Ashes 2025

Potential test player

 

I going day 3 of the Boxing Day test, hopefully it will last till then.
Many City people going.?

 

The only good thing is that we didn't lose be an innings and however many runs, although that's just sandpapering over the cracks, oh ...

 

Catching the little buggers is the problem.

 

this for me sums it up ......3 balls which could have been comfortably left, 3 wickets. Time and a place for aggressive batting, after lunch was NOT it.

 

We just seem to swing at everything rather than, as people have already pointed out, playing ourselves in.

 

Who's currently worse; England at batting or City at defending?

 

Equal

 

England bats, City still in a better position than we expected.

 

Truth

 

Australia won in the end by Travis Head playing aggressively no?

 

Know nowt has been.

 

Boycott is a miserable twat.

He still thinks cricket should be played like it was in the 1970s with a strike rate of 40.

McCullum and Stokes have done a brilliant job making England competive in the last few years.

England just need to be a bit clever and pick there shots better.

They bowled brilliant in the first innings. The batsmens where poor in the second innings and didn't give the bowlers a chance in the 2 innings.

 

people forget how ****e we was under Silverwood trying to play the “proper” way.

 

God now that dinosaur Vaughan having a go


To hell with the optics was the message from England on Monday after confirmation that none of the players who collapsed to the shattering two-day defeatin the first Ashes Test will change tack and travel to Canberra.

In a move that risks drawing further ire, only Jacob Bethell, Josh Tongue and Matthew Potts – all unused in Perth – will join the Lions at Manuka Oval, where Andrew Flintoff’s shadow touring party will take on a Prime Minister’s XI in a two-day floodlit fixture that starts on Saturday.

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England plot route to Ashes recovery as Mark Wood admits they were ‘hit hard in round one’
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Cricket Australia originally slated the fixture for England’s first team as a warm-up for the day-night second Test that starts in Brisbane on 4 December, only to be informed a number of weeks ago that the Lions would be taking their place instead. It was felt the ground’s slow pitch would not prepare the players adequately before the traditional bounce of the Gabba.

Although the head coach, Brendon McCullum, did then offer individuals the chance to divert to Canberra after the defeat in Perth, only three fringe players took up the offer.

With the fast-forward nature of the first Test opening up an 11-day gap before the second, McCullum has opted to book additional training days at the Gabba, including evening sessions under lights. England fly to Brisbane on Wednesday, with these extended preparations starting on Saturday.

In some ways, the harrowing nature of the first Test – including collapses in both innings – meant England would be damned either way. Switch to Canberra and it would probably be framed as panic; stick to their guns – a belief in tailored training and keeping the squad together – and it becomes casual.

Michael Vaughan, the former England captain, told BBC Test Match Special: “It’s amateurish if they don’t go and play now. What harm is playing two days of cricket with a pink ball under lights? It’s not being old-school to suggest that a pink ball is different to a red ball.”

 

We were really quite extraordinarily ****e under the previous regime so looking back to that is a very low bar, we have 100% improved compared to Moores (should never ever have been brought back!) / Mott, but we are still pretty ****e. We've failed to beat India or Australia at home since Bazball came in, and other than SA at home and Pakistan away in the nearly 4 years he's been coach I can't think of any notable series wins? We've utterly regressed in white ball cricket and have been handing out caps like confetti at a wedding. It's all getting a bit end of Walter's reign for me, yes there was some exciting stuff in amongst the ****, but the pig headed approach, no flexibility or consideration of conditions or game situation is just beyond parody. Ex-England players and commentators are nearly all saying the same stuff, just with different words and different levels of criticism, doesn't matter if it's Boycott, Athers, Broad whoever, it's the same message - we have a team and a set up who refuse to recognise criticism, they live in a bubble of no accountability and no regrets. That last test was not a one off, we've seen the same collapses time and again, the same dismissals to balls miles outside off stump....this approach is great in the right conditions, but a shambles when they aren't right. Our poor bowlers are getting no respite and given that half of them are walking injuries to begin with, there is no way that more than 2 of those who played last week are making that final test.