Cricket fred

[Digby]

At least Woakes can hold his head up; no idea why he was so underbowled yesterday.

He's got a bad knee, and it must be bad to have rested him with Anderson already done for

cripes. well there is some sort of excuse for yesterday, though none for Ali, other than him being so out of form and confidence.

Ali does warrant the excuse he's never been a good bowler, he's not really even county standard as a bowler.

I don't know btw that Woakes was for sure has an injury or was rested, but he does have an ongoing problem, and logically it's the only thing which makes sense other than a new injury

[Banquo]

Woakes stood at other end whilst Ali and Broad depart supinely. This is shyte. 6 wickets have fallen in 3 lots of 2.

[Galfon]

Broakes-bat Mountain..not a chance..
A catalogue of failures this match...few seats are safe.

[Digby]

True enough. None bar Root seem to actually have a decent technique. But then neither does Smiff.

He looks ugly, but Smiff is on the money in lining up the ball keeping his head still and presenting a straight bat. There's technically a concern that he has to play everything on his pads given how much he walks across but unlike Shane Watson he's not missing the ball, so it's not going to be a concern until it starts getting him out.

true enough, but its a technique only one player in a zillion could get away with.

If Archer plays and we get a wicket with more pace it'll be interesting to see if he's still comfortable for time, especially if Archer gets the short stuff on point. Tricky for Archer too as you'd need to decide is the short stuff needs to be directed at where he'll walk to. Could be the making of the series if it happens.

I think some of what he does is okay, the pickup is weird but he ends up nicely straight, the walking across isn't something you'd want to do as to most people are far more likely to get out cheaply than score all those runs

[WaspInWales]

Jimmy will see us home. Every one a boundary too so he can rest his calf, bar the final ball of each over to keep strike [emoji108]

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

[Banquo]

He's got a bad knee, and it must be bad to have rested him with Anderson already done for

cripes. well there is some sort of excuse for yesterday, though none for Ali, other than him being so out of form and confidence.

Ali does warrant the excuse he's never been a good bowler, he's not really even county standard as a bowler.

I don't know btw that Woakes was for sure has an injury or was rested, but he does have an ongoing problem, and logically it's the only thing which makes sense other than a new injury

Ali was England's leading wicket taker in an 18 months period, I heard tell t'other day. But that's over a year ago. He has much better stats even now than Giles- and in fact aren't horrendous at all.

[canta_brian]

Jimmy will see us home. Every one a boundary too so he can rest his calf, bar the final ball of each over to keep strike [emoji108]

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

Every one a boundary in case the icc have decided to roll out the 2+2<4+0 rule so popular from the World Cup.

Also just watched the Roy dismissal. Should never play in another test.

[Banquo]

Jimmy will see us home. Every one a boundary too so he can rest his calf, bar the final ball of each over to keep strike [emoji108]

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

Every one a boundary in case the icc have decided to roll out the 2+2<4+0 rule so popular from the World Cup.

Also just watched the Roy dismissal. Should never play in another test.

at least there is some benefit in this defeat, having drawn a little sour grape

What an utter shambles, not even lasting 2 sessions. Oz have been impressive the last day and a half, but FFS.

[Banquo]

As comebacks go, its not far off Headingley frankly. Oz should have been gone at 122-8, then at England nearly level with 4 wickets down, then at -16 for 3. But have fought much harder than us, and given a sniff, haven't taken the foot off the throat.

[fivepointer]

Last 4 and bit sessions have been very poor from England. From Saturday afternoon through to the close, we have been 2nd best by a long way.
Cant deny just how good Smith was in both innings. His runs first pulled Aus out of a hole, and then put them into a winning position.
England changes inevitable. Archer will come in for Anderson. Ali has to make way for Leach. Bairstow and Denly are under pressure, but i think they will survive. Roy must be given another chance but another dismissal like todays will test everyones patience.

[Banquo]

Last 4 and bit sessions have been very poor from England. From Saturday afternoon through to the close, we have been 2nd best by a long way.
Cant deny just how good Smith was in both innings. His runs first pulled Aus out of a hole, and then put them into a winning position.
England changes inevitable. Archer will come in for Anderson. Ali has to make way for Leach. Bairstow and Denly are under pressure, but i think they will survive. Roy must be given another chance but another dismissal like todays will test everyones patience.

Can't see how we fix 1-3/4, even Burns still has embed himself. The attack was very disappointing yesterday, self inflicted Jimmy, dreadful from Ali; Root's captaincy has to be questioned, in utterly failing to pressurise Oz at start of play yesterday. Today's procession was inevitable after yesterday's horror show.

Smith is key, but Wade being played into form and the tailenders batting confidently has added another set of problems to solve.

[Digby]

cripes. well there is some sort of excuse for yesterday, though none for Ali, other than him being so out of form and confidence.

Ali does warrant the excuse he's never been a good bowler, he's not really even county standard as a bowler.

I don't know btw that Woakes was for sure has an injury or was rested, but he does have an ongoing problem, and logically it's the only thing which makes sense other than a new injury

Ali was England's leading wicket taker in an 18 months period, I heard tell t'other day. But that's over a year ago. He has much better stats even now than Giles- and in fact aren't horrendous at all.

Far too many of those wickets saw batsman getting out far too cheaply to a bowler they correctly observed was a bit shit but then got carried away against. Also at no point has Ali seemingly believed in himself, he almost doesn't want to bowl, and that's a problem. At his best Ali is probably similar to Giles, but he's far too inconsistent.

Broad in this match described him as bowling beautifully, which is either Broad trolling the media, or a sign Ali needs to be loved and have his hand held when at some point the Teller maxim of 'you've got to want it' has to be applied

[Banquo]

Ali does warrant the excuse he's never been a good bowler, he's not really even county standard as a bowler.

I don't know btw that Woakes was for sure has an injury or was rested, but he does have an ongoing problem, and logically it's the only thing which makes sense other than a new injury

Ali was England's leading wicket taker in an 18 months period, I heard tell t'other day. But that's over a year ago. He has much better stats even now than Giles- and in fact aren't horrendous at all.

Far too many of those wickets saw batsman getting out far too cheaply to a bowler they correctly observed was a bit shit but then got carried away against. Also at no point has Ali seemingly believed in himself, he almost doesn't want to bowl, and that's a problem. At his best Ali is probably similar to Giles, but he's far too inconsistent.

Broad in this match described him as bowling beautifully, which is either Broad trolling the media, or a sign Ali needs to be loved and have his hand held when at some point the Teller maxim of 'you've got to want it' has to be applied

I'm not sure that's wholly true; he was a bit sh*t as a bowler when he started, but then developed into a passable bowler, and for a while was taking too many wickets for it to be mainly down to the batsmen being sloppy. But somewhere he utterly lost his confidence in all his game.

Broad....what a daft thing to say.

[Digby]

Ali was England's leading wicket taker in an 18 months period, I heard tell t'other day. But that's over a year ago. He has much better stats even now than Giles- and in fact aren't horrendous at all.

Far too many of those wickets saw batsman getting out far too cheaply to a bowler they correctly observed was a bit shit but then got carried away against. Also at no point has Ali seemingly believed in himself, he almost doesn't want to bowl, and that's a problem. At his best Ali is probably similar to Giles, but he's far too inconsistent.

Broad in this match described him as bowling beautifully, which is either Broad trolling the media, or a sign Ali needs to be loved and have his hand held when at some point the Teller maxim of 'you've got to want it' has to be applied

I'm not sure that's wholly true; he was a bit sh*t as a bowler when he started, but then developed into a passable bowler, and for a while was taking too many wickets for it to be down to the batsmen being sloppy. But somewhere he utterly lost his confidence in all his game.

Broad....what a daft thing to say.

He's bowled some decent balls and taken some good wickets, but far too many of them were batsman giving their wicket away, if the same had happened to Giles their stats wouldn't be close. And at least with Giles he could more or less tie down an end, though I suspect the umpires wouldn't quite allow you to take the piss now as we did with Giles (especially under Nasser) and would want the ball landed in more contestable areas

My impression is he simply lacks a sense of ego, confidence, arrogance, call it what you will. It was something Hick for instance lacked at the top level, and he had the talent to have averaged 10 if not 15 more

[Big D]

Ali was England's leading wicket taker in an 18 months period, I heard tell t'other day. But that's over a year ago. He has much better stats even now than Giles- and in fact aren't horrendous at all.

Far too many of those wickets saw batsman getting out far too cheaply to a bowler they correctly observed was a bit shit but then got carried away against. Also at no point has Ali seemingly believed in himself, he almost doesn't want to bowl, and that's a problem. At his best Ali is probably similar to Giles, but he's far too inconsistent.

Broad in this match described him as bowling beautifully, which is either Broad trolling the media, or a sign Ali needs to be loved and have his hand held when at some point the Teller maxim of 'you've got to want it' has to be applied

I'm not sure that's wholly true; he was a bit sh*t as a bowler when he started, but then developed into a passable bowler, and for a while was taking too many wickets for it to be mainly down to the batsmen being sloppy. But somewhere he utterly lost his confidence in all his game.

Broad....what a daft thing to say.

I don't think it is that daft. He is effectively the senior bowler in the team and he is also someone who can take a bit of stick for saying something like that. He isn't the captain so it isn't his place to dig into Ali in interviews and he has backed a team mate clearly lacking confidence. Broad knows we know he knows Ali has been piss.

The problem is all the England spinners are lacking in at least one area right now.

[Big D]

On a separate note. If England go down 4-1 or 5-0 how does Roots captaincy survive?

[Banquo]

Far too many of those wickets saw batsman getting out far too cheaply to a bowler they correctly observed was a bit shit but then got carried away against. Also at no point has Ali seemingly believed in himself, he almost doesn't want to bowl, and that's a problem. At his best Ali is probably similar to Giles, but he's far too inconsistent.

Broad in this match described him as bowling beautifully, which is either Broad trolling the media, or a sign Ali needs to be loved and have his hand held when at some point the Teller maxim of 'you've got to want it' has to be applied

I'm not sure that's wholly true; he was a bit sh*t as a bowler when he started, but then developed into a passable bowler, and for a while was taking too many wickets for it to be down to the batsmen being sloppy. But somewhere he utterly lost his confidence in all his game.

Broad....what a daft thing to say.

He's bowled some decent balls and taken some good wickets, but far too many of them were batsman giving their wicket away, if the same had happened to Giles their stats wouldn't be close. And at least with Giles he could more or less tie down an end, though I suspect the umpires wouldn't quite allow you to take the piss now as we did with Giles (especially under Nasser) and would want the ball landed in more contestable areas

My impression is he simply lacks a sense of ego, confidence, arrogance, call it what you will. It was something Hick for instance lacked at the top level, and he had the talent to have averaged 10 if not 15 more

We will have to disagree- he had some very good and consistent series against good players of spin; I do agree on fragile confidence.

Hick had the (raw batting) ability to average 50 at test level (53 was his f/c average overall), he just came in with massive expectations against excellent attacks in his first few tests, and never recovered his own, or the managements confidence. Shame.

[Banquo]

Far too many of those wickets saw batsman getting out far too cheaply to a bowler they correctly observed was a bit shit but then got carried away against. Also at no point has Ali seemingly believed in himself, he almost doesn't want to bowl, and that's a problem. At his best Ali is probably similar to Giles, but he's far too inconsistent.

Broad in this match described him as bowling beautifully, which is either Broad trolling the media, or a sign Ali needs to be loved and have his hand held when at some point the Teller maxim of 'you've got to want it' has to be applied

I'm not sure that's wholly true; he was a bit sh*t as a bowler when he started, but then developed into a passable bowler, and for a while was taking too many wickets for it to be mainly down to the batsmen being sloppy. But somewhere he utterly lost his confidence in all his game.

Broad....what a daft thing to say.

I don't think it is that daft. He is effectively the senior bowler in the team and he is also someone who can take a bit of stick for saying something like that. He isn't the captain so it isn't his place to dig into Ali in interviews and he has backed a team mate clearly lacking confidence. Broad knows we know he knows Ali has been piss.

The problem is all the England spinners are lacking in at least one area right now.

Best stay quiet for me, I don't think publicly saying something that will be ridiculed like this helps. At some point, you have to be grown up and accept responsibility.

[Digby]

On a separate note. If England go down 4-1 or 5-0 how does Roots captaincy survive?

For me it can, if he scores runs. But he's got to deliver

[Stom]

On a separate note. If England go down 4-1 or 5-0 how does Roots captaincy survive?

For me it can, if he scores runs. But he's got to deliver

It'll help that Bayliss will be gone.

There was some stat about batting averages for "senior" players pre- and post- Bayliss, and they didn't make good reading.

Basically, we're shit at test match cricket under him.

[Mellsblue]

Ffs

[Banquo]

On a separate note. If England go down 4-1 or 5-0 how does Roots captaincy survive?

For me it can, if he scores runs. But he's got to deliver

It'll help that Bayliss will be gone.

There was some stat about batting averages for "senior" players pre- and post- Bayliss, and they didn't make good reading.

Basically, we're shit at test match cricket under him.

I think its played 60, won 27 lost 26 drawn 7. We are much better at home than away to no-one's surprise, but have managed to beat both Sri Lanka and South Africa away, with drubbings from India and Australia, and bad losses to WI and NZ. Inconsistency might be the key word

[Galfon]

There were 2 or 3 occasions where Eng could have applied more pressure when on top - even if not able to go for the throat, somewhere close like the neck or jaw would have made an impact.
JR has time to turn this around with a spinner prepared to have a go and a full suite of quicks/seamers.
It's Lords next up - another results track as we have seen.
More of the same bowler & field selection wise & confidence in him will ebb.
The Aus. skipper however, is a Paine.

[kk67]

The Aussies fecked them.

[Eugene Wrayburn]

In the last 12 months, Moeen has taken more wickets - 48 in 10 Tests at 25.12 - than any other bowler in Test cricket.

That's really surprising, and really has to put paid to the idea that batsmen were getting themselves out because he's so rubbish.