Ashes 2015 - Australia tour of England July/September 2015

[cooks1st100]

I absolutely loathe Ballance's batting. It breaks my heart to see a guy come out to bat at 3 for England literally playing french cricket. He makes Cook look like David Gower.

It's like watching someone on the toilet.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. How the hell has he managed to rack up so many runs? Is the standard of bowling that poor in county cricket these days?

Have only managed to catch bits and pieces over the last two days but this track appears to have livened up a little.

 

[Dutch]

it is refreshing though to see England counter attack....really good stuff....we need to grind the aussie noses in it and be absolutely relentless....you can be brash and arrogant but if you cant talk and walk you had better just be quiet...love it!

 

[Dutch]

@blockerdave

Do you want salad with that hat?

 

[blockerdave]

@blockerdave

Do you want salad with that hat?

i wish he'd hurry up and get out - ruining my enjoyment of England being ahead!!!

this is typical Bell... makes a score just often enough to stay in the side. he'll still struggle to average 30 over the series.

 

[blockerdave]

About time!

 

[cooks1st100]

i wish he'd hurry up and get out - ruining my enjoyment of England being ahead!!!

this is typical Bell... makes a score just often enough to stay in the side. he'll still struggle to average 30 over the series.

There ya go Dave, you can sit back and chill now!

 

[blockerdave]

There ya go Dave, you can sit back and chill now!

Now I can enjoy the score

 

[abhi_jacko]

So how exactly is this a flat test wicket? I havent been able to watch the game itself, but following it on Cricinfo and the scores look very classically test match-ish

 

[IceAgeComing]

It looked very flat in the first innings; its had irregular bounce and will probably turn a load in the unlikely event we get to a fifth day. I'd imagine the reason why we all shouted "flat!" is because Australia struggled in the first innings; and tbh it could easily have been because they didn't bowl particularly well. Its swung a bunch which always helps, and the old ball has swung a load. Its not like Trent Bridge last year where the pitch was dead from the start and never changed; its had something in it for the bowlers if you bowl line and length well; and Australia have always been a little short.

Apparently some people thought that we'd have a fast bouncy pitch which was silly because 1. Its Cardiff; 2. England were never going to play into Australia's hands, and 3. Its Cardiff; its always slow. I've always felt that England would aim for slow seamers, and the first bit was right here.

I want at least one with a bit of life in it; as surprisingly good as this game has turned out five slow spinners isn't exactly something that makes me feel excited about the rest of the series

 

[cooks1st100]

It looked very flat in the first innings; its had irregular bounce and will probably turn a load in the unlikely event we get to a fifth day. I'd imagine the reason why we all shouted "flat!" is because Australia struggled in the first innings; and tbh it could easily have been because they didn't bowl particularly well. Its swung a bunch which always helps, and the old ball has swung a load. Its not like Trent Bridge last year where the pitch was dead from the start and never changed; its had something in it for the bowlers if you bowl line and length well; and Australia have always been a little short.

Apparently some people thought that we'd have a fast bouncy pitch which was silly because 1. Its Cardiff; 2. England were never going to play into Australia's hands, and 3. Its Cardiff; its always slow. I've always felt that England would aim for slow seamers, and the first bit was right here.

I want at least one with a bit of life in it; as surprisingly good as this game has turned out five slow spinners isn't exactly something that makes me feel excited about the rest of the series

I'd be highly surprised if they were. As you say Cardiff has always been the same. Definitely not test match standard in my opinion but at the end of the day both teams have to bat and bowl on it. Two superb sessions from England today but hats off to how well Starc bowled, through the pain barrier and cranking up some pace. A couple of his deliveries before lunch were absolutely unplayable.

If England bowl tomorrow morning as they did this morning I reckon Australia will be 3/4 down by lunch. It's going to be a tough session for the Aussies.

 

[MUFC1987]

So people are complaining about a pitch where we could see a result in 4 days, yet you'd complain even more if we'd seen 5 wickets fall over 3 days so far? Seems like they just can't win eh?

I imagine most of the pitches will be like this because it's exactly what England want. It's exactly the same as when India toured. It's the type of pitch where England can be very successful, hence why they keep on being churned out, it's not a coincidence.

 

[abhi_jacko]

So people are complaining about a pitch where we could see a result in 4 days, yet you'd complain even more if we'd seen 5 wickets fall over 3 days so far? Seems like they just can't win eh?

Problem once again is the expectations - as has been the case with a lot of series recently (India tour of aus comes to mind).

People expected England's batting to be blown away by Aussies pace attack. So the obvious explanation was the wicket is flat - until English batsmen actually outperformed the Australian batsmen on the same flat wicket. Ofcourse, the Aussies still have a chance to pull off a win ..

 

[MUFC1987]

Absolutely, it's the kind of pitch where (if it didn't rain) we'd be guaranteed a result, over the 5 days. That's all I want in a Test match pitch really.

 

[LiveLoveABD]

Fantastic! We've had 3 days of cricket, 30 wickets, over a thousand runs, 3 completed innings and a delicious test match in prospect and the Aussie fans are complaining about the pitch! Superb.

To be honest, I'm not in the least surprised to see the poms stick it to them. That mid-lower order for England is just mental. You pick 4-5 wickets as a test side and you have Root, Stokes, Buttler and Ali to deal with. Wonder where Shane Warne is now to mouth off?

Honestly, I criticize Ali Cook a lot on this board, but his field placements have been good so far. Take my hat off there. I'm not worried about his batting because he's world class as a test batsman, though his style I don't prefer.

I said before the Ashes began that Australia are being very over confident, and it's showing. I've always believed that away from home, their batting is very brittle and it's there to see. Watson is the most over rated test cricketer of the century. The guy has played forever and he has 4 test hundreds. AFAIK, all those hundreds were in dead rubbers with Australia already dominant. When he bowls, you fear he might pull some muscle any given time. I still can't believe they didn't go with MM who I have a biased towards, but really? Watson? Jeez.

I'll say this- I was supporting Australia in the last Ashes because of the 'pissing' incident. I'm supporting England this time, though I have some serious reservations about Stuart Broad. But, boy it was nice to see the English boys stick a needle inside that moron Brad Haddin. He's been filled with arrogance ever since that Ashes win. All the send off's to the NZ players during the WC and constant bad mouthing etc. etc.

Australia are capable of chasing the total, but Steve Smith aside, I don't see where the runs are coming from. Watson will make just enough runs to make sure his name is in the XI at Lord's.

Regardless, a mouth watering weekend is in prospect. The Ashes tomorrow, followed by the championships on Sunday.

 

[ParkedTheBus]

For the next test it should either Starc or Johnson, not both of them. Johnson was at his best when he had two pacers who were willing to do the hard yards for him(Siddle and Harris). Starc isn't going to do that and playing two attacking bowlers is suicide if it goes wrong.


The total seems difficult but not unmanageable. 2 more days to go and Smith, Rogers, Clarke and Voges looked in decent touch in the first innings only to throw it away. If they learn from their mistakes, then why not?