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!
Exactly why would they, get 150 and declareThey wouldn’t have batted again anyway
FFS England
They wouldn’t have batted again anyway
Exactly why would they, get 150 and declare
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.
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
If they hang on for the 14 overs left, will it be a draw?
Darn 4 runs out!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.
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.Shoe boxing County cricket into April and September isn't going to produce Test batsmen
maybe no coincidence that the Aussies had many players who had played on the tour that coincided with the WC.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.
Shoe boxing County cricket into April and September isn't going to produce Test batsmen
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.
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.
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
think he's only played one 4 day game for Durham in 2 yrsWell it produced one who averaged over 50 in the series
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