Well done Australia on yet another brilliant performance. It is not every.series that England come up.against high quality opposition.
Quite a strong Brave element to that t20 squad for next month. Given that it is a somewhat irrelevant series, I quite like that it's scheduled so close to the Ashes so as to rule out the players involved. New (or rarely seen) faces is no bad thing. Although I'm guessing that Dawson will still be carrying the drinks.
Perhaps after this series, Joe Root.will.decide to.leave the captaincy to.someone else. The guy must be exhausted having to face the flack.every evening.
Jos seems to be fine when the match situation is clearly mapped out in front of him. It possibly explains why he is so good in white ball cricket. But in red ball cricket, unless it's the fourth innings of the match (or, occasionally, the third innings), the match situation will still be fluid when he comes out to bat; there will still be multiple routes for the remainder of the match to take. And that seems to be where Jos falls down. Attack or defend? Score runs or occupy the crease? Step it up now or later? See off a bowler or put the pressure onto the bowler? Push for the win or avoid defeat? Etc I don't think it's a technical thing with Jos. But a mental thing. Give him one path to follow, and he'll often do well. But give him multiple paths and ask him to make his own way, he'll often get lost, make wrong decisions, and fail.
More than 5% of all balls bowled in the second innings of the third test resulted in a wicket. Not quite as bad as Australia getting bowled out in 18.3 overs in 2015 (the worst-ever rate, where 9% of all balls bowled resulted in a wicket), but still pretty suboptimal.
As some pundits have suggested, the County Championship schedule needs redrawing. How did the likes of Gatting, Botham, Gower et al, manage.to play test cricket and then in between play for their counties in both the CC and one-day competitions? Was the cricket calendar less crowded back then? My solución - to play the CC in the summer months (May, June, July, August) alongside the T20, keep the Hundred but not at the expense of no CC, and move the 50 over to the beginning and end of the season.
Every batsman apart from Joe Root and Dawid Malan (and possibly Ben Stokes as well due to his lack of cricket in the last 6 months) should be ashamed. Root and Stokes have carried the side for far too long. Our openers are an absolute joke, whoever they are. And Pope was nothing short of abysmal in the two matches he's played. And Buttler's shot the other day was just horrific.
Whilst being critical of the England crickterers performance, we need to ask why. In his análysis Agnew points to how the red ball game has been marginalised in favour of the lucrative T20 and Hundred. In addition, there were no warm up matches to prepare the players for the tests, something that did happen in the past, so the blame for England's obliteration líes well beyond those that have played thus far in the series
If we want to see how real test cricket is played, SA v India at the moment. The finish is going to be a lot closer than anything England have managed thus far. Kholi still not delivering with the bat. Fortunately, India have others to bale the side out.
Obviously this is where England are going wrong. They clearly think that we can only play one “proper” batsman in any given game.
India are fortunate, England less so.with their.batting resources, or so it would seem to.put a spin on it.
SA doing a bit of an England losing their last 3 wickets for very little. Given India's lack of success down the years in SA, they will do well to win the series.
