Well England are in for a 0-5 for sure now, I doubted the decision to bowl first while trying to remember the quote which goes something like "if the conditions look suitable to bowl first, think about it and bat first anyway.
While you might get something out of the pitch or weather early on to make you think you should bowl first, the grand majority of pitches are bat first pitches.
Might be if there's been a lot of rain that the pitch will get better/drier for batting so batting first is the worst option, but in most cases it usually as good as it gets.
So while England were cock-a-hoop about having the aussies what was it, 97/5, they themselves were 26/5 and nowhere near as capable of getting out of that hole.
Congratulations to Stokes for his first decent score when it counts, not quite (the same impact as) a hundred, but he and Broad avoided a worse England humiliation. And when it matters he and England are only able to make some use of the conditions and pitch, 5wis only really count when you're bowling sides out (relatively) cheaply leading to won matches.
All Stokes' hundred and indeed 5wi will do is sit on his record making it look like either made a difference. All three aussie 3wis have made a difference, more difference than Stokes' 5wi, as indeed has Haddin's 75 compared to a statistically superior 120 by stokes when the game was already all but over.
While I do like a good statistic, I do appreciate sometimes they accolade type counts of hundreds and 5wis don't mean a lot, it is the averages over time that do.
Sure I point out form like that of Compton leading to him being rightly dropped, but also in conjunction with a very ordinary overall average.
And when questioning the impact of someone like Flintoff as an all-rounder you sometimes have to point to the lack of hundreds (just five) and more pertinently his lack of 5wis (just three) I think Broad has learned what Flintoff never did, that length does matter
Rather than beat the batsman constantly he's upping the length to one that gets wickets.
The assertion that Kallis is an all-rounder does my nut in, excellent batsman, very good bowler, but not an all-rounder in the purest sense - offering as much with ball as with bat he does not.
He took less than two wickets for every Test played, he took more 5wis than Flintoff (5-3, two against Bangladesh) but even that over the course of 166 Tests does not compare with the genuine all-rounders like Botham, Dev, Cairns, Miller and Khan who all took at least a 5wi every 4th-8th Test not every 30th - and Sobers wasn't a genuine all-rounder either, a 5wi every 15 Tests. Kumble, Hadlee and Kallis make my list of all-rounders, all three have a disparity between hundreds and 5wis of 34+, next worst after them is Wasim with 22 and Sobers with 20 (the closer to zero the more of a genuine balance between the two disciplines)
Anyway, Ballance, Borthwick and Rankin also proved pretty poor selections, a rather ridiculous time to try something new and Ballance may be the only one to get a second bite at the cherry any time soon.
Already in this Test the captain looks reluctant to 'risk' Borthwick, he ain't going to make it in the side as a batsman so being yet another England bowler the captain is afraid to use when he needs it kept tight and wickets is not what England need. I've seen it too often before, even easier to do with five bowlers which is another negative against the five bowler theory.
Made me laugh on commentary when they were wondering who should bowl spin with the turn Lyon got, of course they dropped Root....................
England will do well to waste time from here, bit of a waste of time wasting time when there are three days to go and if the aussies declared any time in the next 2-3 hours play there'd still be more runs than England will score.
Might be handy for Ballance to score a hundred in the 2nd innings to boost his confidence more than mean anything overall. It's been an unmitigated disaster this series, selection not least. They were also discussing the bowling averages of Borthwick and Tredwell in commentary, I think they said Borthwick had taken 31 wickets at 38 and Tredwell something like 17 at 50.
Yet the *word I could use removed and replaced with member* cricketicon is questioning why they would pick Bresnan!!!!
Selected county averages 2013
1 Ballance : 1251 runs @ 62.55
2 Carberry : 687 runs @ 42.94
1 Borthwick : 1022 runs @ 39.31 & 28 wkts @ 38.00
1 Stokes : 615 runs @ 27.22 & 42 wkts @ 26.57
1 Rankin : 31 wkts @ 22.87
1 Bresnan : 66 runs @ 16.50 & 16 wkts @ 24.56
1 Finn : 17 wkts @ 29.59
1 Tremlett : 32 wkts @ 33.03
2 Tredwell : 17 wkts @ 56.76
I'd ask why so many without experience and/or just cause were taken on tour. Maybe the selectors were too complacent, thought we could pick XI at random and still win. Tredwell and Carberry were doing ok to not good in division two, Borthwick was unlikely to hack it as a spinner while Tremlett and Finn were hardly in tip top form, one Test played (in the series) between them begging the question why they were selected.
I can see why you might try Ballance, Stokes and Rankin, not sure why you would on tour mind. I'm sure their runs and/or wickets didn't suddenly all come
after the Oval Test so why not play them then?!?!? And how did division two runs Carberry get the nod ahead of more division ONE runs Ballance? I can only surmise player types, although any of Bell, Trott or indeed Root could have opened the batting.
Follow ons don't make any sense at all in the modern game. There are no longer any rest days and with heavy workload for bowlers (T20s, odis and never-ending test series) you would rather give your bowlers a rest if there's enough time available. With an important tour to SA on the horizon Aussies wouldn't want to risk injury to their bowling attack by putting too much pressure on them by enforcing follow on, especially when there are 3 days and a session remaining in the Test.
Absolutely. There are only two scenarios in which a captain should enforce the follow on, 1) when they have enough runs to win without having to bat again and/or 2) when time is an issue with it either running out or potentially time lost.
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So again Stokes came in with too little too late, long after the game has already been won; really he should have just curled up and died.
Not sure if you're criticising Stokes, but at least the runs came when the game was still alive and not just when the dirt is being put back over the coffin.
I'm still unconvinced how it is going to work with him in the Test side, he'll need to up his runs for sure to bat six, I doubt even in form England could risk Prior batting six unless Stokes could average near enough 40 and whoever bats eight and nine can chip in with 16-24 averages.
And whether his bowling is good enough to destroy sides and not just pick up the odd wicket and polish off an innings for an occasional 5wi ie be good enough to bowl as part of a four man attack.
The latter may be the way to go, play Stokes, Broad, Anderson and a spinner/seamer to make up the four, assuming Stokes can be a third seamer. At the moment I'm unconvinced he is more than a fourth seamer which only works with four seamers so that or a five bowler attack. I can see him playing in India with two spinners making up the five, how he'd fare out there is another matter.
Time will tell, of course saving our worst until last could be on the cards.
Lowest England scores 13/14 (sub 300)
136 : 1st Test, 1st innings
155 : 5th Test, 1st innings
172 : 2nd Test, 1st innings
179 : 1st Test, 2nd innings
179 : 4th Test, 2nd innings
251 : 3rd Test, 1st innings
255 : 4th Test, 1st innings
If anyone questions why I make such a noise about meaningless 2nd innings runs, the above should give you a clue and as to why England (will have) lost this series 5-0. You can't consistently score under 200, especially 1st innings. It is the same number of sub 200 scores as 06/07 if I'm not mistaken, only two above 300 this time and none nearing that infamous 550/7d (?) declaration for which Flintoff is still criticised.
Not a single 1st innings above 255 is feeble, apart from the last Test every single one has been lost by a lack of 1st innings runs. And when you keep yourself in a Test by taking the 1st innings lead, how do you force home your advantage? Not with 179 2nd innings
