hazelwood out and Siddle in. Better late than never it seems.
Cookie wins toss again with a green wicket. Anyone checked that coin?
Final test
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And Warnie says got it wrong again. Should have picked him last time but too late now should be Cumins as Sidds won’t tour next time.
Knives out for Rod Marsh I’d say.
Be odd if sentiment prevailed given Haddin.
I will continue this conversation with myself.
The great writer Gideon Haigh wrote a piece on how test cricket has changed and ain’t going back .He noted that Boof played 284 first class games with 80 of them tests. A current player, maybe Smith has played a lot of first class games too but mainly in the shorter form. So the psyche is going to increasingly be towards biff ,c
Bash ,slog and get off the mark quickly rather than grinding them down like the old school would. Exciting yes but you takes your chances with a day 4 or 5 ticket.
He made another good point. Such is the closeness of series and matches within series that form ,good or bad , carries over to the. Next game or series far more than if there were sizeable interval s. So when you’re hot you can give effect to that far more frequently and when you’re not you line up for it against and again.
Hmm some punctuation issues in that last para but hopefully you get my drift.
44-0 at my last check, JW – there’s hope yet…
I was just about to make another entry.Wonder what the Afterword record,is for a solo thread.
Contrary to my last par these blokes are playing classic opening pair test cricket.
Fancy a draw already for this match.
Not sure how England can maintain their intensity now the series is already won, whatever their public pronouncements.
Lost the toss and no wickets at lunch.
I blow raspberries in your general northern hemispherean direction….and your fellow travellers down here.
Alas I’ve had insomnia ( why couldn’t the test have started 4 days ago) so I’m retiring hurt.
Australia to see the day 4 for 200.
I’m off to bed too. Solid start. English bowlers not troubling them much so far.
Well JW, we’d happily take your 200-4 offer now. Probably not a “bowl first” wicket but the Aussies have largely batted well and have taken the initiative playing “proper” Test cricket.
Gideon Haigh is a wonderful cricket writer and his comments are always interesting. Had there been a break between Edgbaston and Trent Bridge (and there WAS effectively two days longer than anticipated/scheduled due to the early finish in Birmingham) then maybe the Aussies would have worked out how to bat on a swinging, seaming “typically English” wicket. Most of them have played some county cricket (Rogers and Voges in particular, but also Lehmann) but they don’t seem to have passed on their knowledge particularly well. I think that’s the most surprising aspect of the tour – the inability of the team to adjust their way of playing to vaguely alien conditions. They’ve done so at The Oval but it’s too little too late for The Ashes I’m afraid.
Big fan of Gideon Haigh. He’s written wonderful resumes of Ashes series since 2005 and they are a delight to read; well informed, witty with a wonderful turn of phrase and also remarkably prescient in his analysis of the England team post the 2005 euphoria.
Yes only Pup not amongst them probably reinforcing his retirement decision.
There’s a view we came too late to England and didnt play enough matches against quality teams to acclimatise.
A drawer does seem likely unless the wicket turns ugly on your last innings.
Intersting perspective on the form of our opening partnerships. I imagined Hayden Langer would have been better than these numbers suggest.
“Rogers was first to go, caught in the slips from the bowling of Mark Wood for 43 off 100 balls. The retiring veteran and Warner had notched up their ninth hundred partnership and have batted together 41 times. To put that in perspective Mark Taylor and Michael Slater had 10 from 78 innings and Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden 14 from 122 innings.”
Currently reading a biography on Keith Miller called “Miller’s Luck” and the amount of first class games they played on a tour back then was staggering. Not just the counties but specially selected sides like “The Gentleman’s XI” and “The Players XI”. Miller had a chance to make 1000 runs in May now the tours haven’t even started then.
In 1956 just a few weeks prior to Laker taking his unassailable record haul of nineteen wickets in a Test he took all ten Aussie wickets in an inning for his county team. Nowadays he’d certainly be rested.
Likewise when England toured Australia they’d play full strength state sides between Test’s. They would turn up against NSW to find Miller and Lindwall opening the bowling. That would never happen now.
Interesting
Yep, not just cricket either.
I picked up a book about the All Blacks rugby tour of Britain in the mid-50s (forget yer blockbuster, there’s yer beach reading!) and, from memory, those guys were over here for about five months and played fifty or so matches.
This was only their fourth British tour, and the first post-war one i.e. it was a real rarity.
Now they fly in for two or three international matches in November……every year. Makes for a far less interesting set of fixtures.
Cricket today? Couple of early wickets, get them out by 2.30, and then Cook and Lyth can bat until Sunday tea-time!
I may have mentioned this earlier in the series (by which I mean, I did) but if Australia had played like they did yesterday morning – 25 runs in the first hour, see off the new ball, then build momentum – instead of trying to bully England into submission, they’d have won this series at a canter.
The Aussies seemed to be leaving the ball, rather than having a go at anything vaguely hittable. Weight in the right place, bat in the right place, stick of rhubarb, mum’s pinny, uncovered pitches. . .
It is past 3 am and got up to take a pee and checked the score on my. Phone and it says England 96 for 8.
This is obviously still a dream isn’t it.
101 for 8 now.
Is this the strangest series ever?
Also, can anyone tell me why Siddle didn’t play in the First Test?
Well had to get up for the last few overs and discover not only 8 for but 7/77 after tea.
That’s a collapse to match ours but it seems conditions relatively benign ?
My good humor dissipated to see the bowling of Sidds – fast fierce, each way and effective. Fuck me where was he last Test. Oh yeah in the shed
Well re first test , old trooper got these young blokes , we’ve upgraded us see so we will just have him here like a puncture kit.
Most committed competitor in the team.
Rod marsh hasn’t covered himself on glory. Save for Mitch today with the pill that is 3 Marsh’s that have failed to deliver this series.
Terrible batting by England.
Aussies look a different team when their bowlers know there’s a big total already on the board.
Looks like being a rerun of Lords – over by Saturday night.
yes some wild slogs
these teams to swap attitudes each match
During the last test I woke up in the middle of the night to see the Aussies were all out for 20 or whatever they made. I just thought, “They’re weak as piss” and went back to bed. This morning I woke up to see England were 5000 runs behind with two wickets in hand and I thought, “They’re weak as piss” That’s the truth of it really, both sides are dreadful. Good teams are beaten but they don’t capitulate, not like these two. If this is a battle for number two on the world rankings then Test cricket is in a terrible state
In again
One more time with feeling please England
Well the glass half empty view is about the appalling efforts both teams have put in over the series. But there has been some excellent cricket from both teams.
England needs some finessing but appears to have a core of bowlers and just needs to be batters settled.
Aussies due for a huge turnover, Clarke, Haddin, Rogers, Mitch J won’t play another Ashes and Mitch S will also . But new (c) and (vc) and we have plenty of depth in our bowlers. Cummins didn’t even get a game and Sidds can go round again a few more times. Spinners are durable and Lyon is looking like he belongs. The new keeper was good enough to keep out Haddin from a valedictory game so I am upbeat.
The weather won’t save England and nor should it – outplayed in this one.
Now the tedium of the one dayers, before real cricket resumes in the UAE in October.
Well far from a classic series, games too one-sided for that.
That’s in till November 2017 then , although the series needs a break really – there’s been too much England vs Australia this last couple of years.
Note for UK viewers that the next series in Oz will be shown on BT who have taken the contract from Sky for Australia home series from next season.