Were England lucky to escape in first Test?

[hawkeye]

Were England lucky to escape in the first test as Warne says or was Australia lucky to have come so close?

Australia were lucky to have come so close

For many who followed the first Ashes test at Nottingham, the fact that Australia lost by just 15 runs is evidence that the gap between the sides is not as wide as was suggested. That may be true. But it is worth considering that Australia was able to stay in the game only because of two last wicket partnerships: Phillip Hughes and Ashton Agar combined for a record 163 runs in the first innings, and Brad Haddin and James Pattinson brought the visitors close to victory by adding 65.

Now it has to be agreed that this is not a recipe for future success ? batsmen coming in at 11 cannot consistently be expected to bat for hours and to play in the manner that Agar did in the first innings. Tail-enders cannot be expected to provide runs where there more celebrated brethren had failed; world-record, last-wicket unions do not occur very often.

 

[barmyarmy]

It shouldn't have been close. Take away those two last wicket stands and it wouldn't have been.
Australia did very well to make it close but England were the superior team.

 

[sifter132]

Why not take away the Broad/Bell partnership, if you're going to use your magic powers and theoretically take away the Aussie 10th wicket ones? After all, Broad's a bowler and unlikely to score that much again, not to mention he could easily have been out twice (on 1 when he padded up to Agar, you know the other one...)

I agree that England were better, but to me it was largely due to Ian Bell not doing anything stupid and staying in while England scored 250 runs. Even in the 1st innings Bell had an important 50 run stand with Bairstow. Yet...if Watson had convinced Dharmasena to raise the finger when Bell was 11 in the 2nd innings, he would have been out LBW because the ball was shown to be hitting leg on an umpire's call. England would have been 5/140 there with no Broad/Bell partnership to come. Hypothetically, that call decided the match. So easy to change results when you play hypotheticals

 

[barmyarmy]

What if England had scored 600/1 dec and bowled Australia out for 50 twice?

 

[Gone4aDuck]

It shouldn't have been close. Take away those two last wicket stands and it wouldn't have been.
Australia did very well to make it close but England were the superior team.

Spoken like a true England fan. I guess you've forgotten about anderson and monty at cardiff in 2009? The match isn't over until the 20 wickets have fallen. If England were so superior then why didn't their bowlers blow the tail away?!
They had to rely on anderson (once again) to finish the job off.
It's not australias fault their bowlers bat well.

 

[barmyarmy]

I was pretty pessimistic coming into this series, mostly about our batting, but on the evidence of Trent Bridge I think we'll win both series.

 

[zeustrojanstark]

2-1,the Aussies are going to win.Here come the MIGHTY AUSSIES.Wrong decisions or anything,we dont care,the AUSSIE rules!Ausssie Ausssie

 

[scampy]

I think Aus were lucky to get so close. Taking the last wicket partnerships aside if the umpire had got the DRS decisions right for Agar's run out and Trott's lbw then Englands lead going into the last innings would have been 400 plus. At that point there would have only been two possible results.

 

[Owzat]

I think England got lucky at the end, if that break hadn't come and they'd played on then I think the aussies would have won.

Did we deserve to win? Well we scored more runs, although more than the winning margin came from the bat of Broad after he was out but didn't leave the crease. Agar maybe should have gone stumped, but that was a lot less clear cut.

I think the aussies fought back well in each innings, does that mean they deserved to win or that they hung on in there?

England 1st Inns - 178/4 > 215 all out (aussies 6/37)
Australia 1st Inns - 117/9 > 280 all out (aussies 163 for last wicket)
England 2nd Inns - 356/6 > 375 all out (aussies 4/19)
Australia 2nd Inns - 231/9 > 296 all out (aussies 65 for last wicket)

So the aussies scored 228 runs across their 10th wicket, nearly 40% of their runs in the match, and took 10/56 when dealing with the latter part of Englands two innings. The aussies definitely won the battle of the lower order.

Oh and if you can't get Monty out having bowled 35 balls at him then you don't deserve to win, he's faced only 35 balls in the seven innings he has gotten out in since.

 

[spooony]

What if England had scored 600/1 dec and bowled Australia out for 50 twice?

Wrong Saffers mate. We are talking about SA A not South Africa first XI

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

Why not take away the Broad/Bell partnership, if you're going to use your magic powers and theoretically take away the Aussie 10th wicket ones? After all Bell's rubbish.

fixed this for you mate.

 

[sifter132]

Hah - I wish. Bell is killing us As for Broad...he seems such a streaky batsman, one of those guys who seems to only rarely middle the ball and then you look up at the scoreboard and see he's past 20. A truly frustrating player to cheer against.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Absolutely not; as has been said many times now, if the Third Umpire had (correctly) given Agar out stumped, we would've won the match by at least 100 runs. That last wicket partnership simply papered over the cracks, which are there for all to see in the second test. They're more like yawning chasms than cracks!

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Spoken like a true England fan. I guess you've forgotten about anderson and monty at cardiff in 2009? The match isn't over until the 20 wickets have fallen. If England were so superior then why didn't their bowlers blow the tail away?!
They had to rely on anderson (once again) to finish the job off.
It's not australias fault their bowlers bat well.

Ummm... Monty and Jimmy weren't there because of an awful Third Umpire decision though, were they? Hardly a good comparison.

And make no mistake, England are 'so superior' - you've only got to look at what's unfolding in the 2nd test to see that.