Worried about our opening parterships; Antigua 34-3,52-5 Barbados 38-3,18-3 Lords v NZ 25-3 Cardiff 45-3 Lords 30-4 2015...not good...changes guys? Easy for us to criticise but solutions? Cook staying..but what about Taylor at 3?...I'd still give Carberry a chance again instead of Lyth..don't care what age he is..this is the ashes..one off cricket. Those opening partnerships are shocking.
Those stats provided by Dex are a bit of an eye opener. I don't know what's gone wrong in the last couple of years, but England's meek surrender in Australia was a huge shock. I know next to nothing about the current depth of batting in England, so I can't really comment on local form. I can say however that out here, there was a bit of chat about Carberry making the squad. He's only had the six tests, but seems to have paid the price for England's failure in the last series, despite having the third best average in the series for the visitors. There is a big difference between T20 and tests, but his T20 form out here in the last series was pretty good. He came in low in the order, so a 5 or 6 spot in the England team would be a nice fit. And another who should have been in the team is Kevin Pietersen. Love him or loathe him, he's still one hell of a batsmen, one England desperately needs. There is the thought that he is an arsehole, but he was just one of quite a few in the side. Some of the establishment's bullying arseholes are still in the side. If you want to give yourself the best chance of success, chose the best team possible. Is Pietersen still one of the top handful of batsmen in the country? If so, play him. Are there any serious pacemen in the country? Broad and Anderson are top flight bowlers, but they are medium pacers. Maybe it's time to start a serious search for genuine speed men for the future. Nothing like putting the fear of God into the bloke holding the wood.
Dex, your points on the opening batters putting the rest of the side under pressure is a fair one, and if we can see it then why can't the selectors. I'm not a fan of Lyth, even with his 'home' Test hundred. Cyc mentions Carberry, who was given the hook after the last Ashes series when we were away from home. Taylor is popular as well, though my favourite is Alex Hayles. We seem to have had this problem since Strauss retired and poor ole Trott left the side. Lose an early wicket and you just knew that Trott would shore up the pressure and lead us out to a decent score. Lose an early wicket now a days and another comes along like the London buses... Nice of you to mention the fast bowler question Cyc as I do think we are crying out for an out and out pace man, as real top end pace scares any batter in the world and for us watching is one of the best parts of top Test cricket. I do think that some of our younger players could have a year out in SA or Aus to see and learn how to bowl on real fast hard tracks, we just cant produce them, well maybe at the Oval and Old Trafford. Anyway, we could do with a better score from our top 4 batters come a 450 deficit later on today... What odds we can get to 50 without losing a wicket...??? The way we've been playing lately, 1000/1...!!!
Anyone surprised by these lifeless pitches that we have produced? We are blunting our main weapon (Jimmy- although I think he is beginning to decline) and also slowing Mark Wood down, who could hit 94MPH on a real pitch IMO. I know the Aussies are super quick with Starc and Johnson but you have to stand up to them sooner rather than later. Smith is a top, top player and so is Root. Big fan of both. Biggest concern for me right now is Cooks captaincy and why I previously questioned his leadership- does he have a plan B and does his body language in a tough situation strike you as captain-esque? I certainly don't think so.
I was reading some stuff about these slow pitches. One thought is the obvious one, that they wanted to blunt the Oz quicks, which is a bit of an insult to pom bowlers if you ask me. The other is all about money. The argument says that pitches are now planned for a 5 day test so ground revenue can be maximised. No club want's to lose a day's takings if the game only goes 4 days. Tests are a cash cow.
You Aussies to have a proud record of telling the English who to pick Cyc . I recall Steve Waugh was a master at it when we were really **** in the late 90s. Said player would usually do well in a warm up match against the tourists. Waugh would wax lyrical about him after the match, said player would get picked, be hopeless and get dropped not long afterwards. Waugh must have pissed himself at how easy it was. Carberry ain't good enough. I haven't looked it up but I think his last test innings was a swashbuckling 12 of 80+ deliveries in the last ashes series. This from someone with a reputation for getting on with it at the top of the order. Yep I bet the Aussie quicks would be ****ting themselves at the thought him opening the innings . I don't think I need to repeat my views on KP except to point out that never has so much been made of a big hundred against a bunch of students and a triple hundred made against the worst team in County cricket. If KP had decided to adopt Aus as his new country after falling out with the SA authorities and textgate happened whilst he was representing the baggy green the chances of him ever being 'rehabilitated' would have been nil. My view at the start of this series was that we would lose but I wanted to see signs for optimism. I think there are some.
There may be a little bit of truth in what you suggest, Cyc, but the argument does have a hole in it. Traditionally, Test matches over here start on Thursday and the five days are scheduled to end on Monday. Tickets are not sold for the fifth day in advance, so obviously the grounds want the games to last through Saturday and Sunday as those will be the two biggest revenue days. Often by the time Monday comes around, the result is looking fairly obvious and ticket sales and attendance tend to dwindle. I can recall occasions in the last few years where England or their opponent have been a hundred runs from victory or three/four wickets from victory; and on those occasions they have let children in for free and the adults have only had to pay £10. The ground actually loses money because their overheads do not shrink but revenue is negligible. If the Aussies can knock over most of the England top order on Sunday, the only people at Lord’s on Monday will be the Earls Court Baggy Green Army skiving off work to celebrate and a few of the crusty old Members who have nothing else to do. Lyth has already gone while I was typing this – England 12 for 1. He is a free wicket to anything short and straight.
Cook has gone now as well: England 23 for 2. Stick around half an hour and this one may be over before Sunday tea. Anybody got the number for Geoffrey Boycott’s mother? She and her son can open at Edgbaston...
If the place is virtually empty on Monday, you will not sell many burgers or pints. Over here much of the catering at all sports events is now outsourced and the venues charge a flat fee or get a percentage from the vendors. They stop punters bringing in their own food and drink so they can charge extortionate amounts. When I go to the races, I have lunch before I arrive so that I do not have to get ripped off. The last time I went to a cricket match was to see Yorkshire v Warwickshire at Scarborough and my friends and I bought one round of drinks each during the afternoon’s match and it was £20 a round at £4 a pint, which was a little bit more than the £13 for the same at a pub near the railway station on the way home.
Yeah, I sometimes think that if I'm to robbed for food and drink, they should at least have the decency to hold a knife to my throat.
Well done the Aussies - absolutely different class in the second test. I worry about England's mental strength after that mauling.
Some moments of top quality from the Aussies but England rolled over and gave wickets away and bowled a toothless few days. There has to be changes in the top order- Ian Bell, Gary Ballance, and Adam Lyth all getting out in their same silly ways. Can't help but feel England would be a better side if we replaced at least 2 of them with Taylor and Pietersen. There is a potential case to be made for Morgan but he's a bit hit and miss. Bells had enough chances IMO now. Quite how any professional coaches have allowed Gary Ballance to continue to play like he does- trapped in his crease- is beggars belief in this day and age. The Aussies simply keep pitching it full to him and he's wafting with no conviction- major weak link. Lyth still unsure of how to leave a ball.
I was wrong about it being over before tea. Bell lasted 50 balls so most of the lower order got their cucumber sandwiches before they capitulated. A 405-run defeat, our third worst against the Aussies but only four runs away from the second worst. Did anybody take the 10/11 Australia that was available on Thursday morning? I missed the debate about my bigoted nature on the previous page, so here goes: I have never been to Australia. I do know a couple of Aussies living here: I went to school with one of them and he is a nice chap and he will be very busy this week up at St Andrews, where he has built himself a very successful career (not playing golf, though). My abiding memory of him was our first meeting, when he arrived on these shores and joined my primary school. When it snowed, he ran inside and hid in the classroom because he had never seen snow before. I am sure he is fed up of being reminded of that episode every time he runs into one of his old class mates. The other Australian that I know I met quite considerably more recently and all the other people that know him would tell you that he is a Walter Mitty character. It is amazing how many mother-and-daughter relationships he had over here and how he nearly played rugby and cricket for Australia; but has now settled down with an English Sheila and produced a son who is going to captain Australia one day. I actually stated that the Aussies are descended from convicts, which is historical fact for a great many of them. I am sure that the Aussies are quite used to that banter just as we are used to being called Poms by them. The defence of the Italians did not seem so keen. Perhaps you looked in your dictionary and saw that Wop is a derogatory term for Italians, which was my absolute intent on that occasion. The Greek black economy is small potatoes compared to the Italians. The Germans want to keep Greece in the Euro because otherwise the markets will go after Italy and then the Eurozone is toast. Before you ask, I have been to Italy once on a skiing holiday years ago. Somebody should mention the Spanish so I can get Dagoes into the conversation...
