Following our exit from the T20 World Cup and the likes of Stokes and a few others already quarantining in Australia, it is time to start a thread dedicated to the Ashes.
The dates:
Men’s Ashes
- First Test: 8-12 December – Gabba, Brisbane, play starts 12am
- Second Test: 16-20 December – Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, play starts 4am
- Third Test: 26-30 December – MCG, Melbourne, play starts 11.30pm on 25 December
- Fourth Test: 5-9 January – SCG, Sydney, play starts 11.30pm on 4 January
- Fifth Test: 14-18 January – Optus Stadium, Perth, play starts 2.30am
Women’s Ashes
- Test: 27-30 January – Manuka Oval, Canberra, play starts 11pm 26 January
- First T20: 4 February – North Sydney Oval, Sydney, play starts 8.10am
- Second T20: 6 February – North Sydney Oval, Sydney, play starts 8.10am
- Third T20: 10 February – Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, play starts 8.10am
- First ODl: 13 February – Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, play starts 11.05pm on 12 February
- Second ODl: 16 February – Junction Oval, Melbourne, play starts 11.05pm on 15 February
- Third ODI: 19 February – Junction Oval, Melbourne, play starts 11.05pm on 18 February
The Squad:
James Anderson (Lancashire)
Jonathan Bairstow (Yorkshire)
Dom Bess (Yorkshire)
Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire)
Rory Burns (Surrey)
Jos Buttler (Lancashire)
Zak Crawley (Kent)
Haseeb Hameed (Nottinghamshire)
Dan Lawrence (Essex)
Jack Leach (Somerset)
Dawid Malan (Yorkshire)
Craig Overton (Somerset)
Ollie Pope (Surrey)
Ollie Robinson (Sussex)
Joe Root (Yorkshire)
Chris Woakes (Warwickshire)
Mark Wood (Durham)
Comments
in 2010 first test started at midnight 24th November.
Easier to do in those days when many of the same players played all formats
To allow for the best Brisbane weather, tests were played in November. Melbourne started Boxing Day, and Sydney in the New Year. Adelaide covered Australia Day (26th January), and Perth was (early February) on the way home. Fill in the gaps with local games and ODI's and that's your Ashes tour.
BT is well worth it imo even just for the footy, Cricket/ boxing/tennis etc are a brucie bonus for me.
Not as good as Sky and they will use the Australian feed for pictures and commentary with experts (including Vaughan) in the studio rather than at the ground
It is very sad not just because he is receiving counselling for it but because he literally will have nowhere to go. Even if he goes back to club cricket there will be bowlers in top grade cricket who play for their State or even at international level who are capable of bowling at 90mph - Harris Rauf was playing 2nd grade cricket three years ago - so it won't just be a question of him giving up a career. He will have to give up the game.
No one likes facing fast short pitched bowling so you have to decide what you are going to do when faced with it. The best way is to take it on if you can and then duck or sway out of the way it its not there to do so. In the two bits of footage I've seen Puckovski should be pulling the ball - instead he ends up head butting it and in one of them he is in a crouched position doing so meaning that the ball was only ever going to be waist high anyway.
It's a strange one because there is no doubt whatsoever that he will have been drilled on this for hours on end. At the DLCA the boys have had tennis balls fired at them from 17 yards at 90mph with the ball landing on an area designed to replicate the bounce in the middle. That is the starting point and those that get confident doing that will then go on to facing the cricket ball at the same speed. Those batsmen that don't will have the level that they can play out heavily restricted.
Perhaps this is a legacy of having a helmet. In the old days you had to watch the ball otherwise you would get hit with serious consequences. Nowadays, it seems that batsmen don't watch the ball and turn their head with the obvious result that they do get hit - most times!