will take spin) or Giles (if it doesn't) plus Mahmood for Anderson if play one spinner. That is not because Anderson is a bad bowler, but Mahmood a few yards of pace on Anderson and though he is erratic, he might just produce one of those spells where he surprises the batsman and we need bowlers in there who can take wickets, the Aussie tail wagged, but that was hardly surprising considering that England were bowling poorly and that the bowllers would have been knackered by the time that Warne, Lee, Clark etc came in.
Whatever the issues with the batting (and there were plenty at Brisbane), the fundamental issue is that England has to be able to bowl the Australians out twice.
Raking over the ashes (whilst we still have them!!) of Brisbane, how do we assess performances?
Strauss - looked in little trouble at all until he got out to the pull shot in both innings. Class bat capable of scoring big runs but needs to do some work on that shot in Australian conditions - and specifically when to play it. He is a good player of the hook and pull shot, but it's dumb to play that shot and in the air when there are two fielders in place for it. Sure he might succeed once or twice but sooner or later he'll perish playing it and so it proved. Without Trescothick and Vaughan England need him to hang around and score runs. Having your opening batsman and main threat back get himself out twice cheaply is no way to win a Test, especially when crease occupation is the name of the game.
Cook - looks the part. He'll have to develop his game against Warne, but that applies to any batsman in the world in their first series against him, hopefully now he's had a look he'll be prepared.
Bell - excellent effort in the first innings, though perhaps a little lazy having worked so hard for 50 to play a loose shot to Clark. But worrying that he was undone by the slider in the second innings. I suspect that Warne still fancies him.
Collingwood - he continues to look technically flawed and could have been out several times before he got going in the 2nd innings, but he battled through and took the fight back to Warne. Getting out the way he did - going down the wicket to Warne is always a risk, especially as England were on top and close to stumps.
Pietersen - great first Test in Oz. Batted responsibly in both innings, got a poor decision in the first innings and showed with Collingwood that the Australian bowling can be taken on. Also bowled pretty well and was one of the few England players who manged to keep his head up and look up for it when the bolwing was being pummelled.
Flintoff - the big upside is that his bowling is back, without which we really would have been in trouble. Disappointed with the bat, but that is Freddy and it'll return. A poor shot to get out to in the second innings, especially given the circumstances. Captaincy-wise - the jury remains out, he tries to lead by example and kept the bowlers going in the first in search of a break through.
Jones - showed enough with the bat to just about justify his selection. He looked fantastic in his short short second innings and was undone by the pitch rather than the bowler. I didn't see enough of England in the field to really comment on his keeping, but he seems to have had a relatively good Test with the gloves.
Giles - performed OK as a no 8 batsman, though in a peculiar way he was not really in pressure situations and arguably he chucked it away in the first innings when time meant more to England than runs. But with Anderson down the other end it was probably academic in any case! Bowling wise, he didn't really exert much control, going at 3.6 rpo in the first innings and barely being bowled in the second but he didn't threaten to take wickets. Unless we are playing two spinners, he has to make way for Panesar because someone needs to get the Australians out.
Hoggard - bowled steadily but largely without threat in the absence of swing. There could be an argument for leaving him out unless the conditions look likely to be favourable for swing, but I can't see who else you can trust to at least deliver the ball consistently on line and length.
Harmison - the enigma. Was pretty much dreadful though he did improve. He was arguably unlucky at the start of the Test in that Langer was continually carving him in the air through and over the gully area, but the balls deserved carving rather than wickets. It might have been different, however, if one of those carves had gone to hand and he had got his tail up. For me he has to play because unless he finds his form England do not have the bowling line-up to bowl the Aussies out.
Anderson - didn't bowl as badly as his figures suggest, but that is what the Australian batting will do to you. He couldn't find either his swing nor the consistency of line and length to "survive" at Brisbane. I don't have a huge degree of confidence that Mahmood or Plunkett will do much better, but I suspect that they will be given a try if England don't play two spinners (or seven batsmen!) at Adelaide.
As for the Aussies...their batting was everything I had feared it might be, although poor bowling by England meant they were given every opportunity to prosper. Although he had a good Test match, I suspect that Clarke (or Martyn) will probably be sacrificed if Watson is fit because frankly they don't need seven (inc Gilchrist) specialist batsmen and an additional bowler would balance the side better, even if he wasn't needed at Brisbane.
To inject a little controversy...I think the Australian bowling performance was mixed. McGrath was awesome - if he says he is 97% at his peak, then I believe him, but he can be attacked, although doing so almost invariably brings risk - see Strauss's dismissals. Clark also looked extremely useful and looks a useful (if short term) potential successor to McGrath. Great line and length at useful pace and some movement and very much not the weak link that I was hoping for! I just hope that on slower wickets with less bounce he is not quite so much a handful. It remains to see what he's caopable of when England get after him.
Warne was Warne, attacked and bowled wicket taking deliveries but I don't think that he looked close to his best from what I saw of this Test. On his favourite track in what must have been pretty much ideal conditions he threatened but didn't dominate. And England did take the game to him pretty successfully - which may of course be at least part of why he did not dominate. Psychologically that is one upside of the First Test for England - though I still expect Warne to take 30+ wickets in the Series.
Brett Lee however looked like cannon-fodder - albeit very fast cannon-fodder but cannon-fodder nonetheless. He took two wickets in the match, both big ones - Flintoff with a good yorker in the first innings and Pietersen to a loose shot to leg stump half volley in the 2nd. But in between, in the context of the match he was expensive and bowled only a limited number of threatening balls. I think that if Watson is fit he might just be dropped for Tait or Johnson - or MacGill if Australia play two spinners.
It is just possible, if they can reduce the number of errors of judgement, that the England batting could do to the Australian bowling what the Australian batting did to the English bowling at Brisbane - particularly if McGrath is already carrying a heel injury.
But to be honest, I'm looking for crumbs of comfort. The main thing that needs to happen is that Flintoff needs to be given the bowling support to get the Australians out twice. Without that - and I am not certain where it is going to come from - the Ashes are lost. Hopefully Harmison can click into rhytym and with Hoggard to support him take two/three early wickets and then Flintoff and either a second seamer plus the spinner whoever it is (or both) can attack the middle order. I think with some discipline against a not particularly strong Aussie bowling attack we can score the runs, but bowling the Aussies out twice is going to be the way to win it.
Jones did OK and I understand why he is back in for Reed. Need a proper opening stand in Adelaide whether we bat first or second 150 for 1.
As England cricket is so charlton like, I cant be bothered to give you grief, fella.
Maybe Ketman will?
On the bright side Michael Vaughan is aiming to be fit for the fourth Test. Hopefully this means he'll get a chance in one of the prep matches before that Test.
However we still need to play Panesar, Strauss does need to do what you say. And we need Flintoff to continue in similar vain with Harmison finding his Radar.
Anyone staying up for it ?
les stayed up to watch it. i managed to stay up till 12.45 before my sleepy eyes got the better of me.
he got into bed at 7.30am!
setting up the bed in the living room for the weekend as ms latimer is coming over, she can have my bedroom and we're camping in the front room with the sky box.
How sad is that?
Turned the box on again at 6.30 to be happy to see Colly and KP finally imposing on the game
The problem (hopefully) won't be getting runs, it will be taking 20 wickets. Not picking Monty was a shocking decision. If we can't get the ball to reverse swing then a draw is the best we can hope for.
Positive day compared to our last performances with the bat but still should be doing better on a flat slow pitch like it is. Less than 3 runs an over which isnt the best. However, a decent bat up until tea could hopefully see us declare & get stuck into them for the evening?
most painful moment was after lunch when we faced 21 balls without scoring, only 2 boundaries in the whole innings by that point. glad i stuck with it, kp and colly had warne frustrated and the run rate picked up. just wish colly got his century before close, it'll be a restless night for him.
Oops
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid340480114/bctid340418982
Petersen's going well and Collingwood's digging in. Deserved his ton.