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The Ashes – Adelaide

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Come on guys I know things are bleak but ket’s keep the chat going.
This could be a major fork in the road for the Bazball era.
Woods is gone, you’d think for good so all you can do is move on. Let’s see Archer do what he did in that final session.
Khawaja could well open as Head has a fearsome record at Adelaide down the order a bit.
Captain Pat will be back. They may cotton wool Boland for his happy hunting ground the MCG but that’d be tough after the Gabba.

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Comments

  1. It will be interesting to see what England’s Plan B is in Adelaide. Stokes talks about ‘weak’ players but, to me, the weakness is in his game plan. Hit, hit, hit seems to be the batters’ mantra and yet the Australians know this and exploit it. In one of his interviews during the Brisbane Test, Scott Boland said as much; that the English players could not resist a ball bowled outside the off stump, no matter how wide it was. The English bowlers, too, have some responsibility. In another interview (with Alex Hartley, on the fine summary of the day’s play she hosts on iPlayer) Dan Norcross made the point that of some 360 balls bowled at the Australians during one period of play, 21 were aimed at the stumps. And of these 21 deliveries, three led to wickets being taken. Go figure. It also seems obvious to point out that, if England’s strategy is to defeat Australia by luring their batsmen into hitting catches, then the English fielders need to start holding on to the chances that come their way.

  2. Got to admit the relentless and inevitable 24/7 media and social media pile-on has left me a bit cricketed-out and I’ve actually started to feel a bit sorry for them. No wonder they’ve gone on holiday!
    I suppose the mundane reality is ‘they’re not as good as they think they are but they’re not as bad as we’re all saying they are.’
    But I do hope we don’t play quite so badly this time round. Not least because my brother is flying out to watch this one and it’s not cheap.

    • @Guiri yeah my nephew flew out on Tuesday. he is a massive Birmingham City fc fan and the only respite from the cricket is he is meeting up with Aussie Blues fans at the Birmingham City supporters club in Sydney.
      I have been in Australia when we have capitulated before – the banter is relentless even from Customs officials.

  5. So Atkinson dropped but all those cavalier batsmen retained.
    This quote from Brook has me scratching my head.

    I’ll be the first person to stand up and say that they were bad shots. I don’t regret them, but if I was there again, I’d try and play it slightly differently.”

    • Tongue for Atkinson is clearly a switcheroo for the ages. Nothing will ever be the same again. Possibly.

      And much as I like Harry Brook, at times, he was clearly not blessed with a cricketing brain at birth. Or indeed a brainy brain.

  6. I have to say I’m relieved they left out Kawaja. I don’t think selecting him was worth the risk. Sure, he could have made 100. But what if he opened and made a low score? That would add to calls for dropping him. Head and Weatherald look like an excellent opening combo for the future, and there are other young openers champing at the bit.

    With Cummins and Lyon back in the Australia team I wouldn’t be betting on an England win

    But actually, I’m hoping for a competitive game.

    Also, England have come from 2-0 down before.

    Woop woop!!!

    • Khawaja got his chance when Head had covid. Didn’t realise he is only 2 months younger than Dave Warner. Agree he is not needed.
      Heard talk that Cummins not really “right”. Be a tough call for Neser gets a 5 for and replaced by a semi-fit Capt Pat. Hope the talk is wrong.

    • Head’s not the long term opener for my money. In an ideal world you want him coming in later to really punish the softer ball.

      My boss and I have a quiet $5 on Matt Renshaw possibly coming back after this series.

  12. It’s perhaps a reflection of the times, but none of the young men I work with ( 18-30s) have mentioned the Ashes at all. Nor did they talk about the India tests in the summer. Even the Pakistani and Bengali origin lads seem more interested in football. 2005 seems a long time ago.

  13. England did ok. Apart from poor bowling in the first half hour and some dropped chances.
    The pitch turning into a road and a hot day so a long day in the field for Australia.

    • Those seem like fairly fundamental flaws for a test side. Perhaps the result of England being, if anything, over-prepared…

      Still, my brother reports from the ground that it was an enjoyable day to watch and we’re still in it, so moral victories all round.

  17. So bazball is going out, not in a blaze of glory, but with a rather sad, slightly confused whimper – ‘but we were here to entertain and save test cricket…oh dear…sob’

    But given how unpredictable they are I still think they’ve got it in them to pull off a mad victory in one of the last 2 tests once the pressure of trying to win a series is no longer there. Small comfort that.

    But basically and slightly boringly, this is just something we’ve all seen most of our lives – England being comfortably beaten by a much better Australia.

  19. Bazball (for want of a better description) certainly delivers enthralling cricket; the highs are spectacular, the lows equally so. But it is in its death throes. Listening to some of the ball-by-ball commentary on the BBC, the focus has begun to switch away from the performance of the English players – once awesome, now abject – to, quite rightly, the superior efforts of the Australians. Stokes will surely remain as captain, and so the fireworks will continue for a while, but many of the current players cannot rely, as they seemingly did, on their places in the team being guaranteed. Who knows where their replacements will come from – such has been the Bazball favourites’ lock-grip on the English game that there don’t seem to be too many fresh faces in the mix. They are there, though.

    I thought this paragraph from a report in the Guardian was rather good: “This is, to risk an observation as blindingly obvious as the Adelaide sun, the difference between having really good bowlers who keep on putting the ball in the right place, and having Brydon Carse. It’s not that the Australians didn’t have to work for their wickets, it’s that their work was quality and their reward commensurate. Jofra Archer, on the other hand, toiled into the second morning to take five Australian wickets, only for his teammates to have him back out there batting for the last hour of the day. By stumps he had outscored seven of them. Some can take the heat. Some are taken.”

  20. Very disheartening observation but on the money. In pre-series discussions there was comment made on our ageing squad.Including by me. It ignores that there are so many quality players that just can’t break in to the squad due to its stability.

    Neser and Doggett could slot into most squads. Beau Webster is an all rounder looking over Cam Green’s shoulder. Sam Konstas is still thereabouts if he matures.
    Replenishment is underway.

  22. Oh dear. Waking up to the familiar sight of England being ground down into the dust. This team is cooked and Australia are very good.

    We’d better turn our attention to preparing for the next Ashes tour…arf.

  23. As I’m so good at this prediction game ..
    Australia eventually declare setting England a target of 580 to win or bat for one and a half days for the draw.
    At close of play on Day 4 England are 299-0. They can’t, can they?
    Now I’m off to get some fresh gear …

  24. B*****l is like yer Granny betting on the Grand National once a year.
    It’s a big thrill for her, and on one in ten occasions she’ll get a little bit back for it.

    Even if England did score 600 to win this Test, so what?

    And am I the only person who would ditch the coach and captain in the blink of an eye?

  25. This is a typically good piece from Barney Ronay:

    https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/dec/19/waste-of-will-jacks-talent-speaks-volumes-england-bodged-ashes-planning-cricket

    Highlights the fact that this English set-up have, outside the charmed inner circle – yes we’re looking at you particularly Crawley, Pope and Smith – treated a lot of cricketers fairly shittily and ineptly. Dan Lawrence, Liam Dawson, James Anderson, Ben Foakes, Sam Cook, Alex Lees, Ollie Robinson, etc. Weirdly, Bashir kind of fits into both camps.

    Obviously this isn’t new or unique to this set-up but it sticks in the craw more due to the ‘we’re all bros in this together, often playing golf’ “vibe” that they’ve liked to give off.

  27. A more informed mate of mine, commenting on Carey’s remarkable standing up to the stumps with the quicks …
    (Reason being that England turned Boland’s greatest attribute – his amazing accuracy and consistency – against him in England on the last tour there. Knowing he would always land it on exactly the same spot they started batting well outside the crease, and charging him as if he were a slow off-spinner. It worked, and they absolutely trashed him. That’s why Carey standing up this time around has been so important. They have not been able to knock Boland (or Doggett and Neser in Perth and Brisbane) off their length.

  28. My prediction of 4-0 to Australian is starting to look a bit reckless now. McCullum and Stokes have said they’ve been building towards this series for four years, brushing off any criticism of the one-gear style of biff-it cricket, and it’s frustrating that they’re the last people to realise it would be a disaster.

    Australia always play with the huge self-belief that England have tried to adopt, but they have the skills and discipline as well. You can’t tell Zak Crawley to play like it doesn’t matter if he gets out, because that’s exactly what will happen if you do.

    I hope Key and McCullum have the grace to resign the day the fifth test ends, and Stokes should probably retire his aching old bones. Including his bone head.

  29. “And, yes, this dismissal will be howled over. It will be described as stupid, arrogant and entitled, mainly because it was. This was not just an ugly shot, but a misguided one, high-risk where risk was already quite high enough. Brook was putting pressure back on Lyon by not getting out to him. This was a way to put pressure on his own own teammates instead. Suddenly Lyon was pepped and zinging it down, the energy of the day transformed.

    Does it really matter in the wider picture? A world-record fourth-innings chase was not realistically going to happen. England will lose this game by 180 runs or so. In doing this they will probably have played up to the limit of their own capacities against a superior Australia bowling attack. One failed swish is not where the Ashes were lost..But it was still a perfect demonstration of how; of talent being wasted; of game situations thrown away; and of how scrambled and strange some of the messaging is. Mainly it was the most predictably unpredictable moment. England’s style has been about this, a performative individualism that feels increasingly mannered. There are other kinds of excitement out there. Sometimes you can actually cook a meal rather than just sending out for a chicken box on a moped.”

  34. Well it was great to have the match go to 5 days and still be undecided well into it. 40,000 plus there every day.
    Wonderful ground.
    Lyon out, series lost, pressure off. Who knows for these last 2 tests.

    • Yep. Looks like Mr PC is out too for Melb and maybe Sydney too.

      Which means Doggett comes back for sure and also maybe Murphy or that other guy to fill in for Lyon

      Injuries etc are a good thing in these situations. Give the younger blokes a crack.

      As for England – FFS let’s have a proper test match! You’ll need a real spinner for Sydney, and Pope needs a wee rest…

  37. Too little too late, I’m afraid.

    Even if this side do win the next two Tests, it’ll only replicate that bizarre match at The Oval two years ago, the ‘Stuart Broad Test’ which – spoiler alert – meant ten times the square root of zero.

    I can’t think of an English cricket team that mirrors this one. I can think of an English football team that does. The Beckham-Rooney farce from 2002 to 2016, and I wouldn’t have thought that was a template to follow, but clearly Stokes et al do.
    Another spoiler alert, they’re wrong.

  38. As for Harry B
    “Of course in playing this way Harry Brook has the 8th highest test average for an English player ever (6th if you limit to those have scored more than 2000 test runs) and nobody (for England men) has averaged more in the last 57 years.
    He’s a more successful player than all of those sat in commentary boxes criticising him and has a better record than any of those English players that those in the press think he should play more like.”

      • Exactly. He’s averaging 28 this series. He’s reached 30 4 times out of 6 but his highest score is 51. And he’s got himself out stupidly several times at key moments. Its obvious he can do better, so a bit of criticism, even from me, doesn’t feel out of place.

        He’ll probably score 200 in the next test now.

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