England cricket 2019 (2 Viewers)

How many we score is irrelevant, they just need to still be in this afternoon.

At least we managed to avoid the follow on and force them into batting again. Guess most of them will try and get reasonably quick runs to give them time to get us out again while just letting Smith do his thang. Hopefully might lead to a few loose shots and quick wickets, esp if Broad can have one of his devastating spells. Need to make them play vast majority of balls though.

Warner pair!

Sky_Blue_Dreamer said:

At least we managed to avoid the follow on and force them into batting again. Guess most of them will try and get reasonably quick runs to give them time to get us out again while just letting Smith do his thang. Hopefully might lead to a few loose shots and quick wickets, esp if Broad can have one of his devastating spells. Need to make them play vast majority of balls though.

Warner pair!

Click to expand...

They wouldn’t have batted again anyway

Decent start, Can’t let Smith settle in again but if we can restrict him I think we can skittle them out for a low score

Grendel said:

They wouldn’t have batted again anyway

Click to expand...

Exactly why would they, get 150 and declare

Heard them talking on the radio that they've only enforced 6 of the last 27 follow on opportunities. Back when Steve Waugh was captain he would enforce nearly every follow on as he wanted to mentally disintegrate the opposition and inflict the biggest win margin possible. I think the exact quote was If the opposition were down, Waugh wanted to "put his foot on their neck and inflict maximum harm to their confidence"

They were saying how the last few Aussie captains have been too scared to lose. And that was McGrath who was talking about it with Aggers.

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

FFS England

Covstu said:

FFS England

Click to expand...

Cummins will never have it easier in his life

Logged onto ICC-Cricket.com and saw we were 0 for 2.
My first thought was they must have got it wrong and we must really be 2 for 0.

Grendel said:

They wouldn’t have batted again anyway

Click to expand...

Probably not, as it's not in fashion these days. But it was nice to at least not even let them have the option.

Covstu said:

Exactly why would they, get 150 and declare

Click to expand...

I get that point, but there are a couple of times where teams have done this and then failed to win because the other team has managed to bat out the game. I think Aus actually lost one doing this a few years ago.

I understand the point on bowlers being tired and wanting to rest them, but I'm of the opinion you kick them when they're down. The dressing room will be low and negative so make the most of it. Plus you'll know what you need to do to win. Not enforcing the follow on you've got to guess how many runs you need to make it so they can't win, but also have enough overs to be pretty certain you'll bowl them out.

Personally I think with those two early wickets Aus will now go on to win this test and therefore the Ashes. I can't see the remaining line up being capable of batting well or disciplined enough against the Aussie attack for an entire day. But I live in hope.

Sky_Blue_Dreamer said:

I get that point, but there are a couple of times where teams have done this and then failed to win because the other team has managed to bat out the game. I think Aus actually lost one doing this a few years ago.

I understand the point on bowlers being tired and wanting to rest them, but I'm of the opinion you kick them when they're down. The dressing room will be low and negative so make the most of it. Plus you'll know what you need to do to win. Not enforcing the follow on you've got to guess how many runs you need to make it so they can't win, but also have enough overs to be pretty certain you'll bowl them out.

Personally I think with those two early wickets Aus will now go on to win this test and therefore the Ashes. I can't see the remaining line up being capable of batting well or disciplined enough against the Aussie attack for an entire day. But I live in hope.

Click to expand...

Remember when some were saying 'let's feel sorry for the Windies' when they were in their rut? You can bet if the places were switched they'd have been ruthless and that's exactly what's needed to put sides to bed for good

Brighton Sky Blue said:

Remember when some were saying 'let's feel sorry for the Windies' when they were in their rut? You can bet if the places were switched they'd have been ruthless and that's exactly what's needed to put sides to bed for good

Click to expand...

This is a bit different in that they got a big score rather than skittling us out cheaply. They'd been bowling for some time. But personally even if I was a bit tired as a bowler I'd be wanting to keep on at them - no respite.

Don’t think we will last the day today, two cheap wickets put us on the back foot but I was wrong about the last test but I doubt lightning strikes twice in that fashion. All out for 194.

8th gone for 194. Need leach to hang in again like a legend!

If they hang on for the 14 overs left, will it be a draw?

ccfc92 said:

If they hang on for the 14 overs left, will it be a draw?

Click to expand...

It would have been

Root shouldn't bat at 3
Ali shouldnt have been picked, Leach from the first test
Roy, was obvious after edgbaston isnt a test
player.
Whoever selected an injured Jimmy Anderson is a moron.


Was shite all round the aussies deserve it lets be honest

You just can't have three of your top batsmen (Burns, Root, Stokes) out for 0, 0 and 1 and expect to win a match.
Overall, Australia have just been a class above us with bat and ball and they have a better captain than us.
They also appear to have a deeper squad of good players.
They can bring people in like Labuschagne who are better than our first choices.

Covstu said:

Don’t think we will last the day today, two cheap wickets put us on the back foot but I was wrong about the last test but I doubt lightning strikes twice in that fashion. All out for 194.

Click to expand...

Darn 4 runs out!

We sort of conspired to lose this series ourselves. Poor selections or positioning in the team order.

Aussies have been better but Smith has been the difference between the two. Said at the start it would be Smith v Root - whoever batted best would be on the winning side. Smith was free of the burden of captaincy, batting in his favoured position and we just let him go about his unusual routine without trying to disrupt it. Root meanwhile was moved from his favoured position (and had to constantly answer questions about it) while those above him meant he was almost acting like an opener many times. Plus the captaincy seems to be affecting him - he needs to be relieved of it so he can concentrate on what he does best - batting.

We don’t really have any strength in depth at the moment (especially batting wise). This happens sometimes in the cycle of teams. We do have to think about long term replacements for Anderson and Broad though, and let our players actually play some cricket outside of international cricket to get some form. Although we won the WC - we were woefully unprepared for the Ashes.

tisza said:

Shoe boxing County cricket into April and September isn't going to produce Test batsmen

Click to expand...

Country cricket doesn't seem fit for purpose at the moment. What is the aim? If its to be the flagship competition that's not working as its getting shunted around the schedule to fit everything else in. If its to produce test cricketers that isn't working either. Not to mention ridiculous situations we've seen this summer with Anderson and Archer needing game time and there being no county games for them to play in.

tisza said:

Shoe boxing County cricket into April and September isn't going to produce Test batsmen

Click to expand...

Well it produced one who averaged over 50 in the series

First class cricket does seem to have become an afterthought and the chance for many of them to 'keep their eye in' or gain confidence at county level is non-existent as with ODI/iT20 on top of the odd test match means it's pretty much always on the go.

List of 21st century Ashes winners:

2001 - Australia
2003 - Australia
2005 - England
2007 - Australia
2009 - England
2011 - England
2013 - England
2014 - Australia
2015 - England
2017 - Australia
2019 - Steve Smith

Sky_Blue_Dreamer said:

First class cricket does seem to have become an afterthought and the chance for many of them to 'keep their eye in' or gain confidence at county level is non-existent as with ODI/iT20 on top of the odd test match means it's pretty much always on the go.

Click to expand...

It’s sn exceptional year with the World Cup and the series crammed into a few weeks

Australia really only had 2 batsman and 2 bowlers who were World Cup regulars

It’s not a co incidence Broad is our best bowler in the series as he’s played for his county

It’s also still a freak as they had smith and Labuschagne dominating all the batting - their third highest is averaging 27

There hasn’t been that much difference otherwise.

Root has a problem with the mode of his dismissals more than anything

They could at the Oval still realistically square the series it’s far from impossible.

I have t seen if they announced the squad yet but I’d guess there will not be much change - if any

It is an exceptional year but international cricket is almost a year round thing now and with the county season being through the summer they're playing internationals the only time they ever play for the county is if they've performed so badly they need to go back to get the form - which seems a bit of shitty deal for the counties as once they're playing well again they bugger off to England again. Suppose they do get their team improved for a little while though.

We do definitely suffer from having so many crossover players between the formats.

Broad may well have been improved because he'd been playing county (as did Labuschagne) but I also think being the 'main main' with Anderson out spurred him on.

Batting wise both teams on the whole have been poor. Labuschagne being so good was a bit of luck as he wasn't playing up to the injury, but Smith was the big difference as I said. We were scared of him and felt we weren't going to get him out even before he got out there. Warner has been poor.

Root does have a problem with how he gets out, but him going to three and then often coming in with the ball an over or two old and harder than he'd normally have to deal with exacerbated it. Look at that test. 1st innings came in at 4 with the ball a few more overs old and got a half decent score. 2nd came in after 3 balls and got a golden.

I'd like to see Sam Curran play on his home ground, but who to leave out? Overton had a decent enough test and if you've gone this far into the series trying out Roy you may as well play him final test as well.

Sky_Blue_Dreamer said:

It is an exceptional year but international cricket is almost a year round thing now and with the county season being through the summer they're playing internationals the only time they ever play for the county is if they've performed so badly they need to go back to get the form - which seems a bit of shitty deal for the counties as once they're playing well again they bugger off to England again. Suppose they do get their team improved for a little while though.

We do definitely suffer from having so many crossover players between the formats.

Broad may well have been improved because he'd been playing county (as did Labuschagne) but I also think being the 'main main' with Anderson out spurred him on.

Batting wise both teams on the whole have been poor. Labuschagne being so good was a bit of luck as he wasn't playing up to the injury, but Smith was the big difference as I said. We were scared of him and felt we weren't going to get him out even before he got out there. Warner has been poor.

Root does have a problem with how he gets out, but him going to three and then often coming in with the ball an over or two old and harder than he'd normally have to deal with exacerbated it. Look at that test. 1st innings came in at 4 with the ball a few more overs old and got a half decent score. 2nd came in after 3 balls and got a golden.

I'd like to see Sam Curran play on his home ground, but who to leave out? Overton had a decent enough test and if you've gone this far into the series trying out Roy you may as well play him final test as well.

Click to expand...

Root scored two fifties coming in at 3 and got out on all 3 occasions having settled in - he batted at 4 against Ireland didn’t he and looked all over the place. He’s just got form issues

He came in after 11 overs in the first innings by any stretch that’s normally a number 3 time

Stokes may not be able to bowl so Curran for Roy May be the change

Grendel said:

Root scored two fifties coming in at 3 and got out on all 3 occasions having settled in - he batted at 4 against Ireland didn’t he and looked all over the place. He’s just got form issues

He came in after 11 overs in the first innings by any stretch that’s normally a number 3 time

Click to expand...

But how many times were the openers lasting even half that time? Far too often he was coming in for all intents and purposes as an opening batsmen. H ehas form issues, many of which I think relate to the captaincy (as is so often the case) but putting him up the order and the openers usually not lasting that long have made them worse.