Thetownend.com

India v England 4 match test series is on Channel 4. Plus ODIs, plus T20Is.

Day 1 is underway, England are batting.

I tell you what, those Indians do love their cricket, not only do they start playing really early in the morning, but in the middle of winter too.

Lovely getting to watch it in Channel 4, even if the last minute nature of the coverage is a bit obvious.

Joe Root is rather good at this.

Been following on BBC, had no idea it was on Channel 4, that's exciting. Hearing Lou Bega's Mambo #5 at half ten in the morning was the highlight of many a summer back in the day.

England going very well at the moment, 235/2. Should be posting a 500 plus score from here, which they will if Root stays around. He's in the form of his life.

Root now on 114. Good stuff. He's class

400/4, this is concerningly competent.

Root gets his double hundred with a six. Been watching for about two hours now and he’s not put a foot wrong. He must be knackered

I'm sure tiredness contributed to his demise.

9 hours at the crease in 30 degrees cannot be comfortable

A lovely win in the first test. I think that is 6 wins in a row in Asia?

Is there anything left unsaid about just how good Jimmy Anderson is?

Best pace bowler of all time?

It's one of those endless debates. I don't think Anderson's peak was as high as a lot of bowlers, but very few touch him for longevity and sustained excellence - maybe Courtney Walsh or Richard Hadlee.

It's a fair point, how to judge.  It's like in the NFL, the adjusted best season ever is Joe Namath, but very few would argue he's the best of all time.

Looking a bit more like I was expecting this series to go today. Not sure we've even done much wrong, India are just good at batting at home.

9am start for this day/night test. Not expecting to do too much work this week...

Wish this test started a couple of days later. I'm not holding out much hope of catching any Saturday morning, got a horrible feeling India have got their mojo back and might wrap this up quickly. Really hope I'm wrong

104-8 says you're not wrong.

112 all out.

I'm not much of a cricketist, but that's not good.

74-2, lost the last eight wickets for 38 runs. Poor.

At least India struggled in response.....Oh! ,😖

Trying to make a game of it at least. India 125-8

That aged beautifully :D

Joe Root 5/8. Hilarious.

This match finishes today.

Roooooooooooooooooooot!

This first over is going well, funny as fuck

By tea

I haven’t caught any of the ‘highlights’ yet. I assume it’s another stinker of a pitch? Or have both teams just batted horribly? Root getting a five for suggests spinners dream of course

75-7 suggests so!

Most of the wickets have fallen to ones that haven't turned, but plenty of balls in between have gone miles and clearly got in everyone's heads. It's very difficult to bat on, but probably not quite as impossible as the batsmen have made it look today.

The VAR guy is a bit of a homer.

What was the Ahmedabad groundsman thinking with his first day turner?

Presumably the same as the Sheridactyl-favouring CG quagmire.  Help the home team.

This quirky pitch did abnegate the random advantage of winning the toss however.  And it didn't look so quirky to Rohit who scored 91 for once out, featuring the highest strike rate in each innings in either team.  Axar's pitch perfect bowling also stood out.

Our seam focus in this match, alongside our rotation policy don't seem to have helped.  With Root and Stokes it briefly looked like we may be able to set a target, after Roots' Fivefor,  But congratulations to India on a comfortable win.

Root was interesting afterwards, he didn't so much blame the pitch as the ball for skipping on and losing less pace off the pitch than a normal ball - it was the first time this pink ball has been used. That would explain a lot of poor timing of straight balls by good players (mostly in India shirts)

This fred just reminds me of Reg  :(

Every time I see "new comment", I think it's going to be he telling us about a brief train ride down to Taunton. How he had the pleasure of an East European young filly sat yards away from him; to bring back to the fore memories of an earlier encounter in Tallinn and a wry chuckle to boot.

Well this has been a bit rubbish.

Root has almost four times more runs than any English batsman over the India and SL tests. Different gravy, but everyone else has been dreadful.

Did we ever find out what has happened to Reg?

no

After all that test match red (/pink) ball nonsense, the REAL cricket starts today: 1st T20 international, India v England.

England won the toss and have chosen to bowl. PLAY BALL.

Should be really good to be fair. Not a test match snob, I'll watch any cricket and this 5 match series should be genuinely good - one of the issues with T20I series is that they're usually 1 or 2 game affairs, this should have some chance of momentum and narrative.

World Cup later in the year as well, in India. I reckon we have a chance, but really need Moeen or S Curran to nail down 7 and balance the team.

A good start for England, Rahul out for 1 and Kohli out with a big fat lonely 0.

Bowling our two best bowlers up front is a fucking ballsy move. As is picking Sam Curran and not giving him the new ball.

2nd ODI, Ben Stokes has just hit 45 runs off 10 balls, and is still going (95* from 50).

You put the mockers on that!

After getting to 50 his next 12 balls went 6 6 6 1 6 4 2 6 6 2 4 W

Playing absolute Stick Cricket there.

Stokes 49 runs after reaching 50 (BBC)!

6, 6, 6, 1, 6, 4, 2, 6, 6, 2, 4, W.

 :hmmm:

weird. did not see Michaels post. Not even on ignore.

The summer starts here. What a day for it, fans at Lord's and New Zealand over here to face us. Very little to complain about there, I've even got the week off.

So the last two nights have seen the launch of the Hundred, with men's and women's games on the Beeb. It's very much aimed at winning over people who don't already like cricket, and judging from the general popularity of this thread the TEF certainly seems to be a hotbed for such folks (admittedly probably skewing a bit older than the target demographic).

So, anyone watched either of the games who isn't normally a cricket fan? What did you think and will you be back?

Didn't watch - but I'm a cricket nut. Two of my sons are going to Edgbaston to watch the 1 August games.

Not really aimed at me as I do watch cricket but I've watched most of the first 2 games and enjoyed them both. 

I very rarely watch anything other than England games unless it's a World Cup so I've already seen a few players I wasn't familiar with in last night's game.

Interesting format, hopefully it will open cricket up to a new market, was great to see so many young girls excited for the women's game on Wednesday.

I'm not a big fan of t20 anyway so the hundred isn't for me. This form of cricket excludes most of the nuance which makes cricket interesting imo. Batters have it far too easy in the short form, let's have more swinging/spinning but require more aggressive fields or something.

If the aim is to get more people interested in cricket then just remove the paywall. Nothing beats the highs and lows of test cricket but most people don't have access to it.

Most people have such little time to get into cricket via the test format, this can be a gateway for those people. 

Enjoy what you see here, go to a couple of games, watch a few one days then if so inclined watch some tests. 

You don't get into cooking, for example, by starting with banquets, you feel your way into it with making a few things from scratch.

As for batters having it easy, that is up to bowlers, with their coaches and captains, to make it harder for them.  The Oval Invincibles last night kept Brathwaite (huge hitter) from scoring big really well, if this can translate to slowing run rates in tests then that can be good thing too.

I understand people who only really care for the test format but I like to see the reactions of the players that play in all formats, obviously they are well paid in shorter formats but you can't fake the emotion on display.  If they love it, why shouldn't the fans?

I don’t think this, or T20, helps get people into test cricket.

Had friends at work from India, and they were of the opinion that interest in test cricket was reducing in India, as most fans just watched the IPL.

For me, I haven’t watched either game, but have friends that watched who are cricket fans that didn’t really enjoy it.

When we were in Sydney we went to what was the Australian version of this. (I think) Neither the wife or I are particularly into cricket and it was more of a social event to meet an old friend I used to work with that moved to Oz a few years back.

It was fun, we drank a lot, put buckets on our heads, contributed to the people making 'snakes' out of plastic pint glasses, enjoyed the nice weather etc. Couldn't tell you what was going on the field mind you.

This format is about a good night out with cricket thrown in. I think the matches are in the big cities so us country folk won’t really give a toss who plays

It’s effectively a night at the darts outdoors

Thing is, it's meant to be a family thing - the T20 blast games have been very much boozy big nights out and have sold out The Oval etc. with people on the piss who aren't really paying attention for years, and that was deemed to be the problem.

Interesting so far (from a two game sample) that the women's game was very much families introducing kids to the game, and the men's game felt much more like a typical party T20. Pretty much reflects my experience attending the previous comps (KSL/T20) so not sure it's really a total shift of approach.

Being on the Beeb is good though!

It's all about getting kids and new people into cricket isn't it?

My youngest daughter is 9 and just getting into cricket, she's been through the ECB All Stars and Dynamos sessions and we're now looking at getting her into a club. Through Dynamos they were handing out the Topps cards for The Hundred and we got her some more for her birthday, she loved watching the first game on Thursday and matching the players to the cards.

From my own point of view, both matches were just like a T20 in terms of entertainment.

People don’t like change, 20/20 was slated when it was introduced but County cricket would have been on it last legs if it had relied on 10 people watching a County Championship game on a Tuesday afternoon

As mentioned it is a form of the game that will provide entertainment to new audiences

I watch cricket whenever I can, so watched some of each Hundred match. I don't tend to watch women's cricket so it was quite good for me to watch a few of them play.
I think it is trying to attract newbies to watching cricket, as last night they were demonstrating Yorkers, and it was good to see the younger kids watching - let's face it, a Test Match isn't really the place to take a youngster unless they're already cricket fans.
I wonder what Reg would have thought of it.

I have been a member at Somerset for a number of years now. I have taken my offspring to all other formats of the game but they have shown little interest.  However, 2 of them are keen players.

I will probably sound a like a twazzock but i don't really see the point of the hundred.  You can probably promote cricket to young uns in the context of the current formats

The hundred's just a rebadge of T20 (give or take a few overs). I don't see the point in it but then I already enjoy watching cricket.
If it helps get more people into the game then it's done its job

Also, I'm isolating as I'm over from France for a bit.  Nothing else is interesting me on TV at the time the games are on, or at all frankly, so live sport is very welcome.

I would have like to have seen some bold rule changes - for example, extra runs for the distance of each boundary or hitting particular targets/zones or having to take off a fielder at certain intervals.

I think that Reg described it as an abomination.
That's good enough for me.

T20 is plenty good enough.

Franchising is ok in cricket it would seem.
Still, all well & good if it encourages youngsters to take an interest in the satisfying thwack of leather on willow.

I've enjoyed watching quite a bit of cricket this summer. Just seen a very entertaining win for Trent Rockets in The Hundred. Great to see the enthusiasm shown by fans of all ages, but especially by families and the young kids who are the future of the game.
I enjoy watching the Indian Women's team too, some really good batters in that team.

I'm an extremely fair weather cricket watcher, watched quite a bit in the summer of 2000 whilst avoiding my GCSE revision, and have been to precisely one live cricket match with my cricket mad brother in law (who's dad was the vicar at a church that overlooks Edgebaston, he used to watch games from the roof when he was a nipper), which was a one day game between Gloucestershire and maybe Sri Lanka, again early 00s... can't remember. Dragged back into awareness of the sport by the Tailenders, ep1 OG ;)

Thoroughly enjoying the Hundred though. Trying to get my nippers to watch but neither really care, ha!

Fucking useless

What a shambles

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/england-vs-india-1st-test-trent-bridge-its-not-the-coach-captain-or-players-at-fault-its-the-whole-rotten-system-1272148

Sums it up for me. Understand the rationale behind 20/20, but the way it, and the 100, have been scheduled, is not good for the game imho.

The 100 itself is totally un-neccessary; they could have tweaked the 20/20 (e.g. to add Womens teams) and been fine. As for the 8 new 'city franchises'; imagine 'West Country Cunts' or something in a new footy comp, based at Ashton Gate and taking players from us, Pox, Gash and Slave traders. The goals are twice as wide, 9 players, rush goalies and games last 60 minutes with 8 subs. Typical score: 11-8. First winners: MK Super Dons. Happy? Thought not.

Every. Fucking. Time.

Jasprit Bumrah is quite good isn't he?

Typical English sport, play not to lose and end up losing. Should have heaped pressure on India from the get go- the way we played today was only going to end up with an India win or draw.

Extraordinary win by Somerset

A deeply silly game. Both teams did their absolute best to lose that one, but good to see Somerset make the final.

Poor start for Somerset

Gutted

https://twitter.com/VitalityBlast/status/1439322672391876611

Quite good that. Don't get that on a Sunday in the village leagues.

Ashes starts tonight down under. Anyone putting their sleeping schedule in the bin to watch it rain in Brisbane?

Home from work at 12.00 so will watch the first session and have the radio commentary on overnight.

Should be back home in time to watch a bit of the first session with 3 points in the bag.  :)
BT Sport though?
Not sure how Fletch, Jenas, Rio et al will handle the commentary.
Badly probably.

I actually quite like the look of their team - no Atherton and no Hussain obviously as they're contracted to Sky, which is a real shame but a lot of quite interesting people involved in the BT coverage rather than just the usual loudmouths - Butcher, Trott, Moeen Ali and Harmison are on the group. Might be a bit awkward with them not being there, but willing to give it a go.

Oh is it on BT sport, not watched any tests for years but if its there might dip in.

The looks like a good lineup.
I know that Butcher will be very good & the rest will know what they are talking about.

Fuck yeah, just noticed it’s on BT Sports, get in LL.

Going to be a long night and day at The Gabba.

I thought Town were shite tonight, but I get home and England are even worse 😢

This England team must score less than 200 more regularly than any other one in my lifetime, surely even the 90's one scratched 200 together more frequently.  Other than Root when in the mood and form, nobody ever looks in control when batting.

At least we have a good bowling attack to get us out of trouble........Oh!  :doh:

There's something vaguely comforting about waking up to a calamitous performance in Aus. The world may change, but you can rely on some things.

It makes me feel quite nostalgic. For most of my 20's we lost every ashes series and, particularly in Australia, there was no realistic expectation that we'd do anything but lose.

Rob's right though, even in those days the innings average was high 200s and sub 200 scores tended to be limited to second innings when the Aussies had piled on 500 plus and the situation was hopeless.

I don't think Aus will pile on 500 plus mind, both sides are better bowling than batting at the moment. The net result might well be the same, but I think our bowlers will be okay.

And yes, I do expect this to be quoted tomorrow when Labuschagne and Warner are on 200* each.

When did we last win at the Gabba? 30 years or more ago?

It's rare for anyone other than the Aussies to win at the Gabba.  It's perfectly suited to their bowlers and batsmen. However, waving the white flag in the first hour of the Ashes probably sets a tone you don't want to be setting.

Well that was a bit better.
Could do with Root making a double century, to even have half a chance. Just hope we don’t collapse again tomorrow after a good day.

And Malan too!

Absolutely superb fight back by Malany and Rooty. Big hundreds from both and a cameo by the likes of Stokesy and Buttlery and we actually have a sniff of winning. Especially if the pitch throws up a demon or two

Great fightback, bodes well for the rest of the series but we're still a long way behind in this game.

Whoops

To quote Blackadder, rather a spectacular return to form after the genius moment.

Whoopsy

avoided an innings defeat, something to build on 😁

I did admire the optimism when you posted that.  :)

Strange decision to bat first and to leave out the 2 expert bowlers in those conditions.
Saving them for the day nighters I guess, but don't really understand the need for rotation in cricket.

I called it time when we were 8 down last night. The nod order collapse was refreshingly consistent with recent ashes series it would seem.

I wouldn't mind but the Ozzies hardly have the calibre of McGrath, Warne, Gillespie, Lee, Ponting & the Waugh brothers etc.

Jimmy is 39, fast bowling is quite hard on the body, especially if the opposition bat for a good chunk of 5 days. Having said that, rotating both of then out in the same game, then finding a bowler friendly Day 1 pitch and choosing to bat, does seem a little poorly thought through.

Yeah, he's looked after himself though.
Selection for the squad should mean fit to play if called upon.*
Uphill struggle now.

*Doesn't seem to apply in football where broken feet & shoulders about to fall off haven't been a barrier to England selection for major tournaments.

Let's be honest over the past three years or more, that was not a collapse in either innings, just how we bat.   The difference between forms of the game cannot be coincidence.  Root is the only player who looks like a Test batsman.  The rest all average below 40 by a distance and never look set.  Stokes can be a great player but not an anchor and at some point we have to identify we can't pick him as a bowler, not one you want to rely on.  It's hard to knock individuals because they really don't have much more in them.

Day night test the next one, so starts about 3:30 AM and goes from there, so a decent chance of seeing the final session of each day at least.

I see that the mood music suggests an England selectorial classic: bat shite, field shite, bowl pretty well considering, drop three bowlers for the next test.

Well, the good news is the day/night game meant I was able to watch two whole sessions today.

The bad news is that those two sessions included one wicket.

Poor Jos Buttler has managed to pull off one of the best catches I've seen and one of the worst drops I've seen in one day. Sadly the blinder was off Harris, who is useless, and the drop was off Labuschagne, who really isn't, and was his second drop.

It's all feeling a bit 5-0 this.

Game over already.

When Root said in an interview that unlike previous tours we could take some positives out of the first test I thought we were in trouble.

Couldn’t see many positives in a 9 wicket trashing, surely they should be thinking about what we could do better.

Only question is whether it will be 4-0 or 5-0

Hameed catches Carey and England don’t celebrate. Says it all

And now one of these incredibly annoying lower order biffing partnerships that we used to be great at.

And another drop. Our fielding has been horrible.

God we are shit.

Dire. Wouldn't be surprised if Root goes cheap as well. Series drubbing incoming.

Saved by the storm.

Burns needs to be dropped (which is ironic as it's all he seems able to do on the field). He offers nothing. Not the rest are much use either. Utterly useless.

EDIT: Probably not fair of me to single out any one player. They are a really poor test team across the board and it's no surprise that one or two individuals always seem to be scape goats, so I should probably take that back. The whole setup needs a rethink as we are going to be crushed 5-0.

Bring back Strauss and Cook. Could play better than them two opening divs.

You can only drop him if there's someone to replace him with though, and there really isn't. Literally on this tour, as they sent all the Lions team home so the only other batsmen on the tour are Crawley, Bairstow and Lawrence.

The main worry for me with Burns is that he's playing at these balls at all. They're bouncing over a second set of stumps and he's trying to play them - all the Aussies leave on length and it's so important to do that.

I don't know much about Crawley and Lawrence, would you be as worried about either of them opening as you must be about Burns? I'll defer to your more informed opinion.

Would Bairstow be worth a go? Could he be any worse?

I'm so disillusioned by this team, its really depressing

Crawley had a long run in the side pretty recently as an opener/3, scored that one monster 270-odd against Pakistan but otherwise not much good. I have a mild hunch he might do okay on Aussie pitches, but no real evidence for that.

Bairstow and Lawrence are both lower order players. Could send them in to open, but it'd be a heck of a risk.

To a point, opening in Australia and opening in the UK is super different technically - in the UK you need to be wary of swing so play at the ball a lot to avoid it bowling you as you leave , in Aus there's less swing and more bounce so you want to play less to avoid it taking the edge as you play. This is part of why Warner was absolute shit in England last time out and is imperious in Aus.

Not sure what the answer is in any way really. Cricket has become so different in different locations now that competing abroad is stupidly hard against anything like a competent side.

Cheers for that Nemo, really insightful. Am I right in saying Bairstow has opened before, but without much success?

Not on a long term basis in red ball cricket, he does it all the time in white ball cricket but it's basically a different sport. I think we have chucked him in once or twice in a "Tom Broadbent up front" type hail mary though, which may be your memory.

It’s not just this team though is it, how long is it since we have won a test in Australia?

Central Contracts were once a game change for out Test team - enabling the cream of our talent to be coached, looked after and focused on improving their game without having to divert that attention away (yes, they still played County Cricket, but it made England like a top tier club).

Since then what has changed for us to become so utterly feeble?  The rise and change of the sorter forms of the game.  Playing a few 20 over games in India is far more of a career choice than getting an England Central Contract and playing any of the shorter forms a better choice for a player than adding a few County 4 day games to get some time in the middle.  The One Day game of yore used to be just a faster version of Test cricket, but with the focus has now become a different sport with completely different techniques being developed by players.

That has impacted other Countries as well, it's not just us.  Even this Aus team would take a serious beating from those that came before it.  I think, to the points made above, the technique issue is now showing up the variation in where you play as well.

Overall, nobody is really knocking on the door to replace this lot, which means we have a few years of abject batting to come.

The selection has been so odd, why are we putting leach in the team if we aren’t going to even bowl him! Should have picked wood, he would have caused all sorts of issues with his bounce and pace. And then just have root as our main spin bowler.

Agree about Root being our main spin bowler. He might be technically as good but he seems to get wickets and batsmen might be more wary of him precisely because he isn’t as technically good as Leach. Fear of the (relatively) unknown and all that

Problem is that we have an ageing bowling attack and a technically flawed batting line up.

We have made village cricketers like Labuschene and Smith look like world beaters.

Burns is technically flawed. Hameed played one or two good innings before breaking his arm several years ago and has done little since. Quite how he has made it into the England side with a 1st Class average of 32 I'll never know!

They are world beaters, they have respectively the 2nd and 4th highest averages in the entirely history of test cricket.

Might be a bit lower if we could catch mind.

I’m going to be quiet this time

I was just thinking this is going rather well. Root, what were you thinking?

Not quiet enough Hunk, seemingly.

I know it's not the only thing but Aus just don't drop catches. It makes so much difference that they have to take ten wickets and we have to take 15 or more.

There's noone to bring in! Burns, Hameed and Pope have to go.

All England have to bring in are Crawley and Bairstow.

But the fact Woakes has been ineffective suggests Wood will come back (if fit). The net effect of those 3 changes would be to weaken the batting line up.

Looked at the Lions squad and don't see any names I would bring in! Livingstone could potentially come in as a lower order option, but, is he better than Bairstow or Buttler (who for me are both number 6 or 7s in a decent team)?

The Vicar of Sibley is another failed opener who turned down the Lions tour.

Bracey showed he was waaaaaay off Test level.

I might as well get my pads out of the loft if we are looking further down the list!

Woakes has been ineffective with the ball but has also been our fourth highest scoring batsman.

We've played Leach in the wrong test, it's spinning pretty significantly here. Swap the bowling attacks for the two tests and we'd have done better in both I'd have thought...

Of course, we could bowl for brain-dead runouts.

Here we go by again. Woke up to Malan bowling, walked the dog and back just to see him take guard.

Well it is up to Stokes and Root to lead by example and lead the fight back.

Joe Root was dismissed with the final ball.

This is as nailed on a 5-0 drubbing as the Aussies could ever dream

Chris Woakes now has more runs in the series than five of England's top seven, and will almost certainly be dropped for the next test.

This does feel very 1990's when England couldn't buy an Ashes win, doesn't it?

Rory Bremner is warming up his Paul Hardcastle parody remix as we speak....

https://youtu.be/G3bl4xaFZMM

Well, we made it to tea. Buttler being able to bat like this, and like he does in the white ball stuff is quite remarkable.

bye bye butler.

silly out in the end

Utter rubbish. Now all that will happen is that Bairstow, Crawley and Wood (if fit) will come in for Hameed, Pope and Woakes.

If its a turner, then maybe Lawrence comes in as another swisher and part time bowler - Leach doesn't seem to be the answer and Root has just mauled his own bowling attack. Not sure who bowled shortest for England as I have only seen the 'lowlights'.

There's certainly not a great deal to come in. I do think we could do better with selection, but we probably still lose.

Personally I think Leach is good enough (not Swann, but up to the level of a Panesar or a Tufnell) but getting spooked by him getting hit a bit on a flat deck by set batsmen shows the lack of faith of Root. I do wonder if he just doesn't rate any spin as he's so good at playing it himself - Mark Waugh is more or less the same on commentary.

That said, if we don't trust finger spinners in Aus, fair enough - then why pick two of them? Debut Parkinson or pick Crane in the summer and then take them on the tour. They just seem to have gone worst of both worlds.

There's a test tour of the WI in March and for that expect a total clean sweep.

Saqib Mahmood is playing BBL and took 4 for nothing the other day but it would be in his interests to wait until the WI tour rather than called up for 5th test when this side are buggered.

Crane or Parkinson as a leggie.  I like Yates as Warwickshire as an opening option but expect England to fluff around with Zak Crawley.

Expect Foakes to get a go in WI.

If Pope doesn't up his game then maybe time for a Abell or Livingstone or Harry Brook.

Tough as it would be England may have to make a call on Jimmy/Broad. I maybe only expect 1 to go to WI?  I think taking both would be detrimental to the future as such you have a choice to make next summer.  They cant both be allowed farewell tours.

I think Anderson and Broad are way past their sellby unfortunately. Woakes with Woods pace would be awesome. He's too slow to threaten though.

Time to let them go and build for the future.

13-2  :suicide:

Can't see how the bowlers are to blame.   Without runs on the board you're on the backfoot and defensive.

Hammeed only averages 32 in first class cricket, and Crawley 31.   I don't understand why they are anywhere near the England team.
Not all their fault of course, the middle order all gave their wickets away today.

Watched until 1am, when we were 2 down. Crawley 'slightly' unlucky to get a snorter when he was starting to look OK. Dropped the wrong opener imho. Hameed is a walking wicket and nowhere near the standard of a Test opener. Burns has a flawed technique which, is inconsistent and is bang out of form.

Different game when Root was batting. Made it look relatively easy at times. Malan was a little too crab like for me, which invited pressure. However, if you are going to play like that you have to stay there for multiple sessions. To get out before lunch in such a lame way was poor - As was Root, who seems to get punished for every loose shot.

The rest just aren't good enough as test batsmen. They are 'all rounders' meaning that they are neither one thing or another and in a good side, would all be fighting for number 6 or 7 slots.

Not gonna lie, quite happy I don't have BT Sports...

An Ashes test down under is on my bucket list of semi or full retirement things to do. Not sure I’d want to actually sit in any of the stadiums being unmercifully ridiculed by the convicts. This has 5-0 written all over it and the limited overs games don’t look to promising either.

Limited overs will be fine, we're good at that.

The tests will not.

I know that but I’m still not confidant we’ll make a decent fist of it. We’ll see.

Covid to prevent a whitewash?

Nope. Not yet anyway. Second day can go ahead. Bring on the pain

Hope short lived yet again!

Not even Covid can stand firm against the Aussies!

Prediction: 2 early wickets to get hopes up then Aus finish day 370/7

Part 1. Tick.

Ball starts to swing for Anderson just before drinks

Time for bed

Twitter as quoted by the BBC:

‘Jack Leach averages 61 against left-handers. Makes sense you wait until there are two of them at the crease to bring him on after what happened at the Gabba.’

Assuming as I must that the veracity of the quote is accurate, you really do have to question Root’s captaincy here. Possibly our greatest ever batsman. But a good captain? I have to doubt it. I fear this pressure we have put on them is going to go to waste, would love to eat humble pie…but let’s be honest, I probably don’t have to

When it comes to cricket I’m half way between a layman and an armchair fan, so I’m perfectly happy for it to be pointed out that I’m missing something by someone more itk. But fuck me is this not obvious that Root is having a captaincy nightmare? He’s murdered all the momentum we created by putting Leach on, surely? This appears to me to be shocking captaincy. I’d suggest it might be time for him to concentrate on batting but who would replace him as captain? Stokes would probably be the only option from this lot, or maybe Bairstow? Past that I’m lost

England captains traditionally resign when their batting drops off or when they've fallen out with everyone. Actual tactical acumen is considered optional, which is really odd when you consider how much Brearley is deified.

I think Root will probably go after this series, but you're quite right about the lack of alternatives. Burns would have been the other guy, long term county captain, but they've just dropped him.

Well that went well!

it certainly went quickly

I’m very bored and so have crunched some numbers. The following is the batting average of our last few long term captains in their final ten tests as captain, their career batting averages and the results of those last ten tests:

Joe Root (not including the current test)-90.7 (😲)/50 LLLWLDLDLL

Alastair Cook-51.6/45.4 WWLWWWLDLL

Andrew Strauss-67.2/40.9 LDLDWWWLLL

Michael Vaughan-38.8/41.4 LLDWWDWLD

Nasser Hussain-61.6/37.2 WDWWWLWWWL

Michael Atherton-44.8/37.7 LWLLLLWWWL

Interestingly all those listed above, with the exception of Vaughan, batted above their career averages in their final ten tests. The other glaring fact is that Root is batting at a phenomenal average and yet this has seemingly no effect on the performance of the team. He has to drop the captaincy and give somebody else a go.

The problem is that we don't have any players good enough for test cricket let alone test captaincy!

It really is a shambles. I’ve no idea who’s to blame but it seems certain that we’ll continue to be poor for a very, very long time

English cricket has always seemed to have suffered from a class structure issue. If you played the game with a certain upper lip / higher class attitude you would be OK with selection and the governing body
This type of"don't rock the boat" we will support you  Woke attitude does not work in Australia especially where sport is involved.
Sport has winners and losers..Australia, and especially when playing in Australia are winners. England as shown are generally losers.
Real shame when Stokes Woods and Root  must not forget Jimmy Anderson were really showing total commitment.
Yesterday sitting in a pub in Auckland watching the Aussie tail wagging thinking this can't get worse
But wait it did 30 odd for 4
Fuck I hate the Ashes series.
COYMRs


 

Only when they are in Australia, over here they are brilliant because either team can win

Possibly you are right Posh.
Living in New Zealand, New Zealanders have a saying they support NZ and any team playing Australia
Great saying especially in the early 2000's when Jonny Wilkinson won the World cup in Australia for England.
COYMRs

Terrible decision by the umpire against Bairstow

Should have been given not out with the Aussies needing to review.

Mind you, silly sod should have hit it. Get the bat coming down straight and you have more chance.

Abysmal shot by Root. No foot movement.

Wood. Well done fella! One more duck to tie the record in a year!

32 year old debutant with a 5 for!

Robinson equals the record for England!

Boland has bowled 21 balls and got 6 wickets!

Joked with my son it would be finished by 1am - We only managed 12:50am!

Utterly embarrassing. They should be ashamed of themselves

What a load of crap England are
No pride or skill just over paid and over here.
No bottle and bet Ray Illingworth would be totally embarrassed should he be watching down right now
COYMRs

Went to bed at midnight or so thinking we'd take it to tea at least. What the fuck.

After Stokes went early I jokingly asked whether Australia would need to bat again?

Was only mildly surprised when I looked this morning to see that they didn’t.

Take England away from conditions that suit them and put them up against any decent opponents and they will let themselves down.

To get an idea of how bad England have been in recent times in Australia, Joe Root has never been in a team that has won a test match in Australia?

A number of old fogeys blaming the one day game for our batting ills.

Don't the likes of NZ, Aus and India also play it?

I think us old fogey's are blaming the 'de-prioritisation' of the longer version of the game on England's lack of ability to bat long.

We have very few batsmen who seem to have the ability to bat for a whole session, a whole day or score a big hundred.

The assertion is being made that its possibly because there is so much focus now on the shorter form of the game and scoring runs quick rather than having players who can bat long.

There's a lot of people lashing out at the moment, as you'd expect in the immediate aftermath. The difficult truth is that it's probably a lot of contributing factors, and people exaggerate/ignore them depending on their own personal beliefs (so basically politics all over again).

Is red ball cricket a bit of an afterthought at county level? Absolutely
Is the amount of talent we have spread too thinly across teams? Absolutely
Does the scheduling mean that we don't encourage fast bowling or spin? Sure
Was the scheduling of this tour straight after the t20 world cup dreadful? Yes
Did the rain during what little preparation there was set us up to fail? Yes
Is Root a good tactical captain? Probably not
Are most of these players the match of their Aussie counterparts? Definitely not
Is playing away generally very hard in cricket at the moment with bubbles and quarantine? Certainly
Have we fielded dreadfully? Yep
Does Silverwood look overpromoted? He does

I mean, pick your own choice of reasons. There's a lot to it. I'm sure the ECB will have a review to pick their own favourite reasons.

That is undoubtedly true but they have picked some players with no pedigree at all.   Hameed's highest score in county cricket, where he averages just 32, is only 120.

There was a time when Hick, ramprakash, moeen etc weren't being picked with averages of 60+.   I think Mo didn't get picket until he scored 1,500 runs 2 seasons on the trot and then it was because he bowled a bit.

One issue for me is the focus on Surrey and Yorkshire.  The disproportionate number of players that come from those teams is ridiculous.  A Surrey youngster will be thrown in with half a good season but one from Worcs or Glamorgan has to wait till they are 27 and scored 10,000 runs.  But by then they have picked up a load of bad habits and can't adapt to new conditions.

Liked that - Sat here applauding that post!

You are probably right about the bias - I wonder though whether money has a lot to do with it. Have all the best cricketers gone to the likes of and Surrey, Middlesex, Yorks because they have paid the best?

I guess its historically been difficult to get into England football team if you play for an unfashionable club. Closest to home for us has got to have been the question about why Charlie Austin never made it as an England international?

Don’t forget Shearer & Calderwood who were both called up by Scotland almost immediately after leaving for Blackburn/Aberdeen & Spurs.

This at a time when we were a tier 2 team

As an old fogey, I concur with the general assertion.

My question is why do the likes of NZ, Aus and India seem so less "afflicted"?  I doubt Aggers and Co would have been raising the question had Eng. just trounced Aus with similar scores reversed.

The new God isn't limited overs cricket, it's money and you just reach a point in life where you have to accept your views have become irrelevant.

I wasn't overly excited by this series beforehand.  It was fuck off Pakistan and let's milk the Ashes cash cow.  Again. Most other test cricket has become irrelevant.  It just doesn't pay anyone to be the best test team or put in the slog of some tougher tours that can mould an emerging test side into a great one.

And now it's being proposed to have the Football World Cup every two years.  Please, let's keep SOME things special.

Is it because conditions in England favour 'dibbly dobbler' bowlers?

So when our batsmen go to Australia or the West Indies they think 'Fuck me that was quick!'

Then when they get to the sub continent they think 'Fuck me that turned!'

That then results in overseas bowlers coming to England. Our batsmen then think 'Fuck me!'

Nomoreheros... Spot on😄

Wood is quicker than any of their bowlers, it's not just pure pace.

True. But he doesn't bowl stump to stump and doesn't often get the ball to nip around.

Boland is in the Alderman/McGrath mode.
Starc in the Mitchell Johnson mode
Cummings just a decent quick bowler

There is Mediocraty in the county system but it has always produced top class bowlers.   Anderson and Broad to name just 2.  However it very rarely produces a decent spinner and almost never a wrist spinner.

The issue is not the bowling but the batting.   County scores are low, particularly when played in may and September, there's just not enough time at the crease.

England 12* after Crawley survives only because of a no ball. What a batting performance by England thus far…relatively speaking

The way things were going towards the end here 400+ is an innings win score.

I see Khawaja was dropped off Leach 100 runs short of where he ended. Poor fucker, Leach, it's just not really happening for him this series and I'm not convinced it's his fault.

It's as if we sent a team of Village Fucking Idiots to face up to the Windies 80's bowling attack.  This lot are a National embarrassment, which in the long run may be the only small crumb that can be rtaken from this series.  If they had shown a bit of fight, got a bit closer in some games, then the powers that be and the team could have argued about "but for a bit of luck", "tried hard in tough conditions" etc.

As it is, they are a fucking disgrace, but only a symptom of the issues facing England at Test level.  It's been coming a while, which leads me to another gripe while sitting through this....

The in studio team BT Sport put together is just as fucking bad.  What is the point of asking a current international team mate (even if in the white ball game) or even recent retiree to provide "insight"  Ali is a puppet sat on a sofa, one without anyone hand up his arse to provide any sort of entertainment as Sooty and Sweep surely would have mustered.

Worse though is Cook.  It's like someone plonked a cardboard cutout on the sofa to provide analysis.  Don't get me wrong, great player and clearly has some thoughts on the technique side, but no appetite to provide any sort of critical analysis whatsoever.  "The Aussies have bowled well".  It's fucking Test cricket you plonk, they aren't going to chuck some underarms balls down the wicket for us.  To be honest, the current state of affairs, I think, goes back to him as Captain.  I can't believe his captaincy (after listening to him here) provided anything of value to any player, and probably relied on his ability with the bat to motivate.  He seems even more dull than I expected, defensive as hell (tactically) and has helped sew the seeds of what we no have at Test level.  A team full of nobodies, maybe Broad being the only one with a personality and a bit of bite in him.  It's a sad state of affairs that we revere Stokes when he is little more than average at Test level, relying on his undoubted brilliance in the short form.

I applaud the job we did in turning around our short form performances, but we've sacrificed Test cricket at the alter to do it, it would seem.

ECB should refund the fans tickets and air fares and bring them home early, abandon the series.  Or send out 11 fans and show the cricketing world just how seriously they have taken it.

At least wood - who shouldn't be batting at 8 in any form of cricket - is showing a bit of fight.  Scored more than the top 4 managed and will be going past the openers' totals for the series soon.

100 for Bairstow. Well done that man.

Absolutely - 100 in a series is good in this team to do it in one innings with backs to the wall is a great effort.

Just seen that in 2021 Crawley had 16 innings and scored just 173 runs.

Why was he even on the tour?  

There just doesn't seem to be anyone removed from the team tapping the coach on the shoulder and saying "I know you've invested alot into him and he's a great lad to have around but he's utter dogshite!  I saw this bloke playing at Gloucester who looks worth a punt"

He was picked originally because he went to Ed Smith's school, and then made that beautiful 273 against Pakistan which has basically guaranteed him a career.

Robt, I must say your overnight rant was a joy to read, especially knowing England showed a bit of fight after! I would say on Ali/Cook though, that if you haven't seen the clip of Ali criticising Cook's captaincy whilst sat next to him, you should seek it out. Glorious stuff.

Fair play to Bairstow and Stokes and Wood for showing some fight. And I see Stokes was bowled and the bails didn't fall off, which does at least provide some comedy.

Sorry that is a bit harsh. No prep, locked in bubbles, Covid in the camp, no warm up games. Jimmy Anderson or Mark Wood no personality? Stokes little more than average Test player?  I'm as disappointed as anyone (can't believe how much sleep I've given up for such a load of toss) and there is a serious problem with preparing English players with the skills to compete at Test level but I think you are being a bit hysterical.

Let me know what Stokes' Test averages for both batting and bowling are again?  Other than Root there isn't a test quality batsman in our squad or even near it and because of that, like Cook before him, he ends up as default captain, a job for which he is clearly not suited.

Anderson is a star quality bowler, he doesn't imprint his personality on a game.  I'm not talking about how he talks off the pitch either.  I'm talking in a cricketing sense.  Broad has something, although it's more often displayed against his fellow team mates.  I'm not having much of a pop at the bowlers though, although Leach is a problem.  They've not bowled the right length often enough, but given they all seem to do it I have to assume it comes from coaching and how we prepare.

Covid is an excuse that is fair enough, but both teams have been impacted, Australia to the point of having players needing to drop out.  The prep is our own fault to degree and goes back to my major criticism which is the way we have approached Test cricket for the past 10 years or so.  You'll note I called the team a symptom, not the cause.

Last four years (2018-present), Stokes averages in tests, not elite on the world stage but better than anyone else we have, ignoring the fact he bowls a bit and is a good fielder. Fwiw, since 2018

Root 46.17
Stokes 37.01
Buttler 32.49
Foakes 31.53
Burns 30.92
Pope 29.79
Denly 29.53
Sibley 28.94
Lawrence 27.23
Crawley 26.62
Malan 25.23
Roy 18.70
Hameed 17.58

It's a sorry old mess.

In the 1990-1999 period, when we were shit and before the introduction of Central Contracts (which did have a positive impact on test cricket in this country for a period), 8 batsmen had an average of 34 or higher who played at least 20 Tests in that period.  Hick with 34 being the lowest, someone who never really achieved anything much of note in Test cricket.

Stokes with 37 is OK, average for a Test top 6 batsman, nothing more.  He is a different beast in the shorter forms of the game, of that there is no doubt.  That's the problem, the past ten years have created players who are only much kop at the money spinning versions.  Stokes would be the 8th best batsman of the 90's for us!!

Without Archer and Stone, and with a ropey batting line up, a star all rounder who comes into the series without any cricket for 4 months and off the  back of mental health problems this was always going to be a hill to steep but I did hope for a more competitive series as I still don't think Australia are that good.

Sam Billings has been called up with injury concerns over YJB and Buttler so I expect he will play in 5th Test which is harsh on Ben Foakes. 

I think the squad for the 3 tests in WI in March will make really interesting reading.

Will they take both Broad and Anderson?
I would expect Saqib Mahmood to debut. I think Archer is out until the summer and if I'm honest I think his test cricket days are done but will Oliver Stone be available?
Would mind seeing Brydon Carse given a go/
I would like them to invest properly in a Mason Crane or Matt Parkinson.
I like the opener at Warks (Yates I think)
Bohannon from Lancs has been getting good wrap and was part of the Lions squad.
Will they persist with any of a Crawley/Hameed/Burns?  Will Sibley get called up again?

A lot of questions for me ...

Also Root as captain.  As Stokes is the only one people will call a viable option but I dont think he is I'd like to see Root carry on, but with a new coach.  Kirsten or Jayawardene for me.

Time to rebuild the batting, bowling and keeping.

We have another Jack Russell issue. Foakes is the best natural keeper in the country but they dont think he can bat well enough. So, we have tried to convert Bairstow and Buttler into a keeper. Bracey is also in the wings but his nervous debut showed he is a way off as either a test keeper or batsman.

We have to address the fact that our two best bowlers are past their best and reaching the end of the line. Time to let Anderson and Broad move into media careers. Their replacements aren't ready but need to develop quickly. I know Broad got 5 wickets in the 1st innings of this test, but a few years ago he wouldnt have conceeded 100 runs to do so. He's just a couple of mph too slow now. Anderson is the same, but when you start off as one of the all time greats, the decline takes a while to properly kick in.

All rounders. I think Stokes and Bairstow are the only two good enough in this category.

We should persist with Root and Malan. They are the only players capable of batting long, but even then I have doubts over Malan. I fear that all of the other batsmen that England have flirted with are 'dashers'. They have achieved their averages by being flat track bullies or being able to score a quick 50 and get out. You need 3-4 players capable of batting for more than a day once a series to be a good test team.

Of the other batsmen, I fear they are either 20-50 over specialists or technically flawed. Hameed has regressed significantly since debut. Burns is inconsistent and has terrible technique. Crawley is a bowling machine batsman. Sibley a technically flawed crab. Bairstow a lower order bottom handed swisher. Buttler a 20 over player. Pope is the interesting one - Good technique, but either can't read spin or is mentally shot. (I think he is worth persisting with). Billings is a bottom handed one day lower order average wicket keeper.

In conclusion, I see the problems, but not necessarily the answers!

Better day for Leach today, shows what a spinner can do when the game actually gets to the fourth day, which hasn't exactly been often in recent times. He's not Swann by any means, and is a better attacking bowler than he is a defensive one, but he's the best we have.

Not really worth complaining about captaincy again, but that's two innings in a row where Khawaja has been within one shot of a hundred and we've bought on Dawid Malan's filthy leggies. At least put some pressure on him, for goodness sakes.

Must say this test has been broadly in line with my expectation for the series - Aus a better team, but not by an embarrassing margin and moments for England. It's just that the first few tests were so wildly in Aus' favour that it's painful.

I watched until lunch - Thought we went too defensive too quickly. Got a couple of wickets despite doing so though. Pope looked a better keeper than Buttler and Bairstow! Not sure what I hope for. Would 30-40 runs each for the openers be a good thing or a bad one?  Would a rain influence draw paper over the cracks?

Another low score for Hameed and not outs from Root and Malan would be the best we could hope for.

We didn't lose!

Root "proud"

A half decent batting performance in both innings and a bit of rain.

At least they showed some fight, just a shame it’s taken so long.

I wouldn’t mind us losing so much if we at least made a game of it

Watched until lunch again - The pitch wasn't doing anything. Hameed was dropped a couple of overs before he played the same shot to let Carey make amends. Technical flaw in his batting. Would imagine he's shot.

Crawley looked good. Likes the ball on his legs. But, doesn't move his feet and susceptible to one on the stump going through bat and pad or outside the off. I think of him as a good bowling machine batter.

Malan didn't move his feet either. Ridiculous. Root and Stokes looked in no trouble.

Need to send Stokes home with Buttler. Get them both fixed. Not sure how bad Bairstow's injury is. But, nothing to play for here, so send him home to if it will help in the long run.

Can see us playing a Lions team in the next match, which aint a bad thing.

Oh I think Stokes is probably going to be sent home, they'll just be waiting for scan results before making that final decision. Stephen Finn suggested on the radio that sometimes you can't do a reliable scan until a couple of days after the game.

Think you're right on most of the technical stuff. Crawley *looks* a player, no doubt at all, worth investing time in but setting up on off means he's going to get pinned lbw occasionally. His technique suits Australian/SA wickets I think, I'm not sure he's going to be piling on the runs at home all that often. Hopefully he's smart enough to adjust.

Hameed just wasn't ready - he struggles against high pace in the Championship so this tour always felt a really tough ask. As you say, caught between playing forward and back repeatedly and kept getting the edge.

Lions wise, we can only really play who is in the country - which means the batting has to be Pope, Lawrence and Billings taking the gloves, unless you fancy doing something really funky like Burns in the middle order.

Bairstow had an excellent test and fair play to him for that, but I think we can get a bit carried away about one good performance - he's been pretty much useless for four years before this. Gets himself another chance if fit though.

Bairstow has been inconsistent. Too much bottom hand - A swisher. More of a batsman than his father but less of a wicket keeper!

Again, the problem with England is we have a team full of 'all rounders'. They can mostly all do a bit of everything, but many of them can't do one thing well.

Of what's out there, I'd be inclined to go for:

1. Burns
2. Crawley
3. Malan
4. Root
5. Pope
6. Lawrence
7. Billings 
8. Woakes
9. Overton
10. Robinson
11. Wood

You could argue Anderson & Broad for Overton and Woakes to enable them to say farewell to the Aussies. But, given there is nothing to play for, you might as well give the others a go. (Woakes might be injured)

Well, here we are showing some promise again. Let's bowl them out cheaply, then we'll probably be knocked over for less than 50 runs.

Never seen such a green pitch. 150 would be a good score.

I didn't see the first session but seems it's settled down a little now. Pitch does look very green, but then so do many in NZ and those usually get big scores on them.

Either way, better conditions for England but Robinson seems to be injured and Wood getting whacked, so Root bowling already.

So 179-4 with Robinson looking unable to bowl doesn't look so good!

With Travis Head playing like a prime De Villiers.

It was all looking good for the first hour, now the pitch has settled down a bit.

Labuschagne's dismissal was marvellous though.

Village cricket at its best!

I'm not convinced he actually stumbled, I think the fall was to try and cover his blushes by making it look like he was off balance.

He’s gone, phew.

Looks like the Aussies are still managing a good score though. Run through them now and we might just be able to take a slender lead into the Oz second innings.

Looked like a genuine fall to me

Reading on the bbc sounds like Sam Billings is having the time of his life! This is good to hear, a bit of positivity and some chatter

I think it was a legitimate stumble but as a second movement, trying to turn round to see what had happened long after the ball had passed him and hit the stumps - the intial movement was just way too far across the stumps, like trying to flick down leg except the ball wasn't leg side enough and he went too far.

Just saw it from another angle and he hit his leg with his bat as he brought it down, made it look even more genuine

England collapse as predictably as night follows day

This is just not good enough. These are professional sportsmen who have shown an abject inability to properly play the sport they are paid to play. It’s easy to get vitriolic as a supporter of this England team but I think it’s deserved. Joe Root makes what I’m sure he thinks are the right noises whenever we get whooped but it’s getting tired now. Time after time there is literally no improvement. He should step down regardless of whether there’s an obvious successor, England are better off taking a shot in the dark rather than persisting with him as captain. Is there somebody who could come in as a specialist captain? Somebody who can at least organise and motivate this shambles? That’s a question for you Nemo, you know your stuff.

Jesu Christi that ball from Wood to get Khawaja was a beauty.

As for captains, I don't know really. The experienced county captains around the squad or Lions would be Burns, Billings, Abell, Rhodes and Vince, but I don't know that any of them are tactical wizards. To a point I think captaincy is a bit overrated, there are very few good captains of bad teams - Brearley and Stephen Fleming, maybe Jason Holder are the only candidates I can think of.

Eoin Morgan is the only obviously excellent captain in England and he's not a test match option.

The problem is there aren't obvious players to come in. The current players are the best we have, more or less, and we need them to get better. I'd be looking at coaching as the main area we can improve. Also preparation - India A play twice as much cricket as the England Lions do and shockingly enough, their players debut and look ready. Ours look out of their depth.

Agree with that - snorter from Wood!

The batsmen are ALL technically flawed - some more so than others.

Root is a good Test batsman. I think Pope can be saved. Crawley has the same issues as Hick. Malan, I'm starting to worry about. The others are middle order bashers.

Adding one player who could bat long would change the dynamics of the side immensely.

It doesn’t matter who the captain is when you are consistently bowled out for 200 or less, especially when the opposition are regularly scoring 400+

But this isn’t a new problem, we haven’t won a test down under for 10 years, in fact it’s something like 12-0 with 2 draws in the last 3 tours.

It coincides with a pretty good time at white ball cricket for England, so clearly that’s where the focus has been.

Yes, its not because of guile, its because our batsmen can't score runs or occupy the crease and our bowlers look threatening in short spells but often fail to capitalise on good starts.

Hello  :o

Have we scored as many as 271 at all on this tour?

Purple patch for Mr Wood. Two wickets on no balls too (Broad and Woakes).

Mr Burns disappointingly out just before tea.

And there goes Malan.....and Crawley

....and Stokes!

That ball to Root sums up England's series. Utterly unplayable.

Poor Root - Breaks his favourite bat then gets a grubber!

The end is nigh.

Seven for 39 since the opening partnership was broken.

Was just going to post about Billings technical flaw(all bottom hand) being exposed in his wicket when Pope walked around his stumps and lost his!

What a shambles

Just seen on Twitter that Dawid Malan's first child was born this morning six weeks early and on the other side of the world. Can probably forgive him being a bit distracted today.

OMG! Never a good sign when you pull a ball onto your leg stump!

I know it doesn't matter in the slightest bit Jesus Robinson couldn't have gone further towards leg if he'd taken guard next to the umpire.

At least it's over.

And Ollie Robinson sums it up. Run away to leg side and let a full toss hit middle

What a pathetic series that was! I’m sure it’s been said before, but will all the money being pumped into 20/20 and this shit 100 format of the game, has just left test cricket to rot in the shadows. Where do we even go from here? I hope some sackings are made and a restructure of the county championship. For me test cricket is my favourite format, it would be nice to see us compete again.

Aus just won the world T20, focusing on white ball cricket doesn't seem to have caused them much difficulty.

Huge amount of things that could be improved. Not sure if I'd trust the ECB to do any of them.

England will go to the West Indies and probably be competitive and it will paper over the cracks of this shambles.

They then play at home series against New Zealand & India (any results possible) but will probably be ok.

Then will depend on how South Africa are by next winter.

The upshot is that nothing will change in the short term.

Limited overs is fun and all, but like you I love watching test cricket. When you can predict with such consistent accuracy that England are about to capitulate it’s depressing. Seriously needs to be addressed. I don’t want to watch that drivel and it’s upsetting

I think we should be patient before reaching conclusions.

It's rumoured that Sue Gray will be reporting that England has drawn the series.

Women's Ashes starts today. I'm rather looking forward to it, mostly because there's at least some chance of a contest.

Edit: England 106/1, do not adjust your TV sets.

Made more of a game of it than the men, but still lost by 9 wickets

V the WI in the T20 format tonight 20.00 on BT. Looking forward to it.

The reassuring feeling of being 10/3, we can do this in any format!

24/4. Eek

39/5 @ 10 overs. Not even on track to get their lowest score ever!

Just as well that we focus on white ball cricket :D

39/6 10.1 overs! Comedy run out

49/7 11.4 overs

49/7 . Jesus wept..

is the wicket dodgy or something

There's quite a lot of bounce in it, and the ball did move early on... but it doesn't look a double figure score pitch. 140-50 par maybe? Not easy to tell from the other side of the world mind.

cheers. bugger

Beaten the lowest score now! 84/7 off 16 overs

85/8 16.4

100/8 18.2 overs

103 all out 19.4 overs.

Not ideal.

We've got a wicket!

I was looking forward to watching Mahmood. He's just bowled an over of pies to allow King a 50 and to leave the scores level.

Just the 9 wicket loss then!

it's a hammering!

Against the worst ranked team in 20/20

Eh, the things happen, lots of randomness in T20. We're a terrific white ball outfit and this is a team with maybe five players from our first choice team.

As funny as the parallels with the tests are, we're in a totally different place between the formats.

Didn't look it tonight.

Very poor performance.

Slightly better start today.

Good job Windies have dropped a couple!

Banton unlucky. Vince not so much!

Started well, and there's a Swindon Town flag there. One of our wealthier supporters.

Jordan hit for 21 - England to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!

They just held on, despite trying their best to lose it

Thank goodness Shepherd didn't take that single to keep the strike.

Unbelievable! Mahmood goes for 28 in the last over! They win by 1.

He was lucky that the second ball wasn’t called a wide

Crikey, I went to bed with them 100/8 and sunk. Must have been quite the partnership!

It helps when Mahmood was bowling in the slot.

At one point Morgan shouted to him 'No wides, no wides, no wides!'

Not sure where they were hiding this Rovman Powell chap, but I'd guess we might see a little more of him in the future.

England's seam bowling is... not brilliant. Get well soon Jofra.

Must have been mega-pies to go for that many!

Just watching England make the first over look like a mine field!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/59754595

Completely missed this. I read somewhere that Giles had gone but had no idea Silverwood had followed. For the best I’d say. Any kind of change is worth a go considering how abject we were during the Ashes

Aussie coming in.

Which one? I see Langer has left the Aussies but it’d be a bit mad if he swapped them for us.

Collingwood, interim. And Langer mentioned in despatches.

Supposedly Broad and Anderson dropped for the West Indies. Must say, it's very English to drop some bowlers because the batting has been shit.

That seems mad to me. Yes, Anderson is nearly 40, but it’s not as though his continual selection is getting in the way of some prodigious talent making the team instead. And he was still statistically our best bowler during this ashes I believe. Not so sure about Broad, but certainly can’t understand dropping Anderson.

The Windies tests start today, with an attack of Woakes, Coverton, Wood (a bit injured), Stokes (a lot injured) and Leach.

I like everyone involved in that, most of them quite a lot, but blimey does that look a lot more callow than Anderson/Broad/Robinson did last summer.

Still, the Windies are every bit as much a flawed team as we are so should be well balanced at least. Windies 2-1 for me.

Most importantly though, England have finally picked Stokes, Foakes and Woakes together. Beautiful.

Won the toss and batting first.
We always seem to start a test series undercooked.  Id love us not to crumble but ive seen to much of it to think we'll do anything but.

I guess well know by this evening.

Did have a warm up game this time, which is progress. Unfortunately it managed to injure Robinson and Wood...

17-2

Red ball reset looking a lot like the old stuff.

Methinks that'll be the high point of this test. Did I say test? I meant series.

Very difficult not to be a glass half empty with England right now.

A lot to be said for having an experienced swing bowler opening up isn't there? Roach is a very good bowler, and that was a very good ball.

This is a real shambles. Out of the frying pan and into the fire for anyone coming in

At least we now seem to achieving some consistency in our batting performances.

Ben Stokes very nearly hit his test batting average. Onwards and upwards

We're just shite :fear:

England in serious danger here of posting 300+. I’m beside myself

We were shite early on😀

This is more like the post-Strauss but still good England - being dug out of a hole by the middle and lower order. Certainly progress on being shit all the way down as we have been the last couple of years!

We are playing the second worst Test team, maybe worst because our position at the bottom of the pile is somewhat influenced by five tests against Australia.

Hopefully Leach can last long enough to help JB get 150. As I type this he edges through the slips.

Edit: he can’t. Good catch though. Lost that in the sun for a sec

I'm guessing the wicket is dead so expect the West Indies to knock up a big score

We managed to get over 300, how exciting.

If conditions don't change we may end up with a draw😀

I don't think Jack Leach bowling 6 overs of the first 19 was the plan.

Chris Woakes had a stinker of a day and now Foakes is standing up to the stumps for him. Sheesh.

Coverton and Wood injured so both Saqib Mahmood and Matt Fisher debut in the second test. Somewhere, Stuart Broad smiles at his collection of voodoo dolls.

Might be a fortunate enforced change. I like the look of Fisher and Mahmoud being in the side might demonstrate to the selectors of the benefits of picking a specialist old ball bowler. For some reason we've got into the habit of picking 4 quicks  that all want the new ball, so your change bowlers aren't doing what they're good at and are a bit narky as a result.

Another stunning start by England 😪

To be fair this pitch looks a whole lot different to the first two tests. Suspect this game isn't going four days, let alone five.

Top up their suntans then😀

Well that was unexpected.

The batting order is upside down :D

Well, it's getting to four. Probably not past lunch though, unless Sachin Mahmood and Brian Leach fancy top scoring again.

If we somehow manage a lead of 100 it’s competitive

So Root has said he wants to remain captain, and clearly he’s still the best batsman we have, but questions have to be asked again where do we go from here.

Should he remain as captain, do we have another realistic option?

The fact that we don't have another realistic option is part of the problem.

There needs to be radical change, but there is nothing to change to!

Well at least the women's team are providing some cheer, particularly after looking down & out early in the group stage.

Hopefully they can turn the Aussies over in the early hours on Sunday.

Not looking likely at the moment as the Aussies scored loads. Free on Sky's YouTube if anyone wants to watch the tail end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQRStmrXumE

All done. Nat Sciver scored 148* in a losing cause, which was a brilliant effort, but nobody else got past the mid-20s. Australia too good, as we've said quite enough times this winter.

Just watching golf in US. Former player David Feherty is one of the commentators. Quote: "... his swing is like a toilet door on a prawn trawler." With his accent it made I larf  :)

Sorry, wrong sport...

Root steps down finally:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/60895801

End of an era.

End of an error.

Sorry, couldn't help myself, but I feel it is not only a bad pun but also true.  He was never Captain material, he was the batsman we needed to build around but have someone else worry about the tactics.  Trouble was, we simply haven't developed them - supporting Batsmen, or Captain material.  Not in the long game.  We seem unable to focus on more than one format - the late 90's saw big changes that resulted in the great team of 00's and then we shifted to One Day, utterly changing our approach to that game but losing focus on Test cricket at the same time.

Conflicted on his legacy - definitely right to go, but a bit odd timing wise - considering the ECB doesn't have anybody making decisions in it at the moment and seven weeks before the first test. You'd have thought he'd want to have a chat with the new coach before making a decision, but perhaps they have someone lined up and he's been given the nod.

Legacy then - completely agree he was a bad tactical captain on the field and in selection. In particular, he couldn't captain spinners at all (despite being a fairly good one himself) and continually broke his fastest bowlers. I have some sympathy with his lack of captaincy experience when he got the job, but he didn't really improve as he got that experience either.

However, he was very good at the non-tactical parts of being captain. The players clearly liked him - even the ones who could reasonably not have - his batting was still absolutely exceptional and he was a great 'ambassador' for the team - easy to sniff at that sort of stuff but during Covid especially it must have been fucking hard to remain as professional as he did at all times.

The right time to stop being captain. Maybe he'd have gone earlier if there was an heir apparent - the best captain of my lifetime (Hussain) could do that because Michael Vaughan was ready. There's nobody ready now, and we'll probably have to go for a short term "do it for the summer and we'll see" type appointment - to be honest England could do with a bit of picking for the now and not just constantly planning "for" the next ashes.

I hope he plays on for many years as a specialist bat and scores a ton of runs.

That last sentence is key for me.  Not only should he now focus on being the star specialist batsman for this team, but the ECB should ensure whoever takes charge does not lean on him and his experience.    Wouldn't normally say that, but he should be insulated from having to worry about anything bar racking up hundreds.

I share your rating of Hussain's captaincy.  He never quite had the quality of squad that Vaughan came to enjoy.  I don't think anyone could say that Root has been blessed in that regard either.  What Hussain did bring to the table was a results-based outlook that applied to EVERY match and series - well beyond the Ashes clashes.  

Start to have success in tours of the likes of Pakistan - or these days, the Windies - and you may find the time comes when you have a squad ready for the flashier series.

Surely they have to pick a captain for the long term.
I’ve seen Stokes & Broad mentioned but can’t see the point in either of those.
Stokes really doesn’t need the extra attention or hassle.
Broad is too close to the end of his career.

If they are going to pick an older player for a few years then maybe Bairstow, or maybe they can go for a non playing captain

Bring in someone who is currently outside of the England set up.

Its a Brierley moment for England again.

We need a complete shake up. Stokes or Broad would be a case of 'more of the same', but who to go for? Potentially Sam Billings as a specialist wicket keeper/captain? Or James Vince, who isn't really good enough? Eoin Morgan is too old, his back wouldn't last and he's not good enough for Test cricket.

Difficult one.

Stop all the Test matches and focus on making the County league teams stronger with young English talent which will reap the rewards later on.

Difficult to win a game of cricket if you can't stop the ball from hitting your stumps!

I've given up opening the cricket thread as it's always bad news😀

Well, England are doing a little better now, albeit Stokes had quite the let off being bowled off a no ball. It's the same old story though - Root and Stokes can bat, Broad and Anderson can bowl and the other 7 are a serious problem. Potts looks decent, similar player to Broad though. Probably more a long term replacement than a third seamer.

I think Potts has done enough to get another game

I have seen Harry Brook one. He looks technically flawed. But he is the guy in form and has scored shed loads! Why Pope is ahead of him I don't know

Crawley did the same as always

Lee's deserves another game

Stokes falls. Will more than likely be game over now.

I like the look of Potts. Should have a future ahead of him

Apparently it's a one day game.

Dancing down the pitch and trying to flick it over the keepers head.

Surprised to be proven wrong. We are favourites now, no excuses. Just go out there tomorrow and win a game of test cricket for once in your lives

The weather forecast isn't the best tomorrow

Frustrating the day ended when it did. We were strolling to victory there.

Their bowlers now have a night to rest up. If they get Root in the first few overs it's game on again.

More like 'game over' if Root is out

61 to go. To be honest, I wouldn't trust our bottom four to get more than about 20 so it still feels very evenly balanced.

Went to Lords today.  First time. 

At about 4 o clock yesterday I wasnt sure we were going to be  getting any play today so it was a real bonus and a very enjoyable day. 

This is too easy. What's happened to England?

Blimey, England won a test match

Cracking chase, excellent result. England remind me a bit of the West Indies in the late 90s early 2000s when they still had Walsh and Ambrose and Lara and Chanderpaul were brilliant but the other players weren't at the same level.

Cracking result England. Only downside to the second innings really is how cheaply Stokes chucked his wicket away. Other than that, fantastic, and Root well supported by Foakes too which must have been as nice a surprise for him as it was for us!

I know Stokes getting out was disappointing but think his innings changed the game - totally spooked Williamson into not bowling his spinner which meant his three main seamers were overbowled and got tired.

Some amusement in finding a captain worse at captaining spinners than Root mind.

Wonderful result.... Yes

Yes, just left Lords, Root was masterclass.

Just a quickie, was quite the cricket fan in the 80's and early 90's but drifted away after that.

From looking at it from the periphery, there seem to be loads of tests not lasting 5 days nowadays, is this just that England are crap, or is it that pitches are favouring bowlers much more than they used to, or just bowling is generally better?

Bit of a few things I think.

Scoring rates are higher so the game moves on faster - lots of the 'blame' for this gets given to T20 but Ponting's all conquering Aussies really started it.

Bowling is definitely better - not neccessarily the very best bowlers but the general standard.

Stats/data analysis has played a big role - batters with technical flaws or weaknesses get caught out very quickly now as people have access to videos of every dismissal they ever have. Before you used to see a batter maybe once every few years when they'd tour England, and couldn't do that much prep for newer players.

For one reason or another, a lot of the best teams in the world at the moment are stronger bowling units than batting - certainly Eng, SA, NZ and Aus. Maybe India and Pakistan have a case for being reasonably even.

As you say it was Australia that changed the game to be more aggressive and score runs quickly to try and make sure that a result was possible.

None the less the pitches have also been a factor, look at the West Indies in the winter, lifeless flat pitches and two fairly dull test matches.

Test cricket is better when the bowlers have the edge.

Nobody wants to see teams declaring on 550 runs and a draw being inevitable.

The way the game vs NZ swung back and forth is exactly how it should be.

Being bowled out on 553 isn't ideal either... think I'd take a draw from here.

Root dropping Mitchell ended up costing 187. He's about the only England bat who might actually make that back though...

Pope 100. Fair play.

When the other team scores 550 though, it makes it hard for me to get excited. Are people getting high scores because they're actually good at cricket or just because the pitch is dead? I'm going to guess the latter.

You might be right, but we’ve managed to get bowled out and lose games in those circumstances before

Both sides have dropped a lot of chances, I think the pitch is decent for batting but it's really not a road. Some good batting but mostly poor fielding. The key thing for the scores is that the outfield is absolutely lightning - as seen in the scoring rates in both innings. Been up near 4 both innings, if that's nearer 4 we probably see 450 or so playing 200/2 and consider this to be nicely poised.

200 to win in about four hours, Stokes and Bairstow in. This is going to be a lot of fun if we make it...

Can't see it. Having to take a lot of risks already.

Um.  Bairstow is making it look possible.

120 runs in 14.4 overs.

Told you it'd be fun!

2nd fastest 100 from an Englishman.

Absolutely remarkable that the one faster innings was in 1902. 1902!

Should be in the bag this. Enough time, just need to not drop wickets.

Without trying to jinx anything. What is the record for most amount of runs scored in a 1st innings to then lose the test? 553 is a colossal first innings to then lose.

595 for Bangladesh against NZ in 2017. This would be fifth on the list. Highest in, or involving England though.

Tehehee.

What a silly game. Wonderful, but deeply silly.

Wow! Shocked.

Buffet bowling to Bairstow. If they'd just tried to get him out, they probably would have!

Missed it all. Walked through the door just after we scored the winning runs!

I'd of been interested to see the odds of England winning after NZ's first innings!

The fact we did it with over 20 overs to spare too. Bonkers stuff.

Knife edge stuff this. The form that Bairstowey is in anything around the 200-250 mark to chase is do-able.

I’d be happy chasing 300-350.

It would certainly be exciting!

Feeling good about this. Rooty is due a score and we’ve got the most in-form batsman in the entire world ever still to come in Bairstowey

Just accidentally watched some of yesterday’s highlights and I have to say Vaughan’s commentary regarding Stokes’ dismissal was embarrassing. You could hear the co-commentator (Agnew?) trying to reel him in but he just kept going.

Can you elaborate? What did Vaughan say?

Along the lines of ‘that’s absolute rubbish from Stokes’ (which it was) but it was the tone that got under my skin. He almost sounded gleeful and it felt like there was a bit of nastiness to it. I felt that the co-commentator didn’t take kindly to it either.

Absolutely stunning result today, again. First team to chase 250+ in three consecutive tests. All played in great spirit too, clearly a lot of mutual respect out there between the two teams. Good to feel proud of the England test team again

I'm surprised NZ are the 'best team in the world'.

I still think England's batting line up is frail. I also don't think they bowl that well. Anderson and Broad are still coming to the end of their careers. Potts looked a prospect. Leach got lots of wickets through bowling straight balls!

I agree, but we still seem to have made some strides. Form like Bairstow’s only comes round every so often but Pope, Lees and Foakes have all made some worthwhile contributions, and there’s always the chance of Broad swashbuckling his way to a 50 (although like you said, he’s in his twilight). Oh also Overton. There’s some promising signs if nothing else.

Thanks. I’m on holiday, so haven’t been able to watch any of this test.

Vaughan has always had gobshite tendencies and has seemed to be even worse since TMS jettisoned Boycott, presumably trying to fill the "professional Yorkshire misery" role. Certainly not one I'm ever pleased to hear on commentary.

And that's leaving aside the Yorkshire racism stuff, which is not great at all.

You’ve missed one for the ages, I’m sorry to report!

.

He's only an adopted Yorkshireman. He's from Eccles originally.

He is however a test of the first order and it's a shame TMS continue to use him considering his history.

Bloody hell Bairstow. This is frightening form

Saw someone with an STFC T shirt at the county ground this evening.

If some asked me where I was most likely to see someone in a Town shirt, I think the County Ground would be top of the list....

Still trying to figure that comment out myself.

England actually stand a chance here, given their recent history. India blowing reviews left right and centre can’t hurt. Apparently Root has had 6 lbw reviews against him this summer and none of them have been successful. Just shows how desperate teams are to get him out. This will be another fun run chase one way or the other!

Next two wickets will be key.

If any combination of Root/Bairstow/Stokes can bat for any length of time England have a decent chance.

I read it as likley being at one of the plethora of cricket County Grounds, so Taunton perhaps?

Somerset v Surrey yesterday evening.

Posted in the cricket thread.

Don't see many wearing STFC apparel in Taunton Deane.

Wasn’t Vic Morgan was it, he was there with a friend of mine

👍

Rooty passes 50 and Bairstowy is ticking along nicely too (yet another 50!) Ninth biggest run chase in test history in the offing? Bairstowy and Rooty certainly seem to think so

It’s gonna happen. Bazzball is something else.

Didn't see him, no.

The players don't even seem that surprised by it. Crawley seemed to be saying that once the bowlers did their job the team were perfectly happy with the total they were chasing.

Even if England fail to chase this total (and I think it’s ok to say we are now favourites to do so) it’s certainly refreshing to see this level of confidence running through the team. The real pudding will be if we can take this newfound confidence overseas

It's properly mind blowing. It's like Kevin Keegan's "we'll just score more goals than they do" philosophy not only worked, but led to teams scoring 6-8 goals a game regularly. Can't help feeling it'll come very unstuck on spicier pitches, but it's an enormous amount of fun right now.

Perfect start. These two are in cruise control at the moment

Root with his hundred

So easy too.

Honestly it's like watching a different sport. Chases of ~300 in the final innings are like, 10-20% chances. We're going to do four in a row, all of them at an absolute canter.

Bairstow with the century.

n.n.n.n.nineteen to go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3bl4xaFZMM

7 to go. 12 scored in 90 seconds!

Ridiculous sport.

Boom! What a final innings pairing

I looked at this the other day and thought best we could hope for was a draw. Gobsmacked to see we won.

Can scarcely believe that. They’d have chased down 500 if they had to today. Really astonishing performance

A sensational transformation. As previously said; we need to see what this team can do abroad. I very much fancy us to win the next Ashes.

Massive one Friday, Potterne (A) in the wallop. Plucky underdogs vs the Gaiger's machine. Letsby Avenue. 

Why was this 5th test postponed to this year from last, covid outbreak?

T20 finals day next Saturday. Went to one before, think it was 2014. Good laugh.

Yup, in the India camp, couldn’t field a team

That's a very generous interpretation of what happened. Actually the whole team delivered negative tests in the week prior to the test. The only person that tested positive was the physio. However the game was within a couple of weeks of the restart of the IPL, and a load of the squad got scared they'd miss a big pay day and refused to play and fucked off home.

Yes. I was under the impression it was down to the IPL. India should have been punished. That said they were yesterday…

Oh, I didn’t read past the headline after googling it. Well that’s bullshit and they should have lost the test by default. Money talks, no integrity

That's quite some statement considering the abject performance just 6 months ago!

This team have a lot more than we had. It’s a home series next year. I think we will demolish them.

Looking forward to Saturday night

_______________

Is it June or late September
Is it 1993
Could you help me to remember
Is this how I'm supposed to be

Sometimes I think the pain blows my mind
Pain blows my mind.

Did you ever get those cigarettes
And did you get anything for me
Will you help me to remember
When I fall into the sea.

Sometimes I think the pain blows my mind
Pain blows my mind.

Superb record breaking night at the County Ground

It was amazing to watch on TV. Must have been superb in the ground, even if you were in a bit of danger from the ball being repeatedly walloped in your direction.

The County Ground is made for 20 over cricket.

Rossouw has been a great signing.

The screening of Mama Mia?  :soapy tit wank:

Gotta love T20 finals day.  Hopefully, SCCC go one better this year.

Fingers crossed. Think the bowling attack looks a bit weak, but the batting could chase anything..

Perhaps not.

Disappointing but the RLC is up next

Hampshire did well in the final

England lost the t20 and 1 day series at home to India.

Feeling the loss of Morgans captaincy? or India just better?

India have some bowlers who can take wickets.

Guess who had tickets for day 4  :bye:

Is Lindsey in charge?

In the grand tradition of English test cricket, we've reacted to a shit batting performance by dropping a bowler - Potts out, Robinson in. Crawley clings on.

In all fairness, Robinson gives us more with the bat than Potts does

Averages 9 in tests and 19 first class, he probably is better than Potts but not by a great deal. He's not like bringing in Wales (he's injured) who genuinely does outperform our batters most of the time!

Well, that went well. South Africa always looked to have quite the tail, especially without Jansen. Now to see if England can improve on their last couple of efforts.

Off to SA in February, would have liked to see one of the matches but sadly the only one still to play is an ODI at Centurian which is on the the other side of the country from where we will be staying, just my luck.

Ive got tickets for day 3 on Saturday so Im hoping it goes that far!

If not as we're up there it'll be off to Stockport.

This Nortje fella is very, very handy. 91mph reverse swing. Good luck lads.

Rabada up the other end isn't half bad either.

Both these sides are 5x better at bowling than batting, so you might well see the end of it on Day 3!

Their bowling has improved a great deal since our last tour down there. Rabada and Nortje from memory were made to look very ordinary, now look ideal for English conditions

England making very hard work of this. Fuck sake

Did you expect anything less? We always do.

It looks a tight finish looking at BBC website.

Its good fun. 3 needed from 5.

Won it.

Woakes. Phew

Easy🤣

Ravi Bopara just said that was comfortable! What a cucumber

No-one better under pressure than Ben Stokes, regardless of the format.
What a man.

He is absolutely brilliant

It always amazes me how often it comes down to the last few balls of the last over.

Never in doubt.

No, England just trying to make it exciting 😉

Quick wicket for England. India 9-1

Going well so far, not absolutely delighted to see the spinners doing well...

Good start from England chasing 169

Piece of piss, this!

Is there a fire drill...

Well this has gone unusually well.

Walk in the park.  Unfortunately I'll be heading to Heathrow during the final, bugger.

A joy to watch that.

Forecast is pretty grim, so might be reserve day on Monday... when the forecast is also grim.

Holy Mackerel Batman, that was some performance. Absolutely blew them away

On it right from start of batting and never let up

Jesus forecast is horrendous for the foreseeable future in Melbourne. What the hell happens if its wash out after washout?

Anyone know of any decent watchable highlights?

All the YouTube offerings are very amateurish.

About as good as it gets

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kmvoyww-lU

BBC Sport has highlights

Excellent, thanks

My pleasure😀

Barmy army, barmy army, barmy army, come on England.

Rain on the way. I think I’m right in saying it goes Duckworth Lewis if England get to ten overs.

eek.

From the bbc:

DLS par at this stage is 50. It's not raining.

England on top

10 overs - DL now in play if we can't finish.
approx 6 an over required

And England still nicely ahead of par

Brook gone having contributed a useful 20

On a charge. England huge favourites now

Done!

England first team to hold both world cups at the same time. Absolutely awesome, well done England!

cometh the hour, cometh the Stokes

Every time. Surely one of England's greatest one day players

Excellent and a fantastic achievement :clap: now let's get the test team sorted.

Greatest players full stop - his test innings haven’t been bad either!

His overall record is actually really not all that in any format, but he's just the absolute man for a final or a clutch moment. He's Didier Drogba, rather than Cristiano Ronaldo. And I love him for that.

What a game, feel hugely for Shaheen getting injured there because that was going to the wire.

Agreed. Just one of those rare sportsmen who seem to love the pressure.

Stokes is very good & time will tell where he fits in with the greats

There is always a bit of recency bias when looking at current players

This is just my opinion, but I think greatness should be defined by what you’ve achieved, not how ‘technically’ good you are. I’d say Stokes has already achieved greatness just on the back of his exploits three years ago and this morning. A bit like how Muhammad Ali is the ‘greatest’ despite not being the ‘best’. Know what I mean?

Simply wonderful sporting fixtures this weekend in this of the World with differing results.
Firstly the womans Rugby world cup final. Totally fantastic played with great skill and was wonderful and an example of how sport was meant to be played.
Then followed 24 hours later by a superb game of 20 over cricket.
The result of both games could have gone either way
Credit to all players and everyone involved
Wonderful entertainment.

A lot fairer argument in a one vs one sport than it is in a team one though.

Pitch might have been a bit two paced but restricting Pakistan to 137 is what actually won that Final, imo.  Take a bow Adil Rashid and Sam Curran.  3-12 off 4 in a 20:20, just wow.

England absolutely smashing the hell out of the ball at the moment. Second fastest team to reach 300 in tests apparently.

I don't follow Cricket that closely these days, but we seem to veer at the moment from brilliant to pretty crap.

Looking at this and the score so far, if they get a wriggle on after tea they could declare and have a few overs at the other side before the close, albeit I assume its a very batting friendly pitch.

This is remarkable stuff. At the moment it feels rather like McCullum has just... broken test cricket. It's like a football manager had come in and suddenly every game was 10-6 or 9-2 or something, win or loss, just completely out of the pattern of 150+ years of historic cricket scoring patterns.

England are going to score 500 in a day if light doesn't bring an early close here. Maybe even if it does! It's absolutely remarkable.

As friendly as I'm sure the pitch is, and as poor as I'm sure the Pakistani bowlers have been, this is still an absolutely batshit innings so far. This test team are going places.

Whats up with the pitch here? Doesn't a bad pitch usually mean more difficult to bat on?

I think in the common cricket parlance (and I could be wrong) you'd say a 'bad pitch' is one that offers too much to either the bowlers or the batters. The score here would suggest that this is a 'bad pitch' because its too flat, massively favoring batting over bowling. Can't know for sure though as I've only been following the updates rather than watching.

England have had three of their nine fastest test centuries ever *today*

Bloody Nora.

I can't see any suggestion in the updates that the bowling has been that bad so assume its just a flat pitch with favourable atmospheric conditions for batting as well.

I see that Stokes has/had 34 off 15 balls!

That was absolutely superb to watch. It may not be the traditional way to play a Test Match, but it’s so entertaining to watch.
We will get hammered at some point, but I’m definitely enjoying the new England.

The bowling has been a bit loose, but not terrible. The fielding has been quite poor, but the outfield is lighting fast, the pitch is flat and England have had an absolute stormer.

Sickness bug in the camp beforehand apparently, such that the start time was in doubt.
England definitely still had the runs.

Danger of this heading towards a draw then. Bat out as much as you can tomorrow and hope to force a follow on. If Pakistan avoid the follow on that is when it may be in trouble for a draw.

England might just win this. Very ballsy declaration, very un England (until recently). If we somehow skittle them it’ll be a remarkable win on a pitch such as this

Our bowling has become increasingly innovative too. TMS saying England are bowling shorter than has ever been recorded in a test match, and already yielded two wickets. What’s the betting the next wicket comes from a Yorker?

Jesus fucking Christ. Absolutely unbelievable win

What a finish that was. How have England rustled up a cracking game on that absolute shit tip of a pitch? It wasn't turning or doing anything else after tea on Day 5.

To conjure a win like that from a flat, dead pitch, incredible.

For a while there that declaration looked to be one level of aggression too far. But the stones on this team is something else, they don't appear to be afraid of anything. Completely changing the way test cricket is played right now, very fun times indeed.

Just read this on TMS:

More from Mohammad Rizwan on his dismissal by James Anderson:“It was a masterclass, I love him. I had no answer to his question”

Sums up the spirit that this series has been played in. Good stuff, warms my heart

This England team is so much fun. Love it

Fun, absolutely. Even if England had narrowly lost the first and second tests, we'd have still been thoroughly entertained! Which on Pakistan pitches, isn't always the case (see - Pakistan 0-1 Australia series recently).

But the more pertinent point is that England have now won 8 out of 9 test matches under the leadership of Baz McCullum and Ben Stokes - against New Zealand, India, South Africa... and now Pakistan AWAY. An amazing turnaround and so enjoyable to watch.

England are just taking the piss now. Ridiculous.

Some good performances especially Harry Brooks.
But can't explain the Brisbane test between Australia and South Africa on a green wicket
Over in two days and Edgar feeling if they had got 50 more runs they would have been in with a shout.

Hats off to Rehan Ahmed for taking 5 wickets on his debut and giving us hope for many years to come.

Did you see the item with Shane Warne watching him in the nets when he was 13 ?

I've only just seen that and amazing that Shane Warne spotted his talent at such a young age.

I love that Stokes stuck him in to bat at no.3.

Not sure how I feel about that. Strangest nightwatchman decision ever, the fact that it was his day, or a piss take?

I think Stokes wanted to give him some time at the crease. The game was as good as wrapped up so he knew it didn’t matter if he got out quickly. There was so much batting left that it really didn’t matter that he went for (I think) 10

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p0hzG6KJ0mE (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p0hzG6KJ0mE)

This on my feed this morning

Could have been a very good bit of man management. Noticed that Ahmed was right in the centre of the post match series win team photo. Making him feel an integral part of the team perhaps?

(https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/onesport/cps/976/cpsprodpb/E0B7/production/_128072575_gettyimages-1450508959-1.jpg)

I reckon so! Gives a good impression to any youngsters in line to be put into the team too. Stoke’s man management and all around persona has been extremely impressive

He was the first player Stokes handed the trophy 🏆 to as well. Clearly making a proper effort to make him feel part of the team.

Sums up his vision for the team

Do you think Root is looking at Harry Brooks thinking "couldn't you at least wait until I've finished setting England run and century scoring records before you set about destroying them?"

 It's hardly polite is it?

Some player, isn’t he?
Looking forward to tonight’s play, should be an entertaining watch.

Either that or he's thinking 'where the fuck was this guy when I was captaining a bunch of useless fuckers 18 months ago?'

Bloody hell are England fun to watch at the moment.

Joe Root reverse scooping his fourth ball of the day for six. It's incredible, they've broken a sport that has been broadly the same stylistically for a century or more.

Marvellous effort that.  We've reinvented test cricket. 

That was insane. What a player. What a knock.

Probably the most thrilling test match I’ve ever seen. Definitely should have been a wide at the end, but fair play to the Kiwis. Crazy, crazy stuff.

To my eye the way Ollie Pope bats and just his presence at the crease, he might as well be Ian Bell

Not sure Ian Bell came out of his crease as much!

Sadly, a game between the second best funded test side in the world and a side that literally can't afford to play red ball cricket is going exactly as you'd expect. 

True! But when he plays the classy, traditional test shots it look so Bell.

Good run out for England despite the inevitable quality of the opposition for the reason you point out. Get back into that aggressive groove

It's the balls he plays at that Bell would have left that's the difference. Pope's not quite as gung-ho as Duckett, who'll taken a swing at anything that isn't signalled wide, but he still goes after stuff that Bell would have happily watched go passed.

Mind you Bell might have played differently under this set up.

More interested in Glos vs Surrey at the mo!

Great start by Glos. Throwing it away with their batting. Now a potentially tight finish!

More importantly both Glamorgan and Somerset have won! That's 5 from 5 and max points for Somerset.

Great game.

Got tickets to watched them v Middlesex, Sunday and again v Kent in a couple of weeks.

I don’t follow the minor counties! 😂

Remind me what LV CC Division are Gloucestershire playing in currently? And how many games have they won?

They are in the division with the highest number. They have won two.

Slightly more frenetic at the crease than Bell was. Especially early on in his innings, like a cat on a hot tin roof

Nah they've won some blast games, they're P5 W0 D4 L1 in the CC. Which to be fair is more reflection of the "wisdom" of organising a red ball league that plays 4 day games and overlaps with a period when a bunch of the most attacking batter s and bowlers are off playing franchise cricket, and the weather's a bit unpredictable. No surprise that 70-80% of games end in draws and league positions are determined currently by the handful of games that reach a conclusion.

We’re off to the cricket today, not Lords but Spye Park :)

Ben Stokes - the first winning captain not to bat, bowl or keep wicket in a Test match!

Do they still have a tree in the middle of their pitch?

I signed up with Howzat! - the firm that arranges trips for England away tours. They want £8000+ per person for this winters tour of the Windies. Includes tickets for all one-day and T20 games. 21 day tour.

Can’t work out if that’s good value or not.

Did you want to do every game?

There are options to pick and choose a few games if you wanted to do it cheaper.

I’ve been looking through these - https://gulliverstravel.co.uk/event/england-cricket-tour-west-indies

Yep, have a nice new clubhouse (well not new now but better than the one when I played there in the 80s).

Leach out of the Ashes. Shit news, both for him personally and the team as a whole. As far as I know we have absolutely zero spinners who have anything like the experience in the England Test side he does. Joe Root to be our spin attack?

Wouldnt be surprised if they ask Moeen Ali to come back for the Ashes. That will cover Leach and also help balance if Stokes can’t bowl.

Good point, didn’t occur to me.

I also forgot about Adil Rashid, who may not have the same level of experience as Leach or Ali but at least has some test pedigree. Also, what was the name of the young mystery spinner we took to New Zealand?

Perhaps it’s not as bleak as I initially thought

Rehab Ahmed I think you mean. Stokes and McCullum think very highly of him. In fact I think Shane Warne even made comments about his future. But the Ashes  tests are a long way above the standard he has exprrienced

Would be worth a punt though for the first test I reckon. Sink or swim

Really sad for Leach, man has no luck at all.

No obvious replacement. Rehan would be fun but a risk you break him permanently because the Aussies would absolutely go for him. A Jacks/Dawson would be more safe but I don't think either are better spinners than Joe Root is.

Moeen would be a great story and I love the bloke, but I don't think he's bowled with a red ball for years - Rashid even more so.

Usually hate not playing a spinner, but I think based on the resources available and Stokes having an ongoing knack, I'd go four seamers and spin from Root. From the options available (i.e. I can't drop Crawley!)

Crawley
Duckett
Pope
Root
Brook
Stokes
Bairstow
Robinson
Wood
Broad
Anderson

Bloody good team that Nemo.

I’ve been torn whether to go without a spinner, but for the reasons you’ve mentioned I would also go without.
Rashid is injured anyway I believe, and Moeen has been out the test side for too long.

Give me Four grand Aud and I'll gladly sort it for you  :pint:

Moeen has had a call from Stokes according to the BBC. Probably the best we can hope for is if he comes back for the Ashes, but I’d still be happy to see Ahmed given a go

Must have been VOIP. 😂

Whoopsie!

Moeen it is then.

Makes sense, definitely improves our batting line up too.

I’m all for it. Brings a bit of X Factor too

Oz looking ominous in the WTC so far, England will need to bowl better than India have so far. 

India bowled beautifully for the first hour or so yesterday, but since then they've been... poor. Not picking Ashwin is a strange one, he's just too good to sit out surely?

Strange decision for sure, surely everyone wants the ranked number one test bowler in the team. The green pitch affected decision making there I'd guess.

Some decent progress this morning and it will be interesting if India can bowl Aus out for say 450ish and match it. The weather isn't getting in the way so plenty of time still. I'm firmly team India so I'm happy to see some wickets go this morning but Australia still in control you'd think.

Everything about this game is giving me the serious heebie jeebies ahead of the Ashes.

Not watched any of this but going to the first day next Friday, looking forward to it.

I'm no cricket expert but India seems a lot better preparation than Ireland.

Right then, Ashes on Friday. Think both teams are coming into this series stronger than they have in years - Aus have the top three batters in the world rankings (Marnus, Smith, Head) in their middle order, plus four or five excellent seamers. England have a bit less convincing on paper, but keep being brilliant on grass. It could, should be a cracking series.

Predictions? I'm thinking 3-2 Australia, I can't see draws with this England team. Boland to be the star bowler for them, Robinson for us. I think that Aussie middle order are going to score a lot of runs.

To quote a certain TEF member.

Piece of piss - 4.1

Really looking forward to it, I am worried about Bairstows lack of cricket as well as Moeens lack of red ball cricket.
But I just don’t think you can predict anything with this England team.

Should be good.  Got tickets for a day at Headingley and a day at Old Trafford sorted.  Really looking forward to it.

 

3-1 to the Aussies. Their prioritisation of test cricket will pay dividends, especially in contrast to the opposite approach by the ECB.

It’s still blows my mind, that jimmy is still bowling and playing to this high a standard at 40 years old! It’s remarkable! What a bloke!

3-1 Aussies one rain effected draw.

I'm going on Sunday.

I predict either a) a rain filled day or b) I'll be getting pissed whilst watching Steve Smith grind out a double century.

I think we'll miss Wood's pace, but understand the difficulty in dropping one of Anderson, Broad or Robinson. Interested to see where Mooen slots into the batting order.

Looking forward to the series, I think it'll be close.

Hope Steve Smith still gets plenty of stick😆

Been a very long time since I’ve been this excited about a series of test cricket. No matter what transpires, even if we get trounced, this is all due to Bazball

I'm usually very excited about the Ashes until about 11:30 AM in the first test! Feels like this one should be more enjoyable and for longer though.

What, until we are all out for less than 200 by lunch on the first day? 😂

It’s finally here.  :pint:
Got today and Monday off work, so I won’t be moving much over the weekend. Then I’m off to Lords for day 1.

Be interesting to see what Stokes does if he wins the toss, he’s tended to want to chase but the wicket looks very flat.

England win the toss and choose to bat.

Interesting considering we've bowled first pretty consistently on every deck under Stokes. First sign of things changing, or is it just mega flat?

Sounds like it’s very flat. We will declare before tea on 500+.  ;)

Good to see Smith still getting booed

When England have bowled first in a couple of Ashes campaigns the first delivery defined the series, and not in a good way for England.
Batting first might not be a bad idea.
Will the top order be able to withstand the pace for the first hour or so.

First ball cracked away for 4

He thrives on it, just like Warner

Good start

https://twitter.com/englandcricket/status/1669618600292777990

For non-Sky customers, you can watch the whole thing for free just 15 minutes behind, which is pretty cool.

Nathan Lyon gives me Luke Warm vibes

Crawley edges one to the keeper and nobody appeals

Beautiful!

Australia take that session with the Crawley wicket for me. Great entertainment though. Very deep middle order for England though, and with both Mo and Broad being able to score runs this is very nicely balanced. Come on England!

Harry Brook has so much talent. I played with a guy who played with him in the age groups and said he was something special about five years ago, but I didn't quite see this coming. Just scores runs so easily.

He even gets out in remarkable ways.

Has Stokes hit a score since he’s been captain?
I get how he wants to play etc, but he’s been pretty hopeless with the bat as captain.

Right I am going to stop checking the score on the BBC website, literally every time I open the tab we lose a wicket!

Yeah there's an irony in him being the only player who hasn't improved dramatically under his own captaincy. But it'll come.

Wobbling somewhat here..

Not hitting a score with the bat and injury meaning he can’t bowl as much as he would like isn’t a good look though, is it?

Root reverse sweeps for four, then tries again with the next ball and gloves it into his pads (given out but Root wins on review), then he reverse sweeps for a four the next ball. Loved that

Up to Edgbaston for the fourth day on Monday. Was always in my mind that it might noy get pass the third day with bazball, but Sunday's weather forecast could be mean off-on sessions to prolong it so we shall see.

And after tea he reverse scoops Boland for six. Lovely stuff.

Work of art when he gets that right. Such a clever shot

Weirdly low risk as well, he does it to the wider ball so he won't get bowled and even if he doesn't catch that cleanly no slip on earth is catching it. Unless there's a third man in, worst case scenario is a dot.

Agree. He’s have to REALLY fuck it up to get out, and we are talking about Joe Root so that’s not happening.

Bairstowy and Rooty steadying the ship. Shock

Bairstow dropped (would have been a worldie if caught). Then start creaming it around again. I love him

Can somebody give us a score update, as per the earlier message I don't dare look on the BBC!

300-6...

Type in Ashes live score

Currently 310/6  64overs

Still need another 150 from this innings for it to be a par/good score methinks

Bazball coming into play. Filthy shots and more coming.

393/8D

England declared to give themselves 30 minutes bowling at the Aussies and with a new ball to follow.

England declare on 393.
 
Wow

A declaration! To get a few overs in tonight! Fucking unbelievable.

391-8 at close at over 5 an over. Ok, we could have shed less wickets. But this is Bazball through and through. Pleased with the score. And Joe Root. Wow

Easy tiger, it’s not close, it’s a declaration! My bad. I went for a fag. Wow. Never seen that before.

At least get the 400 up. But,maybe a master stroke

Caught me by surprise!

https://twitter.com/bbctms/status/1669753418431311899/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1669753418431311899&currentTweetUser=bbctms

Not the biggest Phil Tufnell fan. But this reaction is brilliant. One of the most bonkers and yet completely sane things I’ve ever seen on a cricket field, that declaration

Is Root the best England batsman ever? Yes. Yes he is

Warner snaffled by Broad once again. 29-1

Marnus first ball!

Broad on a hat trick!

You can't beat a bit of wobbly seam.

Smith looking rather agitated out there. England on top

Stokes gets Smith leg before.

Bowling skipper!

I was convinced that was high. Get in Stokes-ey!

I love listening to Bairstow-ey behind the stumps when Mo is bowling.

‘Goodness me!!’

‘Gosh!’

‘Wow!’

Aussies seem to be piling the runs on.

Need a flurry of wickets now. Pressure back on the Oz

Could do with a wicket before tea

Yesterday was absolutely brilliant, the Hollies is one of the greatest stands I've every seen let alone been involved in.  One of the best sporting days out I've ever had. Such a shame us football fans can't be trusted to drink in the stands.  Great cricket was the cherry on top.

What I like about cricket is the banter, plenty of humour and piss taking without the nastiness of a Football match and appreciation also shown to the opposition.

Exactly, we were all ripping each other to pieces and everybody took it in the way it was intended, great friendly banter.  I was sat next to a few older Aussies, they were actually very quiet and seemed to be there more for actually concentrating on the cricket, think they enjoyed the day, hope so.

Is it a long day being inside the stadium over 7 hours?

I remember going to a Glos v Somerset Sunday League game at Bristol & it rained most of the day.
So we spent quite a lot of it in the Jessops Tavern where the fans of either side were having a Pool match between them. There was much beer (and cider) flowing and lots of singing & banter flying around but no hint of a fight breaking out.

The irony being that most of them were City & Rovers fans and wanting to kick the shit out of each other a few months later

Good story posh! I'm surprised more locals don't go to Bristol when Gloucestershire are playing there as it's a decent day out.

Really looking forward to my day at Lords, haven’t spent the last 2 days sat in my ass watching in front of the TV.

I’m off to Gloucestershire v Kent tonight in the 20/20. Hopefully a bit of evening entertainment and a good game.

Should be a good night if the predicted showers stay away.

Not at all although it felt like it sometimes when queuing for beer, I joined 1 queue with about 6 ppl in front of me and it still took 40 minutes to get served, bit of a shambles in that regard.  Like I say though in the stands themselves flew by, especially once the Hollies was rocking.

Oh, and the group behind us, it turns out, came to the bar I run in the Alpes in March, hopefully they'll return this winter coming.

It sounds like you had a cracking day Tom how did you get there train or other means🤔

Via car to Geneva, flight to Luton, bus to MK then train to New Street, was a long day.  Just done similar on the way back except two train changes and flying from Gatwick, need to drive again now which is about 2.5 hours.  I do have some left over curry from last night to look forward to once back rhough

Wow that's dedication 😀

Ultimately a very disappointing day 2. Broad’s no-ball was shocking and Foakes wouldn’t have made the mistakes that Johnny did. But still have a lead and the game is finely poised, it’s been one helluva test match for the neutral. Come on England!

Really disappointing day 2 after winning the first session. Carey, Khawaja, alongside some lower order blows from Cummins and Lyon should be able to get the Aussies to parity, or a little bit ahead. Third innings are never easy and on a pitch offering something to the spinners, Lyon fancy his chances. The Bairstow missed stumping, dropped catch and Broad no ball summed up how that last session went. Very nervous for today

I'm not too down, a few things went wrong yesterday but chances are being created, it's not like the Aussies look completely dominant at any point. As hard as the third innings could be, the fourth will be worse. The Aussies will need a proper lead, a 20-30 isn't going to cut it.

True, but then again, think Lyon in the third innings will be more threatening than Ali in the fourth, just due to his consistency. Still, you’d like to think Crawley, Duckett, Pope, Root, Brook, Stokes and Bairstow have enough to get us a healthy lead. Australia have a poor record chasing fourth innings, especially in England

Bairstow isnt helping himself in the Foakes debate, is he?
I just can’t see who you drop to get Foakes in after Bairstows innings with the bat.

To play devils advocate he scored 78, but the missed stumping & dropped catch have probably cost more.
Obviously that’s a sample of one innings but it’s clearly something that needs to be thought through

Really tricky one. Can’t see how either of the openers can make way, Bairstow has to stay in for his batting and the same with Brook. We don’t have to talk about Root. We can’t have one less seamer with our aging attack. I think all things considered, we have to stick with Bairstow behind the stumps and hope this is just rust, which to be fair, it could well be

Pretty much echo my thoughts.
Crawley was the one up for debate before his innings, and he certainly can’t be dropped after that.

Also have to take into account that not dropping players seems like a cornerstone of Bazball. I think if there was a painfully obvious way to get Foakes in even that would be put to the test, but seeing as there isn’t, I fully expect we’ll stick with Bairstow

I also question if the deceleration was too early why not try for 450 and still have the new ball in the first session of the second day.

I don't think the declaration was a cricketing decision, ultimately. It was an expression of intent to stamp Bazball on the world of cricket. Regardless of the outcome. I like it

Maybe but at the moment it dosen't look like it's paid off. Also with the thundery atmospheric conditions we have to expect the ball to move a lot which could be a problem if we get to bat later this afternoon.

I agree. It was always a risk. But we’d probably be saying it paid off if Broad didn’t no ball and Bairstow didn’t fluff three opportunities. I’m not a fan of ‘whatabouterry’ but if we lose this test, it won’t be because of the declaration any more than it’ll be because of England cocking up four regulation chances.

My worry now are the conditions playing into the Aussies hands and we collapse in the second innings. Hope I'm wrong!

If those 4 chances are taken, or even if 2,3 of them were, the declaration looks like a genius move.

Fine margins I guess, sometimes they work others they don't but the match is finally balanced.

What I’m doing as a fan is trying to buy into the ‘fuck it! If we lose, we lose entertaining!’ mentality of Bazball. I’d rather we lost being innovative and actually doing something interesting rather than limping and whimpering to getting battered like normal. We might lose this test, we might lose the next. I think we need to get fully behind this madness 😁

Spot on even I used to struggle watching Test cricket when Atherton was captain.

Eugh. Don’t remind me

Historically what would be a good second innings lead on that wicket for the Aussies to chase any idea🤔

Not a clue.

Nemo?

Robinson gets one. I love how Stokes plays with the field to confuse the batsman when the surface is saying nothing

1. 378/3 by England vs India, 2022

Only twice had a team previously chased down a target of 200 or more on this ground. England, under new management, wrote another chapter in their wonderful story that is the Summer of 2022, smashing 378/3 to level the series 2-2 against India.

Before that

2. 283/5 by South Africa vs England, 2008

South Africa between 2006 and 2015 were a team to behold. Their away record in that period was a hallmark of a great team, and one such great victory was at Edgbaston in 2008. Graeme Smith’s magnificent 154* was too good for an England attack that included James Anderson and Andrew Flintoff.


3. 211/3 by England vs New Zealand, 1999

England enjoyed some wonderful run chases against New Zealand at Lord’s, Trent Bridge and Headingley in 2022. They also enjoyed a solid run chase way back in 1999, which remains the only other occasion a team tracked down 200+ to win a Test on this ground.

Lead of 7 runs game on😀

On paper, we’ve won the first innings. They’ve scored less, and taken longer to do it. But the game almost restarts now. If we can stifle Lyon, we should win

Fingers crossed but somehow I reckon the weather will play a part!

Lead of 320 ish should be enough. Won’t be easy to bat third innings, but Aussies will not be looking forward to bat on this deck in the fourth innings. Uneven bounce should come into play hopefully, and with the pitch starting to turn, have to hope Ali can bowl, and bowl well.

Honestly I can't see us getting a lead that high. If we do I'm sure it'll be a winning score. I'll be happy with 250-280.

Realistically, neither can I, however, this is a slow, low deck, not too dissimilar from the pitches we played on in Pakistan. Obviously Australia’s bowling attack is far, far superior, but England went alright out there when setting totals on them pitches. Do agree though, would be happy with 250+

About to go off again

Terrible, terrible time to lose those wickets

Got the wrong end of conditions here.

I was a little weary of a collapse because of the conditions this afternoon

Moeen's fucked his finger, which is a predictable outcome for a man who hasn't bowled more than ten overs in years being asked to bowl 30.

Brilliant start from England, especially Root. Keep it up boys

I'm not sure how being a regular red ball bowler stops him cutting his finger?

It’s a blister isn’t it, not a cut.

More bowling over the last couple of years would have hardened the area where he’s got the blister.

Yup. If I stop playing guitar for even a few days and then pick it up again the tops of my fingers feel more sensitive

Haven't seen that, press were reporting it as a cut  initially.

Probably because the injury has been caused by the amount of bowling he has done in this match, something that he's not been used to doing for quite some time (only bowls a handful of overs in T20 cricket)

Same way that someone who hasn't picked up a guitar in years is going to shred their finger trying to play a show. Nothing to do with the colour of the ball, just volume of bowling it.

What do we think the chances of Stokes declaring at some point around tea today are? (assuming we're not bowled out).

Definitely see a declaration today, especially with tomorrows forecast.
Imagine we will try and get to around 300-350 ASAP before declaring.

DRS having a very funny day.

Tickets available tomorrow £25

Bairstow goes.
Could really do with another 80-100 here.

Now Stokes

I’m hoping for a bit more. This will be the key partnership (obviously) if we are to get a really tough score to chase

Whoops. My fault, that

All out.
Lead by 280. Very finely poised.

On a knife edge😀

A cracking game this, living up to the hype so far.

Have a feeling the Aussies are going to get these quite comfortably and win by 6 wickets, hope I’m wrong & we knock them over for under 200

This was  my worry yesterday once the weather & conditions changed.

Just saw this on the BBC TM special site, think this is going to be the difference at the end of the game unless England can improve in the field

Andy Zaltzman
Cricket statistician on Test Match Special
By my count, Australia have made 15 chances in the game and taken 12 of them.

England taken five of their 10 chances in the field.

Meanwhile, Alex Carey took nine of his 10 opportunities behind the stumps, Jonny Bairstow is on just one from five so far.

I can see the Aussies cruising to victory if the weather dosen't interrupt tomorrow

280 is a very good chase on the final day. Plenty of twists in this yet, but they have made a good start. Think I'd get Root on, pitch is turning.

What time does play end this evening is it 7pm🤔

Broad gets Marnus again. Narrative potential there.

Smith tonight and we're cooking.

1 more tonight would be brilliant.
2 more would be huge!

And now Smith!

Excellent  :clap:

Boland in as nightwatchman. Suicide

Bit of rain around this morning to make things even spicier.

Live in Birmingham and bought tickets - gotta be out the ground by 5.30. Squeaky bum time!

Doesn't look like we're going to get any play before 1pm.

With the conditions you'd like to think the three seamers can take those 7 wickets fairly comfortably, but this test match has been so back and forth you just can't tell.

Will be interesting to see how the Aussies come out and play with it looking like they’ll lose nearly a session of batting.

If we get started at about 2 or so this is going to be a stonking 50 overs or so.

2.15pm start

This is going to be good.

Decent nightwatchman contribution from Boland here

On his bike now  :D

It is a bit funny to see him scoring more than Marnus and Smith combined.

Head is a strange batter. Excellent record but he's backing off to square leg more than I do and looks about as comfortable against the short ball!

I was half way through getting cross about bringing on a one fingered Moeen on and giving them free runs... I have no idea whether Stokes is a genius, but he isn't he's super lucky and frankly, who cares which is true!

Good partnership for the Aussies… Khawaja looks like he could bat all day

98 to win, 5 wickets in hand, one long session ahead. Predictions time? I think England by five runs, but it's going to be an absolute cracker.

Hope your right and still all to play for but can see the Aussies winning with wickets in hand as conditions seem pretty good for batting.

If we can't win a test match in front of an Edgbaston crowd where Smith and Labuschagne have barely contributed with the bat, you wonder if we're capable of winning at all.

Australia for me are comfortably the better side, but Stokes the better captain. He's doing his absolute best with what he has available.

Twisty twisty, turny turny

What have you based them being comfortably the better side on?

I mean in general, not necessarily in terms of this test match.

They have the top 3 batsmen in the world, the beast seam attack in the world, a genuine world class spinner and a decent all rounder too.