Ashes 2025

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Who'll earn the urn?


  • Total voters
    30
Great knock, by Root, it's a pity they seem to be getting to grips with the Aussie attack when it's too late.
I think the Aussie innings is putting this pitch and the utter chasm in quality between the bowling attacks into perspective.....great knock by Root and in some ways more important than his first ton was the need to back it up, but after that 2 very set bats chucking wickets away with stoopid shots and the rest just meh
 
Painful watch so far this eve....so many plays and misses, Potts comes on serves up a pie first ball and gets absolutely ****ing wellied to the boundary.....and there's another. Ouch.

edit 3 balls, 3 boundaries.
 
Neser's not a bad bat, he averages nearly 30 in first class cricket and has (laughably) 5 more first class hundreds than our #3 bat.....but jesus this is bad, Stokes and Tongue were OK, but the change bowlers are absolute pie merchants, zero confidence in Jacks with the ball so not even bothering to give him a shot as well. Sacking this off now, fully expect to wake up to Aus being no more than 4 or 5 down
 
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root's end was weird. potts came in and faced five more in the over, taking a single off the last one. then he batted out a maiden. root, the set batsman, took a single off the first of the next over, leaving potts to face another five, which he managed. so much for "farming the strike" and protecting the lower-order batsman. by this point, root has faced one and potts has faced 16.

sod's law (or a close relative) means root is facing for the next over and he gives a catch first ball. 18-delivery partnership. baffling.
 
Fair play Bethell, getting your number 3 to learn on the job is a risky strategy but that was a solid patient innings, not a lot else great out there again tho, Brook fast becoming the player coming under most scrutiny from pundits with a string of starts getting to a half decent score before giving it away again
 
Fair play Bethell, getting your number 3 to learn on the job is a risky strategy but that was a solid patient innings, not a lot else great out there again tho, Brook fast becoming the player coming under most scrutiny from pundits with a string of starts getting to a half decent score before giving it away again
If we can change our approach and play a bit more sensibly, a batting lineup including Root, Brook and Bethell will be exciting for the next few years. I just wish our players were given county cricket options like the old days. Nothing more confidence building than scoring a few hundreds before England duty.
 
well at least we put up a bit of a fight, we go again next year, god knows how many new players we'll have in the team by then, should be at least a couple...had enough for this ashes tho, aus in no trouble here
 
That we did.....this aussie team is so much weaker than anything we've played in 15 years and yet they've out classed us with the bat, ball, keeper gloves and in the field
So glad we lost this test. Winning to make it 3-2 would have led some to see the tour is a sort of success. We just had a bad start but came back strongly.... blah blah. At least things must change now.
 
Naive of the players to rock up in Aus and think they can just swashbuckle their way to ridiculous scores against a weaker than usual Aussie team. How many wickets did we give away through stupid shot selection?
 
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BBC reported yesterday that McCullum and Key will be given the chance to retain their roles. Stokes also said in his post series interview "We have got the right people in this team. It is about using the people that we have in there, with the experience. I want to push these guys as hard as I can and there is a lot more than just what goes on out in the field. I can do a much better job as a captain."

Laughable
 
Brook needs to lose the captaincy of the ODI, going out on the razz the night before the first ODI of a huge tour, is not good enough. He seems to believe all his own hype and has the brain of a 16 year old.

The side has believed their own hype, and they are under prepared mentally, physically and short of match practice.

Heads need to role at the top, and the players get too much leeway on the pitch and obviously off it.
 
Absolutely , did they talk to previous ashes team batsmen and bowlers for advice? Or like some on here is it ‘you are old and know nowt. , us young ubs who can press a button or key so already know it cos we got it off X or Chat GPT ‘ Broad can tell the truth and Alistair Cook or similar can explain what is needed.
 
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i doubt it very much. the team captain made some ill-judged comment about unwanted advice from has-beens, or something like that. not a good move, especially if you then use three lost test matches in place of the traditional warm-up games and start performing when the fat lady has already done her piece.
 
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Not the ashes.....but continuing the cricket talk somewhere....u19 final on ATM, India absolutely laying down a total, young Sooryavanshi at only 14 racked up 175 off 80 balls, an insane talent who I genuinely cannot wait to see on the full international stage. At one point we looked like needing to chase well over 400 but wickets going down well may keep that at least partially sensible. Somersets Rew been v handy with the bat, let's see what he can do in reply
 
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