Paxter Posted December 18, 2017 Share Posted December 18, 2017 Once again the England tail has been blown away and the Boxing Day and NY tests will be dead rubbers. *sigh* Congrats to Australia though. There was a fair bit of talk before this series that England could be competitive but that hasn’t been borne out on the park. The bowlers in particular have been dominant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desire Posted December 18, 2017 Share Posted December 18, 2017 Oh well least England made up a decent song bout Lyon only good thing that came from them so far YAY WE WON!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hereward Posted December 18, 2017 Share Posted December 18, 2017 Heads. Spikes. Walls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeor Posted December 18, 2017 Share Posted December 18, 2017 8 hours ago, Hereward said: Heads. Spikes. Walls. The question is, whose head/s? Something that has slipped under the radar a bit is that Stuart Broad is really not holding up his end of the bowling. He has only 5 wickets in three matches, at an average of 61.80 (worst of the frontline bowlers, discounting Ali and Jake Ball who only had one game). Given that he doesn't really add much to the batting any more these days, his place should be under as much threat as Cook's. If you take 2017 as a whole, Broad has played 10 matches and taken 25 wickets at an average of 39.48. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljkeane Posted December 19, 2017 Author Share Posted December 19, 2017 I don't think either of their places are really under threat, it's just a question of whether they want to pack it in. Cook's only 32/33, while he might not be quite the player he was his problems probably aren't physical limitations. Given how long it's taken England to find another test opener since Strauss retired they'll almost certainly give him all the chances he wants. Stuart Broad's probably a bit more replaceable but he's always been streaky so him having a bad run looks less critical and there's nobody waiting in the wings who is demanding selection. ETA: I suspect Bayliss is first for the chop. It's hard to see what he's adding to the test side at this point. He's not a selector, he's not really a technical coach and he doesn't appear to be exactly imbuing the team with a rock solid resolve to win so what's he getting paid for again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeor Posted December 19, 2017 Share Posted December 19, 2017 I forget that Cook's so young. For someone to have played 150 Tests, be the leading run-scorer for your country and have captained it for five years, and yet still only be turning 33 is incredible. Under those circumstances some element of motivational fatigue is bound to occur. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stubby Posted December 19, 2017 Share Posted December 19, 2017 Meh. When does footy season start again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hereward Posted December 19, 2017 Share Posted December 19, 2017 10 hours ago, Jeor said: The question is, whose head/s? Strauss, Bayliss, the Lions management, the National Academy leadership, the selectors, whoever sets the schedule for the domestic season, whoever sets the schedule for the touring team, Broad, Vince, Ali, those two twats outside the Bristol nightclub, (if not already included in the list) whoever keeps breaking our fast bowlers, whoever keeps persuading any remaining fast bowlers to stop bowling fast, whoever is responsible for coaching off spinners anywhere in England, Australia's current physio, and Steve Smith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hereward Posted December 19, 2017 Share Posted December 19, 2017 Just saw this. Some's it up pretty well. http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/21805721/ecb-decade-errors-led-ashes-failure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeor Posted December 20, 2017 Share Posted December 20, 2017 There's long been a theory that the English pitches are too helpful to the bowlers and doesn't force them to improve, which I'm sure is part of it, but you would think that every Test nation would have a stock of bowlers who can deliver speeds of 140+ kph regardless of where they're playing. I wonder whether another small contributing factor is that England have not had an out-and-out speedster in the ranks for some time now and don't really have a heritage of tearaway quicks. Bob Willis was reputedly very quick, but since him there haven't been many role models of genuine fast bowlers - Gough and Harmison, possibly, and good as they were, neither of them would be considered all-time greats. Whereas in the past 20 years you can say most teams (bar subcontinental ones) have had a tearaway 145+ fast bowler or two - Lee/Johnson, Donald/Steyn, Wasim/Waqar/Shoaib, Ambrose/Walsh, even New Zealand had Shane Bond for a bit etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hereward Posted December 20, 2017 Share Posted December 20, 2017 True, though the 2005 team had Harmison, Flintoff and Jones, who were all 140 + bowlers. And before his first devastating injury, Jones was regularly 145+. Other than that, we had Malcolm and Dilley, but neither was particularly good aside from being quick. Mills is quick, but can't even manage to play 50 over cricket. Wood is quick, but is too short to generate bounce, and too unskilled to produce movement. Finn and Plunkett used to be quick, but were turned, not very successfully, into 135 bowlers. Apparently, the academy fast bowling programme is famous for turning out young bowlers who are slower than on the day they joined, and/or suffering from stress fractures. The few young quicks we do have, thanks to having avoided England coaching, all seem to be concentrating on T20s. It's so bloody depressing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Posted December 26, 2017 Share Posted December 26, 2017 Pretty boring start to this test. Zero posts here up to this point in the day tells a story! Warner finally clicked today. That was always a matter of time. But some of the supporting acts (Smith aside) have been less than convincing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmanion Posted December 26, 2017 Share Posted December 26, 2017 Apparently smith has made over 400 runs since 2014 at the MCG without being dismissed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeor Posted December 26, 2017 Share Posted December 26, 2017 A weird day's play, really. The pitch didn't look that bad and the ball didn't misbehave and yet Warner seems to have been the only one who really went for it. Good bowling by England, I guess. Some of the commentary talked about how Ali is on the outer. Certainly he's only taken 3/351 in the series and the economy rate of 3.44 is fairly high for what has been a generally slow-scoring series. He is clearly not cutting it as a frontline bowler, and he hasn't passed 40 in 6 innings so isn't really contributing with the bat either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeor Posted December 27, 2017 Share Posted December 27, 2017 Well well well, quite the fightback from England here. Getting Smith early was crucial. The Australian batting lineup is really Warner, Smith and then the rest, and with this bowling lineup there is a long tail with Bird/Hazlewood/Lyon at 9/10/11. We've had trouble with collapses in the past (Sri Lanka tour) but had managed to more or less stave major collapses off with big partnerships, but it seems like this is a bit of a return to form. Good to see England really in the game now. It's still a good day for batting so they could rack up a sizeable first innings lead if everything clicks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Posted December 27, 2017 Share Posted December 27, 2017 Still struggling to get too excited. I just think that every time England start to do well in this series, they fall in a heap almost immediately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeor Posted December 27, 2017 Share Posted December 27, 2017 Cook gets his century - glad for him. He's been a real servant of English cricket over the 10-15 years. They're inching towards the Australian total with lots of wickets in hand still. Cummins looks unwell so they could cash in tomorrow with only three frontline bowlers (Lyon, Hazlewood, Bird) and Mitchell Marsh. Bird looked innocuous today so it seems Lyon and Hazlewood are going to have to shoulder most of the burden. Very impressed with Lyon's bowling this series. He has been a vital cog of this Australian team and despite being a crowd favourite with the tongue-in-cheek GOAT moniker, I think his value to the team is still very underrated. His ability to soak up lots of overs and take wickets is invaluable. He's the leading wickettaker in the world for 2017 (61 wickets in 11 matches @ 23.26 average). The ratio of wickets per match shows he's carried a lot of the bowling workload of late. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljkeane Posted December 27, 2017 Author Share Posted December 27, 2017 Heh, I was going to stay up and watch it last night and I forgot. It says a lot about how this series has been going. Anyway, decent effort from England, probably their best day of the tour, and it helps to have their key batsmen chipping in. I'm still a little wary though given they've been in reasonable positions in most of the tests so far and contrived to mess it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Posted December 27, 2017 Share Posted December 27, 2017 I forgot to mention yesterday: this pitch is absolutely rubbish (again). Even when England got on a roll yesterday, the bulk of the wickets were the batsmen chopping on. Sort yourselves out Australian groundspeople. On Lyon, I begrudgingly agree. He has shown he can take wickets on all types of surfaces this year and has genuinely become one of Australia’s best all-time spinners. I do think that his overall record is greatly assisted by the preponderance of left-hand batsmen, but that is hardly a weakness (or his fault). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted December 28, 2017 Share Posted December 28, 2017 That was a really dreadful shot by Root to get dismissed. England still in a good position but have to be careful not to lose any more quick wickets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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