So we will soon be seeing the willow on err pink ball with a day night Test. So Capt Pat is not in , Uzzie still is and Mark Wood was wearing a moonboot and knee brace not unlike mine after the attempted assassination by tree.
Starc reputedly best swinger of the pink ball going around.
I get England’s decision to train in Brisbane rather than a game in Canberra. Canberra is dry and quite cool at the moment.
Brisbane is hot and humid and building ip to the wet. I think you are far better acclimatising up there.
Predict Khwawaja to open and Australia to win if it is not rained out.
I believe Australia’s record in these day/night tests is pretty good and ours isn’t. Harrumph.
Can I just say that I love the name “The Gabba”.
It just SOUNDS great. And it’s so concise. Marvellous.
I can actually gaze out to it from my level 28 office. It’s quite small but tall and almost perfectly circular, so it looks like a cauldron. In case you were unaware, Gabba is a contraction of Woolloongabba, the inner city suburb where it is located.
Not for much longer though…they’re building a new stadium for the 2032 Olympics, and the Gabba will be demolished.
The Gabba would’ve / should’ve been the Olympic stadium had the Lions not requested $350m ‘compensation’ inconvenience payment whilst it was being rebuilt…
It is slightly ludicrous having two major sporting stadia in the inner suburbs. Locks the city down anytime something is on. They should build them out in the boondocks at the end of the train line somewhere.
I had a similar thought when I found myself contemplating Las Vegas airport…
Jesus!
Kawaja will make 100
Head will be out for a duck
Root will be out in the 90s
Archer will leave the field with stress fractures
Tales Of The Unexpected it’s called…
I can live with all of that Mousey.
Depends on the toss (I think that the captain’s choice should be alternated throughout the series)
Now the BBC thinks we COULD win!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/czxg7xpvep9o
We’ve selected a spinner to replace Wood . Last played a test in 2022 so it’s clearly been thought out well. Will Jacks…apparently he can bat a bit too…,,,
Kawaja has been ruled out due to a back injury. So I’m guessing Head will open again and they’ll bring in Beau Webster who is a player i really like – bats, bowls pace and spin and seems to be an all round good chap.
So England’s epoch-defining pace attack lasted one test (or rather one half of one test given they went missing in the second innings). But it does look like the increasingly irritating management made the right call not to put too many players in the Lions warm-up game so they’re still getting some things right.
Whatever the changes my guess is we’ll get beaten up by Starc again though.
Just had a masochistic deep dive into world of Starc.
What possessed you Mike?
I did mention masochism. He’s no spring chicken mind.
Left arm seamers really are one of the great sights of cricket. Why is it England have never really had one? Maybe if Sam Curran puts in a bit of a late growth spurt?
I was a left-arm seamer – short run-up, whoosh, ball occasionally moved – but never one of the great sights of cricket, sadly.
The thing about Starc is that you know in the first over how he’s going to go.
If he starts messing about with the bowling crease, looking at where he puts his feet, scuffing it a bit, he’s not in the right head space.
Robin Smith RIP. What a tragedy
If England bat first I’m saying it’s another two-dayer. No faith at all in this swing-and-giggle cricket.
Now that guy could hit the ball.
Only just met the English team in Perth where he lived.
62. Sad