The Cricket Thread 2017

[taylorsworkrate]

3 wickets for 12 runs today.

Just fuck off England, just fuck off

[OzVilla]

Oh well, we flirted with an unlikely victory for about 25 overs yesterday evening only for normal service to be resumed again today.

In reality, this Test was lost on the first day when England just didn't turn up.  You cant afford to give the Aussies a head start, especially when the side is as underwhelming as England's, and we just left ourselves way too much to do.

So on to Perth which is an absolute graveyard for England, graveyard for everyone except South Africa in fact (mainly as they've always brought pace in their attack also).  It'll be the pitch which suits this Australian attack the best so this is about to get a lot worse before it gets better i'm afraid as this was always penciled in as their banker along with Brisbane. 

Not sure if they can tinker that much with the side unless it's to add pace and batsman in form - it's all well and good to drop people but who do they bring in..........

[PaulWinch again]

Normal service resumed then.

[PaulWinch again]

The reality is that our batting simply hasn't  got enough. We've scored over 300 once and you're never winning games last like that. We have a lot of work to do to avoid a whitewash.

[manic-road]

No surprise we eventually lost but that was feeble today.

[PaulWinch again]

Thing is the bowling hasn't been good enough up until their second innings, but it's our batting that's the real problem. They're just not getting scores.

[simboy]

There are a number of realities to be faced.

Firstly we haven’t picked a bowling attack for Australian conditions. We lack pace and bounce to supplement Anderson and Broad. Why Plunkett wasn’t picked I still don’t understand.

Secondly we lack any real solidity at the top of the order. Root should not be batting four he should be batting three. However he doesn’t personally want to by all accounts. With that said we have, in Vince, tried to convert a free flowing one day bat into a test number three. He’s not that. His technique isn’t good enough. We need batsmen who are obdurate. Cook not firing is a problem as well. The odd right hander.

Thirdly we lack the balance that Stokes brings. I know it’s obvious but Ali at eight is a big difference to him batting at six. I don’t even mind, if Stokes is playing putting Ali up to four with Root at three.

Ali isn’t bowling well. The squad we have selected doesn’t really give us an option spin wise. Crane is a leggy and at 21 could end up on the scrap heap if chucked into a test with Warner or Smith in full flow. Where do we turn to?

Finally ... what are we doing winning a toss and bowling first ... in Australia ... with an obviously poorer spinner ... and weaker all our pace attack. Whoever came up with that decision ... well.

[Risso]

Bunch of bottling twats. Feeble isn’t the word.

[paul_e]

We're just mentally weak, when Woakes went early the correct response should've been for Root to dig in but what happened is he went 2 overs later, once we lost both of them the game was done because it completely changed the balance.

[PaulWinch again]

It may be a completely false impression but I'm sure Root has always struggled the next morning when he's been not out overnight.

England can talk about positives all they want but ultimately they've failed to reach 250 in either innings. There's nothing positive about that. Also all of the digging in yesterday is completely undermined when you lose 6 wickets for 50.

[Villan For Life]

Perth up next and if ever there was a pitch suited to their attack it's that one. I fear that we will lose heavily and then go on and suffer another whitewash.

The hope that I felt when I woke up this morning soon disappeared when I checked the score.

[taylorsworkrate]

There are scant positives for me. Yes Anderson bowled beautifully in their second innings but he was given the opportunity to do that by a ridiculous (even though they've still won comfortably) non enforcing of the follow on.

We'd have been all out for 100 if Smith had put us back in again.

[paul_e]

There are scant positives for me. Yes Anderson bowled beautifully in their second innings but he was given the opportunity to do that by a ridiculous (even though they've still won comfortably) non enforcing of the follow on.

We'd have been all out for 100 if Smith had put us back in again.

I don't agree with that at all.  The decision to put us in was terrible because it gave the best swing attack in the world time to bowl in swinging conditions, and all out for 138 is the result of that. Last night in the same conditions shows that Australia don't have the bowlers for it.  However they do have them to bowl on a mid-afternoon sun-baked carpark, which is why this morning was the true 'dig-in' session and we got it badly wrong.

[passitsideways]

The reasoning for not following on (giving the quicks a break, avoiding the off-chance of a tricky 4th innings chase) was fine, just that it wasn't backed up by good batting, either in the evening or yesterday afternoon, which, when combined with a quality bowling performance was always going to lead the outcome that occurred.

It's not as if England gave much indication from their bowling on the first night that they'd be as good as they turned out to be under lights the second time around.

[Dave P]

Has a team ever lost a series 5-0 whilst winning every toss?  England are still on course for this feat.