Ashes II - 2013/14 - In Australia

Watched the highlights and what a great day of cricket! Fantastic from Jonhson as well. Erratic bowler but use him the the right way and he's a great weapon to have
 
England's batting (India away series aside, after the first game) has been terrible for some time. Frankly the inevitable heavy defeat might actually help and get them to actually start addressing the issue. Too often the batsmen in the past two years have been bailed out by the bowlers. Six games in now Bell aside, we've had Cook, Trott, Pieterson, Root, Bairstow, and Prior all fail to varying degrees. It's telling that in 2013 we've scored 400+ once, yet New Zealand and Australia have managed that 4 times against us. Australia's two scores in the Ashes 2013 being 492/9 and 507/7 too, way higher than we got.

Frankly I think the negative mindset has a lot to do with it. So often we're at a run rate well below 3 an over, the concern seems to be more on not getting out than actually getting runs. There's nothing particularly wrong with the slow run rate if you actually get the runs (deathly boring to watch though) but all that happens is the pressure just increases, they get more men round the bat, and eventually the pressure tells. Even our natural attackers seem to be playing like this more and more in recent times which suggests to me its more of a tactic than a mindset. The New Zealand away series was particularly bad for this, they were smashing is all over the place and we were dawdling along on the same pitches at 2.5 an over. Eventually leading to first innings deficits of 200+ in 2 of the 3 matches.

It was pretty telling in the first innings when we bought Swann in, the Aussies went to attack him from the off. When the Aussies put Lyon on, there was absolutely no attempt to score against him.
 
I've said it for a while that Cook is a negative captain and England doesn't play to it's full potential.
 
I've said it for a while that Cook is a negative captain and England doesn't play to it's full potential.

I think England need to find another captain also to get most out of Cook the batsman. He can potentially be the best English batsmen ever.
 
Abysmal shot. Another wicket thrown away in this match.
 
I think England need to find another captain also to get most out of Cook the batsman. He can potentially be the best English batsmen ever.


He will be, no questions asked.

I think the change needs to come higher up. Flower did really well, and we all appreciate him but I think its time he stepped aside maybe see if Gary Kirsten would do the job when he's not at the IPL.
 
Cook needs to be a lot more consistent before he starts getting anywhere near the real greats. He's still relatively young but at the moment he has too many of these bad periods where he gets out cheaply, then he'll have a series where he scores a century nearly every game with some giant scores. Obviously all cricketers regardless of quality have those dips intermittently, but its something for him to work at. Hopefully this is one of those dips actually, instead of those big dips in the average that come after captaincy, which we see quite commonly.

Could certainly do with him rising to the occasion here anyway, there's increasingly little concern at facing our batting line up at the moment. Even Bell as good as he was last summer retains that ability to get out to the most innocuous of deliveries, in fact I think for Bell you're much better off bowling filth at him than actually bowling well....
 
feck off Tremlett.

Stupid cnut.

Pressure building, economical bowling and you go and bowl a bouncer at medium pace first ball. Can't believe he's in the side.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Does it again and gets a wicket.
 
It's just reached that stage where there's no threat at all bowling wise. Just waiting for them to smash it around a bit before the declaration. Painful viewing.

Not sure sticking Root in in this situation is wise, they've no reason not to go after him. Just easy runs. He was destroyed in a lot of the limited overs games.
 
Good session for Australia. Warner has played well, Clarke has looked reasonably comfortable.

Unless Tremlett does something special, he really should be dropped. Has no pace at all to trouble the batters.
 
England were more than a little lucky with the timing of the rains in the last Ashes. Let's hope it doesn't happen again this time.
 
DRS seems to have been perfected, in my opinion.
 
Swann looks awful, no danger at all and milking his bowling for runs comfortably in both innings now. Compare this to Lyon who's hardly a great bowler and England couldn't get a run. A difference in mentality from the batsmen granted but there's been nothing from Swann to suggest he's going to get a wicket. Hopefully just a one game thing, crucial for him to do well given the 3rd pace bowler is a big potential weakness.

The bowling against Clarke and Warner in particular has been as unthreatening as you'll see mind. Which I guess was bound to happen given Broad is the only real wicket threat.
 
Century for Warner. Batted confidently for the most part. Well played!

Finally we have 2 players taking advantage of this flat pitch.
 
Root has looked more threatening than Swann. The Aussies have played him very well so far.
 
This is great to watch right now. Aussies scoring freely right now, with plenty of big shots
 
This is wonderful batting. It's not like Swann's bowling long hops.. he's not been threatening but they're playing him beautifully.

Clarke's used his feet very well. Generally he gets carried away with that, but playing like a dream.
 
Trott has no clue how to play Johnson. Won't last too long against him unless he changes the way he plays him
 
Pathetic stuff by Trott. People say Indian batsmen can't play shot ball but that was like watching an accident waiting to happen
 
That's one of the worst innings I have seen. Not even exaggerating there
 
Cook should've been out.
 
Great day for Australia.

I hope Trott's getting a real talking to from Flower and co
 
The media seems to be going overboard.

Calling for Trott to be dropped -- am rather undecided about that, but England don't seem to have batsmen ready for test cricket in the reserves.

Saying Swann might be finished is just extremely knee-jerk.
 
The media seems to be going overboard.

Calling for Trott to be dropped -- am rather undecided about that, but England don't seem to have batsmen ready for test cricket in the reserves.

Saying Swann might be finished is just extremely knee-jerk.


I don't think calling for Trott to be dropped is going overboard to be honest, I think he should be.


2009: 275 runs, at an average of 55
2010: 1,325 at 66.25
2011: 365 at 40.55
2012: 1,005 at 38.65
2013: 793 at 37.76 (including current Test)

This isn't bad form, this is 3 years now of pretty poor scores, and what's worrying is they're getting worse. Of course there's the argument there's not a batsmen ready to step in, but I really find it hard to see how someone can do worse than Trott is at the moment. When he comes in everyone knows there's a wicket waiting to happen, it gives them a boost, puts a load of pressure on the batsmen alongside him.
If it was just a genuine bad run of form then stick with him, but Trott, at the age of 32, is not going to correct from a weakness by the end of the series that has been glaringly obvious since the summer and if anything he's even more susceptible to it. I think it was a mistake not to bring Compton really, he could have slotted in nicely. He's been treated unfairly, he had a dreadful time of it in the home New Zealand series but he also got back to back hundreds away, and had a good county season. In India though he didn't score highly he did at least stick around for a long time allowing us to have a respectable start to our innings.
 
Saying Swann might be finished is just extremely knee-jerk.
Not entirely. He hasn't been at the level he was for years now. He's still the best we have but if there was an alternative for the test side (he's still very good in ODI's) I think they'd be pushing him. There isn't really, though.

I don't think calling for Trott to be dropped is going overboard to be honest, I think he should be.




This isn't bad form, this is 3 years now of pretty poor scores, and what's worrying is they're getting worse. Of course there's the argument there's not a batsmen ready to step in, but I really find it hard to see how someone can do worse than Trott is at the moment. When he comes in everyone knows there's a wicket waiting to happen, it gives them a boost, puts a load of pressure on the batsmen alongside him.
If it was just a genuine bad run of form then stick with him, but Trott, at the age of 32, is not going to correct from a weakness by the end of the series that has been glaringly obvious since the summer and if anything he's even more susceptible to it. I think it was a mistake not to bring Compton really, he could have slotted in nicely. He's been treated unfairly, he had a dreadful time of it in the home New Zealand series but he also got back to back hundreds away, and had a good county season. In India though he didn't score highly he did at least stick around for a long time allowing us to have a respectable start to our innings.
It's too early, I think. If he fails this badly in the next two or three, he could be dropped. I'd expect him to be given the whole series to turn it round, though, given it's not great for a young player to be thrown in to an Ashes series.
 
Averages 29 over the last 2 years, that seems pretty respectable to me. I watch England regularly and I can't remember him going through an extended bad patch.