I know the Ashes has gone has a lot to do with Cooks celebration but the marked difference between his and Warner shows what an odeous little man our David is. That granted he did shake the Chefs hand.
I will try and look my best , I always go to the G for the Ashes, Anyway a few years ago this older bloke approaches me You’re a long way from home, yes I said where about are you from West Hull he said. What do you reckon to our chances of promotion.?No I follow Man U . I just walked off ,end of conversation. Anyway hope to hear the familiar tones
Root went pretty early for 61, Cook still there on 146, Malan out cheaply (14), but should have reviewed the LBW decision as he got an inside edge, big mistake. Bairstow just gone for 22, followed by Moeen for 20, the wheels are coming off around Cook. 301-6, just after Lunch.
Woakes just gone for 26, Cook still there on 181, Curran yet to get off the mark, 372-7 a lead of 45.
absurd stat - this 100 partnership is only the second time cook and broad have batted together in 113 tests.
When it mattered the Aussies steamrollered us .. last two days have been a very shallow victory.. we have been poor in the test arena for 18 months .. these two days for me just paper over the cracks
i don't agree that we've been poor. we have problems at the moment because we're short of three early batsmen (or waiting for someone to cement a place), we're too used to relying on the middle-to-late batsmen for runs (and that's a problem with stokes missing), and moeen is bang out of form; we're also a couple of bowlers light. yes our win/lose stats for the last 3 year are 17/19, but we haven't lost a home series in that time, we won in south africa, we've drawn a few too many series, and only lost in india, pakistan's holiday home, and now australia. that lot is far from perfect but it's also far from poor.
I'm fairly certain I put the last 18 months .. we are short of a quality opening batsmen .. and Cook hasn' performed well over the last 18 months .. we are short of a quality no. 3 .. we haven' replaced Swann .. and our two new ball bowlers are good on their own turf (Well Anderson is anyway) .. Stokes bailed us out on more then one occasion but at present we are I would say 5 or 6 players short of the team that dominated for a while. I accept that this is a transition period but and I repeat over the last 18 months we have been poor in my opinion
There isn't a lot between the teams. Australia have won big moments. In the first test we had Australia 209/7 after we'd posted 303. Australia ended up with a lead of 26. Second Test we had them in the first innings 209/5 and bowled them out for 138 in the second innings. In the Third Test we scored 403 after been 368/5 and had Australia 248/4 and they ended up on 662.
you did indeed put the last 18 months, but it didn't make much sense to base my comments on the period from june 29th 2016 until today. and i did mention most of what you've added in this post. and yet, for all this "poor"ness, we've lost just two series in that 1'8 months, including one against the team that's been the top ranked test country for most of the last 25 years and the other against a team that's won something like 9 consecutive series and is notoriously difficult to beat at home while being traditionally (but not currently) almost useless away. i don't disagree that we need another 5 or 6 players, but if the average football teams's results matched england cricket results over the last 18 months, they'd be at least mid-table.
