England’s squad was announced over the weekend with, perhaps surprisingly, no one opting not to travel. The non availability of Stokes and Archer is a tough one, and I’m struggling to see this team putting 450 – 500 runs on the board or taking 20 wickets in Aussie conditions.
Any thoughts or perhaps a perspective from Down Under?
Ashes Squad
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4-0 seems to be coming I fear.
But in 2023 we will get that little cup back and Joe Root will retire as we win 2-1
Batting too fragile; bowlers too old. It’s a home series for the Aussies – they’ve got this one in the bag.
Hope to be proved wrong, but…
We’re doomed.
Can’t help you with the English squad.
The Australian side has fine fast bowling with quality back up in Jhye Richardson and James Pattinson. In this aspect of the game we are set. It’s as good a bowling group as Australia has ever had. The only bowling query is in the spin department. If Nathan Lyon gets injured there is no obvious replacement. I mean at all. That will be a problem eventually.
The batting has three walk up candidates in Marnus, Steve Smith and everyone’s favourite David Warner.
That leaves three spots, two should go to opener Will Pucovski and all rounder Cameron Green. They are both very young and extremely promising. They each have one great attribute for a batsman, when they go well they go big. Both have double centuries in the Sheffield Shield. Pucovski actually scored two on the trot.
The caveat with Pucovski is he is INJURY PRONE. The capitals are because he is 22yo and has already been concussed on the field nine times! NINE! He obviously has a flaw in his technique that makes him constantly struck in the head by short balls. Add to that his self enforced layoff due to “mental health” and you wonder whether he will get the most of his talent.
Green’s bowling looks good, he’s very tall and quite quick so would be a handful you’d think but after four tests he’s yet to get a wicket. He’s very much a work in progress.
That leaves two spots which will probably go to Tim Paine and Travis Head. Neither of which are names to strike fear in the heart of any English fans.
Head apparently has a better record than Ricky Ponting did at this stage of his career however I am yet to be convinced by him. He’s one of those players that are so frustrating in that he’ll make an effortless thirty and then go out. He may yet click.
Wicketkeeper/Captain Tim Paine he has a fat gob and repeatedly sticks his feet in there but is a walk up starter.
“The caveat with Pucovski is he is INJURY PRONE. The capitals are because he is 22yo and has already been concussed on the field nine times! NINE! ”
Make that 10…..
https://www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/58912091
Not all on the field actually
My thoughts are that this series should not be prooritised above, say, the Indian one, despite all the tradition. Australia are pretty weak at the moment, rely on only 2 world class batters and a couple of the bowlers are getting long in the tooth, captain is a Michael Brearley type who is not really worth his place in the side 2-2
If Smith, Labuschagne, Cummins, Hazelwood and Lyon perform anything like their best it’s a 5-0. Malan might do well to support Root. Buttler’s due a knock on the law of averages. Leech or Bess? Unlikely. Robinson is a find but Broad and Anderson in Australia?
It’s a predictable and unadventurous England squad, but I suppose we have chopped and changed our top order so much recently in the search for a little consistency that it’s no real surprise. Pick the ones who have disappointed the least, and so out goes the talented but nervous Sibley. It figures. However, I’m peeved that the best English wicket keeper has been ignored. Ben Foakes is, by some distance, a more accomplished specialist keeper than the two part-timers that keep getting the nod in Buttler and Bairstow. If these two are still being selected on the supposed strength of their batting, it is worth bearing in mind that the latter particularly hasn’t made a truly decent test score for several years now, whilst consistently dropping chances behind the wicket, and he is surely clinging to his place by his teeth and in no small measure because he’s Root’s mate. Foakes really deserves an extended opportunity, not merely the occasional game when the other two are injured.
Bairstow is not at his best and his average is only about 32 or 33, but in the summer this still made him 2nd best behind Root,
Not sure the home series advantage is as big as it used to be down here.
Groundsmen have proved wilfully lacking in nationalist instinct. Pitches are rarely prepared to suit our strengths.
Oh for the days of a rock hard lightning WACA pitch with Lillee and Thomson at each end.
There’s a lot of speculation here that the Perth match will be played elsewhere due to Covid restrictions in that state….
We will do well to draw a match. Can’t see us taking 20 wickets, and Root can’t get 150 every match.
In other news I spend 30 mins on the Edgbaston site after being a ‘ballot winner’ to buy tickets for Eng v SA 2022. Being a ballot winner then allowed me to enter a 30-min virtual queue. But tickets secured.
I don’t think I’ll be watching this one. Partly because you’d die of sleep deprivation after five consecutive nights, but also because no one likes watching innocent puppies get murdered.
It doesn’t count anyway, not while DW’s still in the team. Every match he plays in comes with an asterix.
Why?
Because no one believes the first time he cheated was the time he got caught.
And nobody else cheats? Remember Mike Atherton? They all do it if they can get away with it. He paid a lot for his offence, and is anyway a shadow of the player he once was.
That’s true – he averaged 9 in all formats last time he was in England. Some might say he deserved the humiliation – some might say he deserves one last chance at redemption.
Rarely runs to 5 nights. Usually 3 or 4.
That’s true. Our current team will be good for the productivity of English middle-management types who will only have to stay up for three nights this winter instead of five.
I seem to recall similar doubts ahead of previous tours.
A pessimist is never disappointed I suppose.
Yes but most of the time the pessimists have been right. 2011 was the last time England won a match in Australia? I think they’ve won three matches in the one series and no other matches since 2002-03. So in the 21st century in Australia the balance is Australia 19-4.
I don’t know specifically why; but every time I see and hear somebody from the ECB talking about this tour, it leaves me feeling that nobody really believes it will happen.
@native
I know what you mean. Who is the Manager, Silver someone? Seems invisible. Not that encouraging.
The cynic in me thinks the ECB are trying to pass the responsibility for a canceled tour on to Australia.
Melbourne has cases; NSW has cases. WA is unlikely to let them in barring some kind of logistical godsend. I’m meant to be getting tickets for Boxing Day and I’m holding off because I just don’t believe it’s gloing to happen.
These no. of cases are miniscule compared to what is happening in England. They may not want to be locked down in hotels for months when not playing which is understandable, especially as we know that cricketers often have serious mental health issues at the best of times