The International Cricket Thread

[Richard]

Can't agree that Roy was unlucky he got bowled through the gate again showing a poor technique.

[taylorsworkrate]

This series has been England's chickens coming home to roost. For a number of years the batting has been very very poor, but has been saved by lower order wagging and a bowling attack that is brilliant in our conditions.

Lets be honest, without a freakish innings from Stokes in the last match, we would now be about to go 3-0 down. being 2-1 down after this match flatters us. There are caveats of course. Losing Anderson for the whole series is a monumental blow, and groundsmen preparing pitches with no grass on them is perplexing.

[taylorsworkrate]

Yes I do but they’ll always have a good attack. Compare this attack to McGrath, Warne, Lee era or Johnson, Harris, Lyon. Then look at their batting, how many tests would Warner (in this form), Harris, Bancroft, Head, Laberscagne and Wade played in previous era’s - not many. That’s is their top order excluding Smith.

I think this attack is better than Johnson and Harris. Less likely to blow you away with 7fer, but more relentless and consistent. And Labuschagne is clearly real class. Other than that though I do agree with your point - but I also wouldn't understate the effect of Smith. He's a monster.

If Smith was English we would be winning this series, other than him the two sides are fairly evenly matched

I'd disagree. Their bowling attack has been far more consistent throughout. Once Broad and Archer come out the attack its easy against the change bowlers.

[Villa Lew]

Good knock from Joe Denly

[taylorsworkrate]

Good knock from Joe Denly

That's the thing though. He did ok, but no better than ok in that innings.

30s, 40s and 50s are viewed as almost heroic performances by the coaching staff and selectors. They don't mean anything. They don't win you games and don't save you games. Far too many of England's batsmen consider it as job done.

[UK Redsox]

Can't agree that Roy was unlucky he got bowled through the gate again showing a poor technique.

Yep. It was a good ball but if Roy’s leg had followed his bat, the ball would not have got through and impact would likely have bee outside

[UK Redsox]

Great from Bumble.......six and a half metres, six and a half metres, six and a half metres

[paul_e]

If we do lose this it won't be because Denly 'only' got 50 this morning, it'll be because we lost Burns and Root last night when their only job was to survive and that happened because we let them control the scoring rate yesterday. Even then the problems started because we we gave Smith 3 lifelines in their first innings. That's been our biggest problem, all match the big moments have gone against us (in large part because of our own mistakes).

In my opinion there's fuck all between the teams other than Smith is bang in form and we lost our key opener in the first session of the series. We have problems to address but so does everyone else. We have a bit of a bad habit of seeing the problems England have and ignoring the issues for other countries.

As an example, the Aussie openers have averaged 9, 11 and 11 in this series, Smith and/or Labuschange have pulled their arses out of the fire in almost every innings, just like we couldn't keep relying on Stokes/Bairstow/Buttler/Moeen scoring 200-300 runs to bail out the top 4 they can't rely on Smith and Labuschange scoring nearly half of their runs for the entire series.

[taylorsworkrate]

The point about Denly was in no way to blame him. Yes of course Burns, Root and Stokes are all more at fault for their low scores. It was just a general point about England batsmen being satisfied getting those sort of scores, when generally they are not match defining.

There's more difference between these teams than Smith. Lets not forget if not for a freak innings from Stokes, we would have lost the last test comfortably, and that was without Smith in their side. The other big difference after Smith has been the drop of in quality of the change bowlers. They have had the likes of Pattinson, Siddle and Starc to call on after the opening bowlers, whereas we have had Woakes (bowling poorly), Stokes (bowling poorly apart from 2nd innings at Headingly) and Craig Overton (not test quality)

You make a more than valid point about other teams issues, but what I would counter that with is that Australia are away from home. Their top order doesn't struggle like this in Australia, whereas our top order can't perform in their own conditions.

[PaulWinch again]

I’d be inclined to drop Bairtstow. He’s not delivering the bat, and he’s not the best keeper. He needs runs to keep his place.

[Steve67]

Far too often this series, a break has been followed by a wicket for England. Bairstow this time. Be a miracle if we save this. Another shambles of a batting performance.   Poor series overall for Bairstow too.  The 4 that Buttler hit earlier, took him through the 100 run barrier, for the series!

The posts about Denley, he has starts in most innings but has NOT gone on to make big scores when we need him to hang around even more.

[paul_e]

The point about Denly was in no way to blame him. Yes of course Burns, Root and Stokes are all more at fault for their low scores. It was just a general point about England batsmen being satisfied getting those sort of scores, when generally they are not match defining.

There's more difference between these teams than Smith. Lets not forget if not for a freak innings from Stokes, we would have lost the last test comfortably, and that was without Smith in their side. The other big difference after Smith has been the drop of in quality of the change bowlers. They have had the likes of Pattinson, Siddle and Starc to call on after the opening bowlers, whereas we have had Woakes (bowling poorly), Stokes (bowling poorly apart from 2nd innings at Headingly) and Craig Overton (not test quality)

You make a more than valid point about other teams issues, but what I would counter that with is that Australia are away from home. Their top order doesn't struggle like this in Australia, whereas our top order can't perform in their own conditions.

Sorry but no. If Cummins had got injured in the first match and missed the series their bowling would've had all the same issues we've had without Anderson. Lyon is a better spinner than Leach or Moeen but Stokes gives us the benefit of a genuine 5th bowler which they're missing so I don't think there's much between the attacks as they were on the opening morning of the first test. Comparing Pattinson, Siddle and Starc to Woakes, etc is unfair because our plan for this series was for Archer to be part of of that 3rd/4th bowler 'set' so again, losing Jimmy has had a massive impact on our attack. Archer has been better than all of those aussies since he came in but he's been pushed up to 2nd seamer earlier than anyone planned.

I don't think anyone thinks job done when they get 30-50, it's more that they've seen off the early overs and got 'in' and then have a bad habit of trying to play shots that aren't on. That's a result of most of our batsmen having played very little red ball cricket in the last 7-8 months before this series started and I think most of them have shown signs of improvement as the series has gone on.

On the last bit, Australia lost at home to India 8 months ago and lost at home to SA a couple of years ago so yes they have just as many problems. Again take Smith out of this team and I think we'd be 3-1/3-0 up and bringing the Ashes home, our main failing is all about us not having any plans or ideas on getting him out (I think we've bowled too short to him, late swing in or out on a 4th stump line and a good/full length would be my game to him, with mid-on and mid-off in cover the drives down the ground.

[Monty]

I’d be inclined to drop Bairtstow. He’s not delivering the bat, and he’s not the best keeper. He needs runs to keep his place.

Yep, Foakes should come in for sure. Also inclined to bring in Pope for Roy and possibly Sibley for Denley. And give Buttler the captaincy.

[PaulWinch again]

This ball changing is ridiculous. You’re telling me that this ball is equivalent to a 60 over old ball? Fuck off.

[PaulWinch again]

This ball is ridiculous, hooping all over the place. I repeat 60 over equivalent, fuck off.

Terrible from third umpire Overton smashed that into his pad and he was obsessed by ultra edge.