The International Cricket Thread

[PaulWinch again]

Much better effort from England. They nearly pulled that off at the end.

[dcdavecollett]

Good to see Jacob playing well again.

Agree with Agnew's article that it's ridiculous that he's been made captain for the T20s in Ireland.

[olaftab]

256-2 after 36….anyone wants to guess how England are going to throw this away? 

[Villan For Life]

That was an excellent knock from Bethell, well done young man.

[PaulWinch again]

Great to see.

[Monty]

Big displays from Jof and Bethell is an extremely welcome sight to see!

[PaulWinch again]

Please be fit for the Ashes Jof.

[cdbearsfan]

England just about manage to hang on.

[Villa Lew]

What an amazing series.

[Villan For Life]

Please be fit for the Ashes Jof.

He was unplayable today, we need him and Wood fit, slinging fizzers down on fast Aussie pitches.

[dcdavecollett]

With Atkinson and Carse, too!

[paul_e]

If we can get and keep them all fit England have a good bowling attack, the problem is we've never seen them all available at the same time.

I like Potts as well and would take him as cover. I suspect Tongue goes to Oz as well, and maybe Woakes if he's fit. I can see us going quite heavy on the options for bowlers given how many fitness concerns we have.

Spin is tougher to call, Bethell and Root will clearly be there as part-time options and I'd be amazed if Bashir doesn't tour but I think that still leaves us light. Do we take Leach or Dawson to give an experienced option or do we gamble a little and pick Ahmed as an all-rounder after the very good summer he's coming off. I'd go with the latter but I suspect we'll see one of the older heads travel.

More generally I wonder how big a touring squad we'll name because I'd be tempted to go big this time round and have 20+ on the plane.

[TheTimVilla]

The Lions will also be touring so not too far away if we need matchfit cover

[paul_e]

The Lions will also be touring so not too far away if we need matchfit cover

I checked for that but couldn't find anything confirming that they're touring this winter other than 1 warm-up against England.

[Tony Daleys Shorts]

Fitness permitted I reckon we'll line up as below for the first Test at The WACA.

Duckett
Crawley
Pope
Root
Brook
Stokes
Smith
Carse
Archer
Wood
Bashir

If we can field that XI then we have a great chance of at least being very competitive.