Ashes II - 2013/14 - In Australia

Playing Panesar was a good call juding by the first day's play - England probably shaded it.

Pitch looks like a 400 minimum, but you just can't rely on our top order of late so who the feck knows.
 
Is Stokes a good batsman? If so the the team has a nice balance to it

The dropped catches fecked England up. Should have been well on top
 
akash02 said:
Is Stokes a good batsman? If so the the team has a nice balance to it

The dropped catches fecked England up. Should have been well on top
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He is capable but not a test match number 6 by any stretch of the imagination IMO.
 
No ball :lol:

Nothing going for England.
 
Only got himself to blame, its atrocious for any professional to be bowling no balls. Broad seems to have a game of exactly how close he can get to a no ball when taking wickets too.
 
JulesWinnfield said:
Only got himself to blame, its atrocious for any professional to be bowling no balls. Broad seems to have a game of exactly how close he can get to a no ball when taking wickets too.
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I've never really understood why they bother pushing right up to the line half the time. very little benifit in my mind compared to the risk of missing out on a wicket or giving away free runs with bowling a NB
 
Haddin loves playing against England.

The best England can hope for here is a draw now.
 
Archie Leach said:
I guess like all professional sport they'll do anything for the tiniest of advantages.
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most likely, I think this one is daft though.

Just checked the score and Harris has done well to make the tail wag. Haven't been able to watch any of the game, but do we think England will get a similiar score?
 
Dargonk said:
most likely, I think this one is daft though.

Just checked the score and Harris has done well to make the tail wag. Haven't been able to watch any of the game, but do we think England will get a similiar score?
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Not daft. It is fraction of a second in which batsman has to make the judgement, especially for fast bowlers. The better bowler utilizes the crease, closer he is to the batsman, even though by cms. For pacers it means faster ball and for bowlers overall, it is that much of extra control, even if it is by fraction.
Sometimes, you will see some bowlers purposely bowling from a bit behind the crease if they see advantage in doing that.
 
Dargonk said:
most likely, I think this one is daft though.

Just checked the score and Harris has done well to make the tail wag. Haven't been able to watch any of the game, but do we think England will get a similiar score?
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England could bat till the end of day 5 and they'd still be struggling to reach 570.

Frankly given the shower of shite which is this batting line up I'll be very pleasantly surprised to see the follow on avoided
 
Johnson's brilliant.

Carberry looks a bit clueless against spin
 
Cook's dismissal. Very poor. Batsman of his class should not be getting castled like that. That was a good delivery but nothing unplayable.
 
Cook is woefully out of form and has been for a while now, I thought this was a draw from day one when we saw the track but it seems our bats are determined to throw away their wickets weakly.
Need at least 3 to stick around tomorrow to stand any chance of that draw now, not holding my breath though as you can be sure one of them will go early in the first session tomorrow and Pietersen will play a stupid sweep or something and go cheaply too.
Aussies have the bit between their teeth and the pundits are rolling out the old "we are under cooked" shite, fact of the matter is we have too many out of form players and it seems like we went into the series with the wrong attitude.
The warning signs were there from the last 3 tests in the summer.
 
We are pathetic :lol:

Ashes all but won now, we'll struggle to make more than 300 and we ain't winning two out of the last three tests. I'm just glad I haven't watched any of it because of the time difference.
 
Cook's averaging 32 in his last 25 innings, pathetic form. Mind you I'd be surprised if any of our batsmen are averaging over 40 (Bell aside) in that time period. The batting line up really needs a real shake up, far too many passengers. We can only let them live on reputation for so long, Pieterson's one good innings a series isn't good enough, Prior's average is something like 14 at the moment since New Zealand away, Cook never looks like staying in anymore and repeatedly goes to stupid errors...

Cook needs to step down as captain, his form was good initially but this just shows he can't do both jobs. I'm not entirely sure who'd step up mind you.

Of course the bowling isn't in great shape now either. Broad aside. Anderson's average must be over 50 since the first summer Ashes test, he doesn't even look like taking wickets and really offers very little at the moment, and Swann is awful in Australia he was pretty poor in 2010/11 but he's truly pathetic so far, whilst no one can really tie down that other bowling position. As it is I really can't see us taking 20 wickets (at least for a reasonable total), it seems every time things aren't going perfectly the bowlers just basically give up and let the game run away, everytime the opposition get over 400 they always end up declaring with some huge total. I do have some sympathy for them that the fielding really let them down, but once the game started getting away they bowled poorly.

If by some miracle they escape with a draw this game (which I really can't see us avoiding the follow on target with the incredibly slow run rate we constantly have), then I'd bring in Finn next game. I don't really like him that much but the team is crying out for someone who can at least take wickets. If Broad dries up on his form we'll be in for some truly humiliating scores. Of course this is all redundant for a team who never score above 400 and struggle to get above 300.
 
Ridiculous over-reaction.

We smashed them 3-0 at home and won in India last winter...We are only 6 days of Cricket into this tour. It's been a poor start, but feck me, resignations and declaring Swann and Jimmy past it!?

Arf!!
 
Utd heap said:
Ridiculous over-reaction.

We smashed them 3-0 at home and won in India last winter...We are only 6 days of Cricket into this tour. It's been a poor start, but feck me, resignations and declaring Swann and Jimmy past it!?

Arf!!
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And as many of us said at the time the 3-0 was not a fair reflection at all. The gap between Back in the summer, the batsmen were just as bad, Bell aside, they just got lucky that the Aussie's batsmen were also in disarray (although they still managed a couple of huge scores in the tie games). I don't know whats so bad about pointing out Swann is not up to it in Australia either? He only averaged 40 here in 2010/11 and he's been shambolic so far, they love seeing him come in to bowl a few. He played pretty well in the summer but he's clearly not worrying them at all, quite the opposite really. Anderson likewise clearly isn't much of a wicket threat at the moment, its unarguable. Since he had that great match in the opener in the summer he's been quite and is taking increasingly few wickets. I wouldn't drop him but England aren't going to bowl Australia out with 2 of their 3 main bowlers playing like those two are. Anderson might improve but Swann doesn't seem to have an answer to their aggressive tactics towards him.

The India away win is a massive odd result. The away form since the last away Ashes has been appalling. I think looking at England narrowly avoiding a series defeat to New Zealand earlier this year by a single wicket is more a reflection of our performances. We saw the same problem then as we're seeing now, New Zealand putting on huge scores with ease whilst we collapsed and made the same pitches look a minefield. There's no point burying heads in the ground over this, the same problems occur every single match nowadays. You can't keep glossing over it based on one or two star performers saving the team.
 
It beggars belief that they moved Root up, it really does, not only does he get bowled out cheaply everytime high up the order, his strike rate is shocking.

I hope we don't the traditional 20 overs of back down to less than 1 an over now because of a lost wicket. Someone needs to realise we need to reach 371 just to avoid a follow on and in 30 overs we've been running at under 2 an over?

Pieterson's due a big innings, that's about the only positive thing to say. After Bell i'd be surprised if the remaining batsmen put on 100 between them, so its pretty much the last hope's here. Big performance needed from Carberry, Pieterson, and Bell.
 
I get that Root needed to score and was trying to kick us on fine.

But jesus, hit the bad ball, don't just fecking decide you're going to slog/sweep Lyon and go fetching it from a yard outside off. Brain dead, stick to the ODI stuff with that shit.
 
England needed their batsmen to show discipline and be smart today, they've lost 2 batsmen in an hour to utterly moronic shots. Some of these players may be past their best physically and technically but they also aren't helping themselves by making such poor decisions.
 
That's it, I officially give up watching this match.

There's absolutely nothing to enjoy about England's batting. 95% relentlessly negative with 5% absolute stupidity to counter that negativity. Genuinely the most boring batting side in the world, by a distance too. Seems like we'll facing the prospect of a 3rd innings in a row with a run rate well below 3 an over which sums it all up. I'm going to leave it here and I fully expect to wake up to find us following on and 45/3 down tomorrow morning. Although frankly given the decision to play Stokes, and put Panesar in, they could easily rattle through this line up well before tea and have us in an even worse position. Reliant entirely on this partnership, if they're out before 250, we're following on.

Pieterson's just so predictable, genuinely one of the most overrated players of all time. Makes me laugh when the opposition pick him out as a danger man when he'll get him self out for you sooner rather than later 9 innings out of 10. At one time a long time ago he might have justified his reputation, but his one good innings a series, not even that sometimes, its really nowhere near good enough.
 
Absolutely embarrassing for this lot that Carberry has looked comfortable in both games. Showing up the more experienced players with the bat and not even doing anything hard.
 
Cook and Root have been too negative IMO and KP hasn't done anything this series.

Bell looks good so far.
 
Geez...WTF is up with Johnson. Last time I remember seeing him he was this inconsistent pointless bowler who would go for 4+ runs an over. He looks completely different at the moment. Quality fast bowling.
 
fecking hell Johnson! Quality fast bowling, beautiful to watch.
 
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