Cricket

[Wobbly Bob]

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.

[RobertT]

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.

[Nemo]

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.

[Nemo]

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.

[Nomoreheroes]

Game over already.

[Posh Red]

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

[Hunk]

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

[Nemo]

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.

[Quagmire]

God we are shit.

[Boy About Town]

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

[Nemo]

Saved by the storm.

[Hunk]

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.

[Boy About Town]

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

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

[Nemo]

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.

[Hunk]

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