England in Australia

[Englishandproud]

Unfortunatly Flintoff cant do everything, which has been evident in that in the first two tests his batting has let him down badly. Similar to when Botham became captain?

 

[irottev]

To Giles credit. He has at least posted an acceptable amount of runs so far and his bowling, whilst bveing poor has been tighter and more wicket taking then Harmison and Anderson. Monty needs to come in, but does it need to be at the expense of Giles? Him bowling with Monty might work a little better. Then again, he may just ease the pressure and give away runs.

Monty has to play. No doubt about it. I am sure Fletcher and Flintoff and the selection panel will take him this time.

I wouldn't drop Harmy he looked like he was in good touch in that test just didn't get wickets. He will be much more threatening than Anderson or Plunkett.

Anderson definatly. Plunkett, well, maybe. At least to Plunketts credit he bowls a tighter line then the rest normally. I would understand them keeping Harmison for his experiance and occasional wicket but not Anderson.



A batsmen scores 200 and a bowler gets 7 wickets for England. And they still lost and were let down.

 

[moza1]

Amazing win by the Aussies.

Fantastic team performance with some great individual performances from Ponting, Hussey and Warne today.

 

[Punk_Sk8r]

To Giles credit. He has at least posted an acceptable amount of runs so far and his bowling, whilst bveing poor has been tighter and more wicket taking then Harmison and Anderson. Monty needs to come in, but does it need to be at the expense of Giles? Him bowling with Monty might work a little better. Then again, he may just ease the pressure and give away runs.

Monty has to play. No doubt about it. I am sure Fletcher and Flintoff and the selection panel will take him this time.

Look Giles hasnt done jack all with the bat its not like hes scoring match winning Innings and he should be doing so if hes only been bought in for his batting?

20 odd runs isnt batting or isnt enough to be bought in to bat!

I alwyas though Strauss should be Capitan an All Rounder like Freddie its too much for him Strauss fits the role not Freddie, he would do so better without pressure like in 2005!

 

[puddleduck]

To Giles credit. He has at least posted an acceptable amount of runs so far and his bowling, whilst bveing poor has been tighter and more wicket taking then Harmison and Anderson. Monty needs to come in, but does it need to be at the expense of Giles? Him bowling with Monty might work a little better. Then again, he may just ease the pressure and give away runs.

He has scored a couple of 20's, and now when the pressure was on he gets an 8 ball duck. Out scored and outlasted at the crease by everyone of our lower order batsman. He's picked up the odd wicket, but they have all been batsman trying to hit him hard, in terms of actually threatening he has beaten the bat less times than I've fingers on my hand.

On a 5th day pitch, with everyone of the Aussie bowlers going at under 2 an over, our spin bowler that was supposed to keep it tight was milked for over 4 an over. He is useless, and has to be dropped!

Whilst it was game over at the time, interesting to see that Geraint Jones drops the first difficult chance that comes his way. I saw that coming a mile off as he has looked fairly slow to reach anything down the leg-side. Compared to Gilly who has for the most part kept flawlessly he is just not good enough.

With the bat, he still hasn't scored a 50 in almost 20 test innings, and is still averaging around 15 with the bat in that time, quite simply not good enough.

 

[aussie1st]

Harmy at his peak takes wickets you just have to see last years Ashes. If he can find that form he will trouble any Aussie batsmen. He is a strike bowler for the English and right now they need that. But first and foremost get Monty in there!

 

[irottev]

Look Giles hasnt done jack all with the bat its not like hes scoring match winning Innings and he should be doing so if hes only been bought in for his batting?

Who would you say, judged on the last 2 tests has been a bigger asset to the side? Anderson or Giles?

By the way, no need to jump on my back. I am totally in the camp that Giles is friggin useless. But given what we have seen from the other english bowlers, do they deserve their places more?

 

[Englishandproud]

Also another reason why we lost was due to the slow run rate, why on earth did we start so slow, 5 runs off 6 overs at the beginning, enough to send anyone in England staying up to watch it fall to sleep.
Ok you may argue if we had started like a house on fire we may have lost earlier wickets but we lost them anyway, get runs on the board then defend them. Don't say it wasn't possible as the Aussies managed to go at 4.8 an over to reach their target, we were going more like 0.8 an over

 

[puddleduck]

I alwyas though Strauss should be Capitan an All Rounder like Freddie its too much for him Strauss fits the role not Freddie, he would do so better without pressure like in 2005!

Anyone else notice that Freddies field were yet again too defensive when the pressure was on, it happened in India, and it happened against Sri Lanka. It's now happened again here. He let Australia cruise to needing 50 to win, then left the field Strauss immediately brought people in and picked up a wicket. Freddie returns after his customary cry for help off Fletcher and oh look, fielders are kept in close. However it was far too late by then.

 

[angryangy]

No no no...Giles can turn the ball consistantly once in 38 overs ive seen it spin even if he had carpet to bowl on he wouldnt be able to turn it hes just there for some apparent reason?

Not for his batting because he cant bat either, a batting #8 is Warne!

Fine, bring in pace on a wicket that will slaughter them.

 

[puddleduck]

Who would you say, judged on the last 2 tests has been a bigger asset to the side? Anderson or Giles?

By the way, no need to jump on my back. I am totally in the camp that Giles is friggin useless. But given what we have seen from the other english bowlers, do they deserve their places more?

Neither, if anything Giles has been the bigger waste of space as he has more roles to fill, and has filled none of them.

Since England are determined to have a number 8 that bats, both players should sit the next test out unless it's a raging turner - in should come Mahmood/Plunkett for Giles, and Monty for Anderson. Whilst it may not be the best bowling lineup available, it keeps the balance England harp on about, and it stands a better chance of taking wickets than the current lineup.

Afterall the same attack minus Freddie bowled out one of the best batting lineups in world cricket enough to win 2-0 (3-0) only 6 months ago.

 

[irottev]

I guess Giles dropped catch does him no good. You could say he dropped the game.

 

[jdbais]

What an absolute disgraceful performance by Giles. Really one of the most dreadful and ineffective performances I have witnessed. This should be the end of his test career. Not only did he drop Ponting on 35 (he should have also caught him in the first match) but he scored a duck and bowled horribly. He couldn't take wickets nor could he even contain the batsman.

The main factor for this loss was the negative batting by England. To score 70 runs in 54 overs is disgraceful. Australia were bowling well but 70 runs in 54 overs in inexcusable. The same can be said in regards to the first innings where they seemed content on protecting their averages rather than lifting the runrate.

Overall a pathetic performance from England and they will most certainly lose the ashes 5-0. There is no way they can recover from such a humiliating loss. The english media is going to have a field day. I just can't wait to see some of the headlines lol.

 

[aussie1st]

Interesting, someone in another forum pointed this stat out.

At the Adelaide oval the following have scored double 100s
Collingwood in 2006/07
Lara in 2005/06
Ponting in 2003/04 against India

What do you they have in common? They lost!
If Langer does it we win.

 

[puddleduck]

I guess Giles dropped catch does him no good. You could say he dropped the game.

Almost certainly. Considering that coming into this series only Hayden, Ponting and Hussey averaged over 40 in the last year, with Hayden in the 50's, and Ponting and Hussey over 70. Chances are Australia would have ended up at least 100-150 runs behind England, and it would have been mighty tough to lose from there.

The thing is though drop catches happen and the more worrying thing is that Giles barely looked like taking a wicket unless the batsman tried to hit him out the park and this on the exact same pitch that both Warne out the rough was spinning it a mile, and KP off the pitch was getting good turn. It is worrying when your part timer gets more dip, drift and turn than your frontline spinner.

Anderson and Harmy were certainly not blameless, but Anderson did bowl some good deliveries and should have had Clarke caught behind late on whilst Harmy beat the bat a fair few times but just didn't get that bit of luck he needed. As was showed when he was given out to a ball that would have have cleared the stumps by almost half a stump.

The biggest worry for England at the moment, is that their team isn't performing. Individuals are having excellent games like Freddie at Brisbane, Kp and Colly, to an extent Bell, in both tests, Hoggard at Adelaide. As a team however, noone else has either runs or wickets to their name.

You look at Australia, and Clarke, Langer, Ponting, Hussey, Gilchrist all have a score to their name so far. Yes they've had some key performances in every knock from Ponting and Hussey, but they've also had scores from everyone else except Hayden and Martyn.

The same applies with the ball. McGrath, Clark, Warne and now Lee in this final innings have all had good innings, for England just two out of five bowlers have looked at all threatening, and when Freddie did Hoggy didn't, when Hoggy did, Freddie was off the field injured and not bowling.

Anyway, this is enough from me for now, I've said my piece, and I am obviously massively dissapointed, the similarities with Multan are striking baring in mind the appaling last day collapses in which only really 3-4 wickets were truely earned with the batsman throwing everything away and hoping someone else will do the job. That said, and the same then, well played Australia. They said all along that they could win this, and they somehow managed to convince England that they had nothing to play for except a draw.