The Ashes 2021-22

Inquitus

Ashes are over :( No contest, hard to see England even winning a dead rubber!

Gillespy

It would be a massive shock if it's not another whitewash. Shuffling the team by bringing in Crawley, Lawrence, Vince or Bairstow isn't going to dramatically change anything.

I read somewhere the England odi team went two years, over 11,000 deliveries without bowling a no ball. Yet here they have no such discipline. Same with their over rate. According to George Dobell, who is out there, their morning catching practice is a shambles, drop after dropped catch. Reflects very poorly on Root and Silverwood stuff like that. It has nothing to do with lack of talented players.

Strumms

I’d back the whitewash too, England don’t look like they have a clue from the teams they pick to their performances on the field, their leadership is clueless and doesn’t learn from its mistakes…

Trampas

Saw this on Twitter

Joe Root 's entry points in last 26 test innings :- 

17/2

73/2

18/2

56/2

15/2

10/2

27/2

0/2

16/2

49/2

63/2

32/2

5/2

60/2

17/2

12/2

42/2

46/2

23/2

1/2

159/2

6/2

120/2

11/2

61/2

12/2

Average score at Root 's entry : 36/2

Amazing they just change bowlers but less so the batters. Unless they play some county cricket in summer months it’s hard for other players to look like they’re good enough as playing on green swinging wickets in spring and end of summer/autumn

Strumms

My guess is Australia will look for a lead of 430/440… which they should attain about 90 minutes after lunch giving themselves a day and a half to bowl the English out…… no real way 2-0 is avoidable…

Strumms

Should have been a run out first ball if Hameed had thrown to the bowlers end and had hit or Broad was backing up… Broad bowling 81/82 mph… not gonna put too much fear into the opposition..

blistering start by England, great bowling as in world class deliveries from Broad and Anderson and an absolutely amazing catch by Buttler…wow he’d hardly a right to get a glove on that let alone hang onto it.

As I type then Jos drops a sitter.. seriously wtf 😳

then Steve Smith saved by umpires call on DRS, by about an inch… All happening fućk.

MFPM

England are bowling really well this morning, Australia are all over the place, no one looks comfortable, loads of chances and very few runs. A draw is still likely the best England can hope for but Australia really just need one or two decent partnerships to get them up towards 400 lead.

Strumms

Anderson has bowled 8 overs, 6 maidens, conceded 3 runs, 1 wicket.

MFPM

Australia eventually started to counterattack, Head has played very well, Stokes is all over the place.

MFPM

England's chance of winning is long gone, hard to understand why Australia are batting on - they need time now not runs.

Strumms

Well going into the final day Australia will be sleeping easily … England 82/4 and needing another 386 for victory, no level of Ben Stokes heroics will get England a victory and the probability of weather intervening in their favour to help enable a draw is so low it ain’t worth talking about…

the England tail is far too long to scrape through a full days play intact…. Four down, no chance whatsoever..only Pope and Butler to come before the bowlers…nahhhh not doable.

only having five batsmen is somewhat unbelievable in these conditions…hoping bits and pieces all rounders make up a decent score is a folly of a selection….

Perseverance The Second

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118341402#Comment_118341402

The ECB's problems are much larger than just neglecting the long forms of the game.

DAZN will be looking to offload those rights once BT sells up.

The ECB have been digging their own grave since 2005 when they decided to remove cricket from England's public eye and then failing to the get game out to state schools

They might actually benefit if they stop chasing the short term money by putting more games on free to air.

Although i do agree with the ECB in the sense that Twenty20 will need to become the overwhelming primary form of the game if the ECB have any hope of encouraging new people to get into the sport. People simply don't have the time in this day and age to spend time + money to watch the long forms of the game.

It would not surprise me if the Ashes moves to a Twenty20 format at some point.

Tom Mann Centuria

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118346531#Comment_118346531

Well the women's ashes is already multi-format, so it's not beyond the realms of possiblity.

ECB have moved on from T20, they've gone all in on the Hundred, but that's for another thread, this is about the misery of inept England getting their arses kicked.

Strumms

You’ll never see the ashes be competed over the shorter formats…there have been 71 Ashes series, test format, you wouldn’t buy a ticket for love nor money pre covid… I tried and failed the last two series in England….. limited overs games are ok for a quick fire evenings entertainment but in terms of the spectrums of skill, patience, endeavour and overall ability, tests are THE test, the barometer of proving oneself and abilities as individuals and teams over 5 days…

Richard Hillman

Didn't get to see today's play but hearing Ollie Robinson was bowling spin made me howl. The 2 tests in and it's beyond farcical. The ECB won't be able to do their usual thing of hanging somebody out to dry by sacking a captain or coach. The coach is new and they have nobody else to captain the team.

Richard Hillman

The 3rd test they need to do something madly different.

I would go Buttler and Bairstow to open. Tell them try and get 50-60 odd off 30 balls. Play T20.

Buttler

Bairstow

Malan

Root

Lawrence

Stokes

Foakes (wk) (he's on the A Tour)

Parkinson/Crane (A Tour)

Broad

Wood

Anderson

Strumms

Need to get their selection right…

four batsmen

four all rounders

three bowlers

So lower middle order is made up of bits and pieces cricketers… Pope needs to be dropped… give Crawley a shot at 6… at least he’s a batsman.

Hilarious how bad their leadership is. Whatever about Root the player, he’s a hopeless captain. A comedy of errors this tour.

Play the spinner on a practical dust bowl to batters who favour his type of spin. Let him get tonked, drop him. Then end up with 3 part timers bowling spin (including a medium pacer!) while Aus will expect to win tomorrow with a major contribution from their spinner. (As an aside, I’d pick Root’s offies over Leach but surely can’t be relying on your captains part timers)

Picking his mates too. Love Buttler the one day player but he is probably England’s 3rd best Keeper at this level and wouldn’t be warranting a place with the bat (unless you go ODI mode as above).

Management (and Stokes himself) will drive Stokes into the ground, possibly to the point he takes a recovery or injury break again. Probably happen to Wood too, might sneak 3 tests out of him. They ruined Archer too.

I used to laugh at them a few years back when their team was practically all rounders, I remember Moeen at 3 even. But beats this shambles, they may as well go back to that. Bring Livingstone in, Woakes at 8/9 and bat to 9/10 in the hope of getting 300.

Gillespy

Day night from Australia doesn't suit me at all this time of year. I want to stay up rather than get up early. 4am start is fine for India and Sri Lanka in February and the spring.

Didn't watch a ball of day four either. I knew Robinson bowled some off spin. It was done for over rate reasons and apparently he got more turn than Leach. Bad look all around really that.

The Buttler experiment has failed and it cost Bairstow his test career. He's never going to be their Gilchrist. Time to give Foakes his turn next series.

Richard Hillman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118349700#Comment_118349700

They were actually quite decent when the team was filled with all rounders. The likes of Ali, Curran, Woakes coming in late on and putting up quick runs was very demoralising for the opposition. They were putting together good partnerships and regularly got 300+ scores. But it was almost as if they felt guilty about it because they were starting off at 20/2 every test.

Their top order was failing and getting bailed out by the lower order. Then they basically just did what Sky Sports pundits told them to do and got rid of the all-rounders, put "specialist" batsmen/bowlers in and ended up regressing.

Your team score is the most important part of batting. Not the people or positions the runs come in. Can your team get 20 wickets and can you score around 600 odd runs in the test.

Strumms

The only thing that’s going to save England from a whitewash 5-0 might be the weather. 236 and 192 are not totals that would enable you to beat Sri Lanka never mind Australia…

Can’t pick the right side / squad

Can’t score enough runs

Cant take enough wickets

The problems are endemic… the leadership as always hide behind soundbites… they say absolutely nothing…. Root as great a batsman / cricketer… just isn’t a captain… it’s glaringly obvious.. his loyalty needs to be to enable winning… being loyal to underperforming and misfiring players is stupidity of the highest order, boneheaded captaincy… be loyal to obtaining results, to your country, supporters…but loyal to misfiring players ?

look at the averages of the English batsmen, poor in the main…. Look at the international wickets outside of Broad and Anderson… Mark Wood averages 3 wickets… PER TEST… so what’s he doing there ? Yeah he speaks well in interviews…

the great thing about cricket is it’s not like football where everything is subjective pretty much… statistics tell you everything in cricket… not enough runs or wickets or the ability or likelihood to change that…statistics tell us unless something changes dramatically this is going to get seriously ugly for Root and co.

Strumms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_2cBdFlV_Y

excellent vodcast above…pretty spot on, very critical of Root, the team selection and tactical flaws.

Tom Mann Centuria

Good article in the Guardian too. Root and Silverwood company men who have let the ECB do as they wish and this is the result. Scathing stuff, he also mentioned on twitter he thought Root was good at blaming everyone else, when he was on the pitch and letting them do all the things he was critical of.

https://twitter.com/guardian_sport/status/1472990287224053767?t=OU3N_WX5o82lIx7Cus6wBg&s=19

Richard Hillman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118351313#Comment_118351313

I'll always remember how Root became captain and it isn't a slight in Joe Root. They had just been hammered in India. Jennings and Hameed had a decent series in India and Sri Lanka. Cook was hung out to dry, he was the fall guy. That absolute slimeball Paul Farbrace went out and did an interview saying it was up to Cook to stand down and that they wouldn't remove him as captain. Which is basically your public vote of no confidence. They had these new opening young guns in Hameed and Jennings. Cook was dispensable.

Cook stood down for Joe Root who had never captained a team before. It wasn't that Joe Root could set better fields or make clever bowling changes, you know, that stuff that Captains do. They just needed a fall guy for that tour and it was Cook.

4-5 years later, Cook is probably still their best opening batsman and he's semi retired.

Somebody will be a fall guy for this series. They'll probably go back to old reliable of dropping Stuart Broad for no apparent reason. And sure throw Jimmy in there for good measure. Another new beginning. Anything to deflect from the fact that the team had been mismanaged for near 10 years since the KP debacle. Then reacting to whatever the media want them to do.

Anyway, they have the hundred next summer. That will produce a top Opening Test Batsman.

Strumms

interview with Farbrace… interesting..not everyone’s cup of tea but he talks a decent amount of sense….as relates to this situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibVTioAl4XM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118350604#Comment_118350604

Absolutely. I say I laughed as in it was so strange that they batted til number 10 in some tests and had 7/8 bowling options. It definitely works for them at home. Whereas now they’re guaranteed to go from 2 down to all out in the space of 100 runs

One thing they’ve probably got right it is picking Malan specifically for overseas tests. Certain players suit certain environments and other teams (NZ/India) use this regularly. Shocked at the Wood statistic above of 3 wickets per match, he’s just being picked on pace alone at this stage? Injury liability too

Funny how Harris has stank out the place opening for Aus too but will probably last the 5 tests.

VillaMad

The 3rd test begins on Saturday night/Sunday morning with the iconic MCG Boxing Day Test Match.

Australia will still be without Josh Hazlewood who didn't bowl in training today, but will welcome back Pat Cummins. Cummins will most likely replace Neser.

England look likely to drop Rory Burns and replace him with Zak Crawley, who will be playing his first match for 3 months. Mark Wood will return and Jack Leach is also looking good to feature, which means that Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes will probably miss out. The England selectors are said to be 50/50 with Pope being replaced by Bairstow.

I see that Joe Root is getting a good deal of criticism for his captaincy and that is correct, but the problem for England is that the captain has to be a nailed on starter for every test match and he really is the only certain starter in that England team apart from perhaps Ben Stokes and with his all issues recently, the last thing he would want or need is the test captaincy. It's his job for the forseeable future, simply because there is nobody else.

Strumms

Crawley I’m not so sure unless it’s at 6 … 15 tests and averaging 28.3….. bringing in Bairstow is a no brainer.

the only thing in Zak’s favour is that he is still just 23. If he is 25/26 with that average and misfiring performances he’s done Internationally.

Gillespy

Bairstow's output has fallen off a cliff and will be very fortunate to play I think. Give Lawrence a go instead. I read somewhere he scored a lot of runs in Australia on a Lions tour a few years ago.

Crawley is still young and his 267 against Pakistan was that special he is worth persisting with.

For Australia Hazelwood isn't ready yet. Cummins will be back.

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118370344#Comment_118370344

27.23 is Lawrence’s average, top score of 81 and after 8 tests he’s taken only a single wicket…think you’d have to go with experience..