Saw someone say the forecast is for rain all day Saturday AND Sunday. Is that so?
Originally Saturday was a write off and Sunday wasn't too bad. Now Sunday isn't looking great either. Most of the time it's 80%-90%. I suppose we could bowl them out inside a couple of hours if everything went our way but, if they were to hang about for a couple of sessions in total, then we might struggle in the time available.
Should have declared earlier** , who knows what may happen but I don’t think we’ve given ourselves the best chance of bowling them out in their second innings .
Should have declared earlier** , who knows what may happen but I don’t think we’ve given ourselves the best chance of bowling them out in their second innings .
**if we win then scrub that
We needed runs on the board. It's created pressure. Even if we declared 80 runs earlier and there wasn't rain forecast, the Aussies would have got the 180 and we would have had to bat again.
It's bloody typical. Despite being 2-1 down we have without doubt been the better cricket team over the series and it looks almost certain now that any hope we have of regaining the ashes is going to be scuppered by the weather. Non stop rain for the next two days. Bugger
Fantastic achievement from those six and we will look back with nothing but admiration at their respective careers. The concerning thing is that they will not go on forever with their respective ages, at the end of the season, being 41, 37, 36, 32, 34 and 33 with the youngest of them, Stokes, already limited in a major way with regards to what he is capable of doing with the ball. I would be surprised if more than one or two of these will be around in three years time.
Effectively, we will have to find seamers to replace ones that will have taken over 1,800 wickets between them by the time they retire. The other ones I can think of who have played in recent years are listed below but how many of them have both the experience and/or have not been out injured for long periods of time (and how many others are knocking on the door):
Fantastic achievement from those six and we will look back with nothing but admiration at their respective careers. The concerning thing is that they will not go on forever with their respective ages, at the end of the season, being 41, 37, 36, 32, 34 and 33 with the youngest of them, Stokes, already limited in a major way with regards to what he is capable of doing with the ball. I would be surprised if more than one or two of these will be around in three years time.
Effectively, we will have to find seamers to replace ones that will have taken over 1,800 wickets between them by the time they retire. The other ones I can think of who have played in recent years are listed below but how many of them have both the experience and/or have not been out injured for long periods of time (and how many others are knocking on the door):
Bad decision making over the series is what has cost us.
The irony is the declaration in the first test took the draw out of the game. Today it took the Australians winning out of it.
England have made some bad decisions that have cost us games, we have also made some unorthodox ones that have given us a chance to win all 4 test matches.
Go back to the first test, before it started, would you take 50 runs to get 9, 10, jack to go one up? I would.
Most of the people posting on this thread, commentating on sky and TMS, writing in the papers are doing so through the lens of 20, 30, 40, 50+ of orthodoxy. Stokes and Baz are doing things differently, sometimes it will pay off (Crawley, Ali @ 3 and YJB in this test), sometimes orthodox, like picking your best keeper, picking a "proper" spinner, a "proper" opening pair might have worked better.
TLDR if England had played this series like Australia have we would be 3 down already.
Potts feels like the only one on that list that could have some longevity, Robinson is always likely to get injured, Jofra who knows if he'll ever play tests again , Sam Curran seems to be more white ball focused , Tongue looks promising but is another with injuries much like Stone and Mahmood too.
Bad decision making over the series is what has cost us.
The irony is the declaration in the first test took the draw out of the game. Today it took the Australians winning out of it.
England have made some bad decisions that have cost us games, we have also made some unorthodox ones that have given us a chance to win all 4 test matches.
Go back to the first test, before it started, would you take 50 runs to get 9, 10, jack to go one up? I would.
Most of the people posting on this thread, commentating on sky and TMS, writing in the papers are doing so through the lens of 20, 30, 40, 50+ of orthodoxy. Stokes and Baz are doing things differently, sometimes it will pay off (Crawley, Ali @ 3 and YJB in this test), sometimes orthodox, like picking your best keeper, picking a "proper" spinner, a "proper" opening pair might have worked better.
TLDR if England had played this series like Australia have we would be 3 down already.
Yep, taking any debate over the declaration to one side, not getting those last two wickets was where the damage was done.
Should have declared earlier** , who knows what may happen but I don’t think we’ve given ourselves the best chance of bowling them out in their second innings .
**if we win then scrub that
We needed runs on the board. It's created pressure. Even if we declared 80 runs earlier and there wasn't rain forecast, the Aussies would have got the 180 and we would have had to bat again.
I think England did the right thing.
Who knows what may have happened but the forecast has always been shit , if we don’t take 20 wickets we don’t win the test , I don’t think we’ve given ourselves the best opportunity to do that . 1-2 or 1-3 we’ve still not regained the Ashes we have to win even if it may have cost us a loss .
let’s just hope we get the chance to hoop the ball around and get these last 6
Declarations far too early or possibly too late. Foakes should have played the series. Woakes excluded before OT. Wood could have probably played the 2nd Test. Why didn't Wood bowl today immediately after tea? The encouragement of reckless batting in the first couple of Tests, giving catching practice to Oz etc.
Think we might need another 70 overs to get them out? Especially if they go into full-on defensive mode. Whether we get those overs over Saturday and Sunday is another question.
What I would give for another 30-45 minutes of bowling tonight…
How we could do with the 25 odd overs we have lost over 3 days due to slow over rate.
Why they couldnt play till 7 on the first 3 days to make up these overs I will never understand.
Bad decision making over the series is what has cost us.
The irony is the declaration in the first test took the draw out of the game. Today it took the Australians winning out of it.
England have made some bad decisions that have cost us games, we have also made some unorthodox ones that have given us a chance to win all 4 test matches.
Go back to the first test, before it started, would you take 50 runs to get 9, 10, jack to go one up? I would.
Most of the people posting on this thread, commentating on sky and TMS, writing in the papers are doing so through the lens of 20, 30, 40, 50+ of orthodoxy. Stokes and Baz are doing things differently, sometimes it will pay off (Crawley, Ali @ 3 and YJB in this test), sometimes orthodox, like picking your best keeper, picking a "proper" spinner, a "proper" opening pair might have worked better.
TLDR if England had played this series like Australia have we would be 3 down already.
Yep, taking any debate over the declaration to one side, not getting those last two wickets was where the damage was done.
Not having a genuine quick bowler available made it so much harder to blow away the tail as we have done since Wood came into the side. I maintain that even with losing Archer one of Mahmood/Stone/JOverton in the side would have made all the difference in those first 2 tests. Tongue is the next best but he is 88mph rather than 90+.
Fantastic achievement from those six and we will look back with nothing but admiration at their respective careers. The concerning thing is that they will not go on forever with their respective ages, at the end of the season, being 41, 37, 36, 32, 34 and 33 with the youngest of them, Stokes, already limited in a major way with regards to what he is capable of doing with the ball. I would be surprised if more than one or two of these will be around in three years time.
Effectively, we will have to find seamers to replace ones that will have taken over 1,800 wickets between them by the time they retire. The other ones I can think of who have played in recent years are listed below but how many of them have both the experience and/or have not been out injured for long periods of time (and how many others are knocking on the door):
Not really. When you have Anderson, Broad, Stokes, Woakes, Wood, Ali, Leach and even Robinson as the main bowlers for a long time, everyone will automatically have a low number of wickets simply because they haven't had much game time.
take Lyon, Cummins, starc and hazelwood out of the Aussie attack plus boland, what have they got wicket wise in reserve?
I just hope the rain doesn't happen. We need to take 2 wickets quickly and the rest will fold, the psychology of the runs needed means they have to try and park the bus which is not the way to bat against Woakes, Broad and Wood with Ali at the other end. We can say to our fast bowlers to empty the tank, runs dont matter, wickets do
Declarations far too early or possibly too late. Foakes should have played the series. Woakes excluded before OT. Wood could have probably played the 2nd Test. Why didn't Wood bowl today immediately after tea? The encouragement of reckless batting in the first couple of Tests, giving catching practice to Oz etc.
But for most of those things to happen some good things wouldn't have happened.
A great example is Root taking two wickets with the "old" ball after any conventional thinking says you take the new one.
None of those would have mattered if something else had happened and, at times, something else did happen so those don't make your list.
Fantastic achievement from those six and we will look back with nothing but admiration at their respective careers. The concerning thing is that they will not go on forever with their respective ages, at the end of the season, being 41, 37, 36, 32, 34 and 33 with the youngest of them, Stokes, already limited in a major way with regards to what he is capable of doing with the ball. I would be surprised if more than one or two of these will be around in three years time.
Effectively, we will have to find seamers to replace ones that will have taken over 1,800 wickets between them by the time they retire. The other ones I can think of who have played in recent years are listed below but how many of them have both the experience and/or have not been out injured for long periods of time (and how many others are knocking on the door):
Not really. When you have Anderson, Broad, Stokes, Woakes, Wood, Ali, Leach and even Robinson as the main bowlers for a long time, everyone will automatically have a low number of wickets simply because they haven't had much game time.
take Lyon, Cummins, starc and hazelwood out of the Aussie attack plus boland, what have they got wicket wise in reserve?
That is the point - because they have played at the same time together, no up and coming bowlers have gained meaningful experience
Those Aussie bowlers are an average of three years younger than their English counterparts and have that many more years to integrate any newcomers:
Comments
England 1.91
Draw 600.00
Australia 2.10
Really puts it into context how huge 600+ wickets is.
Should have declared earlier** , who knows what may happen but I don’t think we’ve given ourselves the best chance of bowling them out in their second innings .
I think England did the right thing.
Effectively, we will have to find seamers to replace ones that will have taken over 1,800 wickets between them by the time they retire. The other ones I can think of who have played in recent years are listed below but how many of them have both the experience and/or have not been out injured for long periods of time (and how many others are knocking on the door):
Robinson (76)
Sam Curran (47)
Archer (42)
Potts (23)
Craig Overton (21)
Tongue (10)
Stone (10)
Mahmood (6)
Jamie Overton (2)
Fisher (1)
England have made some bad decisions that have cost us games, we have also made some unorthodox ones that have given us a chance to win all 4 test matches.
Go back to the first test, before it started, would you take 50 runs to get 9, 10, jack to go one up? I would.
Most of the people posting on this thread, commentating on sky and TMS, writing in the papers are doing so through the lens of 20, 30, 40, 50+ of orthodoxy. Stokes and Baz are doing things differently, sometimes it will pay off (Crawley, Ali @ 3 and YJB in this test), sometimes orthodox, like picking your best keeper, picking a "proper" spinner, a "proper" opening pair might have worked better.
TLDR if England had played this series like Australia have we would be 3 down already.
1-2 or 1-3 we’ve still not regained the Ashes we have to win even if it may have cost us a loss .
let’s just hope we get the chance to hoop the ball around and get these last 6
Foakes should have played the series.
Woakes excluded before OT.
Wood could have probably played the 2nd Test.
Why didn't Wood bowl today immediately after tea?
The encouragement of reckless batting in the first couple of Tests, giving catching practice to Oz etc.
Praying the rain somehow missed OT.
take Lyon, Cummins, starc and hazelwood out of the Aussie attack plus boland, what have they got wicket wise in reserve?
England 2.62
forecast a nightmare
A great example is Root taking two wickets with the "old" ball after any conventional thinking says you take the new one.
None of those would have mattered if something else had happened and, at times, something else did happen so those don't make your list.
Those Aussie bowlers are an average of three years younger than their English counterparts and have that many more years to integrate any newcomers:
Lyon - 35
Cummins - 30
Starc - 33
Hazlewood - 32
Boland - 34
These are the quicks that have played for either Australia or Australia A and are very much on their radar:
Neser - 33
Abbott - 31
Richardson (Jhye) - 26
Steketee - 29
Morris - 25
Johnson - 27
Kelly - 28
Agar (Wes) - 26
Buckingham - 23
Perry - 23
And the spinners:
Swepson - 29
Murphy - 22
Kuhemann - 26