The International Cricket Thread

[PaulWinch again]

Embarrassing, no other word for it. They have embarrassed themselves. They look mentally gone after 5 days of cricket.

[PaulWinch again]

So many have had terrible games. Smith is a real worry too, he looks gone.

I should clarify - I think he’s a very talented player, but if a break would do him good. Who’s there to replace him?

[aj2k77]

Englands batting is pure shit and their philosophy on how to play test match cricket. It's lazy, just throw the bat at everything, requires no thinking or planning or management.

[taylorsworkrate]

Englands batting is pure shit and their philosophy on how to play test match cricket. It's lazy, just throw the bat at everything, requires no thinking or planning or management.

I think England need to play positively. They tried the negative attritional approach in 2017 and 2021 tours to Australia and they got smashed anyway.

The problem is that they can't (more likely won't) adapt to conditions or match circumstance. How many players have got out driving at balls on the up this series? It's a shot that everyone knows you just don't play in Australia, yet they keep doing it.

Also the bowling and tactics on the field. All day yesterday exploring the middle of the pitch giving Australia runs. Its arrogance. Its the whole "we are the saviours of test cricket" bollocks that they think they are. They got away with it for a year and a half when it took teams by surprise, but for a long time now its been dross.

[PaulWinch again]

Playing positive is fine, but you have to have game awareness and be able to go up and down the gears. At their best in the last couple of years they have done that - but they’re not doing that now, they are not thinking and adapting.

[PaulWinch again]

There are many players you could drop, but Pope has to go now. His innings today showed he cannot adapt to circumstance. He has so many opportunities and warnings, but his brain didn’t trigger.

And again - dropping doesn’t need to be the end, sometimes it’s an opportunity to reflect, change, and come back. Stability is good, but lack of options isn’t.

[KevinGage]

It's going to end up three test series out there going forward.

From a sporting point of view it prob should.

One competitive series in the last thirty years. Hard to justify five games of this muck on such a consistent basis.

But Cricket Australia make a lot of $ out of England taking their travelling shitshow to five Aussie cities every few years. So can't see that changing.

[PaulWinch again]

Contrast our “effort” and fight vs that of the Windies - dead and buried and remarkable effort to draw.

[PaulWinch again]

I think England seem super unaware and existing in an eco chamber.

I heard a great description the other day, as a team they’ve moved from care free to care less. It’s good to not load pressure onto people, but if you go too far the other way and have no accountability or consequence this is what it looks like.

[Steve67]

I seriously doubt that England they’re gonna make the 40 odd runs they need to get in order to make Australia bat again. I just hope Rob key is listening to some of the pundits because they are all saying the same, England continue to do the same, we just don’t seem to be learning. Harry Brooke has all the talent in the world and could go on to be the number one batsmen in the world, but he needs help and support to play test cricket properly. There are others too. I wonder if Brenda McCollum should just concentrate on one day and England bring in someone else for the tests because our record recently is fairly crap.

[Rory]

There has been a lot of insightful, often very specific commentary over the past week or so about our failings, but I was watching an interview earlier and Jason Gillespie said something so, so simple along the lines of 'test cricket is all about assessing the situation and playing it'.

We just do not do that. We like think the situation can be made to fit conveniently around us, every time.