The Ashes - official thread

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

First topic message reminder :

Seeing as this starts next week, I'll kick it off - the Aussies have selected their 17 man squad


Australia's Ashes squad: Tim Paine (c), Cameron Bancroft, Pat Cummins, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Michael Neser, James Pattinson, Peter Siddle, Steven Smith, Mitchell Starc, Matthew Wade, David Warner.

Main takeaway there is no specialist spinner selected behind Lyon, with Neser included suggests they don't anticipate many, if any, spinning wickets...

[KP_fan]

I'm not sure Curran is a better choice than Denly. Who goes in at 4?

Moeen Ali

Four ducks in his last eight innings and master of the head-high lob, Moeen Ali?

True....but he brings balance........as long as you don't rely on him as the first spinner on a dry pitch....and sooner than later he plays a good inning with the bat.

as a side light ......Pattinson & Cummins getting the runs and Moeen taking the lower order wickets all building by tipping points
As pattinson 14 runs away from his career high score

[Soul Requiem]

A player who can't bat doesn't bring any balance.

[Duty281]

Pointless batting on from here. About 100 overs left in the game so even if England do bat through all of them, they're not going to chase the 363 they need to win.

[compelling and rich]

I would have definitely declared by now. 280 was too much for us on this pitch

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Absolutely nonsense that the Aussies haven’t declared yet

[VTR]

Moeen at 4? Get his wicket out of the way early? I'd sooner put Jimmy Anderson at 4 at the minute.

[KP_fan]

Pointless batting on from here. About 100 overs left in the game so even if England do bat through all of them, they're not going to chase the 363 they need to win.

the Aussies are covering for the 70 off 50 ball start from Roy.....and I think they should have enuf in the tank to see of a blistering start off 100 runs from the first wicket of Eeng and still win

[compelling and rich]

I’ll have a pint of whatever the person who suggested Ali at 4. Sooner have leach opening again

[CaledonianCraig]

Australia declare on 487 for 7. England set a target of 398 to win. Australia missed a bit of a trick for me batting on for maybe 5 to 10 overs too long. And bad light may save England from having to bat this evening.

People should stop and remember that effectively this has been 11 man Australia against 10 man England given Anderson's injury and yet it will go right up to the final session it looks like. If it is to be 1-0 to Australia as I already said Archer seems the ready-made replacement for the injured Anderson. Leach has shown he is in good nick with the bat so already he offers more than Ali. Ali has often survived in the team because his batting has been in good shape but his bowling not so good and vice versa. Just now both aspects of his game are all at sea and England cannot afford any passengers. Bairstow is another who may be fretting a bit but I'd say it is maybe a couple of tests too soon to dispense with him.

[KP_fan]

and Aus's No.8 and 9 get useful time in the middle and following my jinx Pattinson too gets his career high score

[Duty281]

Pointless batting on from here. About 100 overs left in the game so even if England do bat through all of them, they're not going to chase the 363 they need to win.

the Aussies are covering for the 70 off 50 ball start from Roy.....and I think they should have enuf in the tank to see of a blistering start off 100 runs from the first wicket of Eeng and still win

Not much chance of that happening. Don't think England will last any longer than 60 overs, and if they lose a few early on it could turn into an embarrassing rout.

[compelling and rich]

What’s the forecast? The only chance of the draw for me

[sirfredperry]

Australia have declared too late but I doubt it will make much difference.

England may be lucky to make 200 given the flimsiness of their batting. I really thought England would go 1-0 up and then lose at Lord's.

As it is, it could well be 2-0 to Australia soon. There's no coming back from that.

[Duty281]

That was a humiliating experience for England in the field. Set to go 1-0 down after losing at fortress Edgbaston, with the game at Lord's (where Australia are strong favourites) up next.

I said before the test started that if England didn't win in Birmingham that their chances in the series were over...and here we are.

[Duty281]

What’s the forecast? The only chance of the draw for me

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/gcqdkqnss#?date=2019-08-05

Dry!

[guildfordbat]

Pointless batting on from here. About 100 overs left in the game so even if England do bat through all of them, they're not going to chase the 363 they need to win.

I remember Gareth Batty when he was Surrey skipper being criticised for delaying a declaration during a Championship match. He replied along the lines, ''We wanted to keep them out there, keep them wondering, p*ss them off.''

It worked.

[Soul Requiem]

Roots captaincy coming into focus right, let Australia off the hook in the first innings and started today with terrible tactics that carried on throughout the day, unless the bowlers do it themselves he seems to be clueless.

[Dolphin Ziggler]

3/1 that England start with a 50 partnership. Says a lot

[compelling and rich]

What’s the forecast? The only chance of the draw for me

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/gcqdkqnss#?date=2019-08-05

Dry!

can’t even rely on British summer, we’re doomed I’ll tell thee DOOMED!

[CaledonianCraig]

England get through to close on 13 for 0. Australia hunting 10 wickets tomorrow whilst England will hope to survive at 385 runs behind.

[Duty281]

The most one-sided day of the test so far. The previous three have had periods of dominance by both sides - day four was all Australia.

Minor miracle required for England to get out of this one at 0-0.

[Soul Requiem]

One has to believe it hinges on Burns tying the innings together here, he goes early and I can't see it taking too long for the rest to follow.

[guildfordbat]

Hard to find much good out of today's play for England but Burns and Roy did a decent job in batting out 7 overs and getting through to stumps unscathed.

I have serious doubts as to how well they'll do tomorrow - Lyon was already causing problems this evening - but we can at least still hope.

[CaledonianCraig]

Minor miracle required for England to get out of this one at 0-0.

It is a minor miracle it has gone to the 5th day considering England are effectively a man down - without their all-time leading wicket-taker.

[guildfordbat]

One has to believe it hinges on Burns tying the innings together here, he goes early and I can't see it taking too long for the rest to follow.

Hi Soul - it'll be a heck of an achievement if Burns can hold things together. He'll have batted every day of this test. I very much hope I'm wrong but, as I said to Alfie earlier, I fear his century and the concentration needed for it will have taken too much out of him.

[Duty281]

Minor miracle required for England to get out of this one at 0-0.

It is a minor miracle it has gone to the 5th day considering England are effectively a man down - without their all-time leading wicket-taker.

Well I think that's made it more likely that it'll go to the fifth day seeing as how Australia have batted longer as a result.

It's tough on England, but they can have few excuses. They had Australia in a perilous position on two different occasions in this game and failed to finish them off.

[Steffan]

Sets it up nice for tomorrow. I got the hospital at 9.30am then the rest of the day off to sit back watch the English try to chase the target


Either way...I take back what I said last night about the Aussie's not having that much quality nowadays. Steve Smith...take a bow son

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

It’s not totally beyond England to bat all day tomorrow - it’ll be tough, and they’ll need one or two of their top players to perform (Root/Stokes and Burns ideally can eat up deliveries), I think the Australians late declaration has given them a chance to draw the game. Very surprised they batted on as long as they did, did they really need much above 300-320? A proper session of bowling tonight, 15-20 overs surely would’ve have been more preferable to only 7.

Fascinating day ahead tomorrow - wonder if the umpires will give the Aussies another new ball if England look comfortable after 55 overs again...

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Also pretty crazy that tomorrow Burns will have batted on every day of this test

[CaledonianCraig]

If you were in the England dressing room the team talk should be something like you have batted out a day already in this test so you can do it. You would also remind them how gun barrel straight the pitch is playing for pace bowlers.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

My #roadmap for tomorrow

England will want to still be batting at the end of the day, to secure the draw. The best way to do this is to lose as few wickets as possible.

Australia will want to take 10 English wickets, before the end of the day, to secure a win. The best way for them to do this will be to take as many wickets as possible.

[Dolphin Ziggler]

#Roadmap

Aussies will want to make the English so scared of Lyon that they make mistakes and drop wickets needlessly. Of course, Gary is gonna take 5, but it’s a mental game and they need to get England fragile. If they do that, and take 10 wickets, I’d put money on them to win the match.

England will look to lose only one in the morning, which will see the Denly/Burns/Roy average up. Roy probably needs to play his game and put some minor pressure back on. They’ll want to be better at batting against Lyon than they usually are. His average is poor in a final innings, I hear.

Keep at least one wicket in hand by the close of play and they’ll probably take the draw

[CaledonianCraig]

My #roadmap for tomorrow

England will want to still be batting at the end of the day, to secure the draw. The best way to do this is to lose as few wickets as possible.

Australia will want to take 10 English wickets, before the end of the day, to secure a win. The best way for them to do this will be to take as many wickets as possible.

Okay I get the message. No worries folks. No more road maps from me.

[JDizzle]

Just got back from the game today and it wasn’t quite the Jos Buttler scoring the winning runs in the final over I imagined when I left the house this morning!

Smith was in complete control all morning. Nothing any of the England bowlers did troubled him, and he has Moeen completely in his pocket. They tried some different stuff to him - short from Stokes, Broad hiding it outside off stump etc. But they’ve been trying these different things for three series now and nothing has worked so I don’t blame them for constantly mixing it up. It’s not as if they are working on a new theory that might need some time to see if it works. The only thing that has been shown to work consistently against him is bowl absolute jaffas with the ball doing all sorts!

Head batted fine, but the pitch was pretty placid for the seamers - no real bounce or movement. Like everyone here, I thought it was bizarre there was no Woakes in the first session, presumed there must be an injury.

Wade played nicely too, but his form doesn’t overly concern me going forward in the series. He flayed a weary seam attack missing it’s best bowler today, but England shouldn’t fear him. They’ve seen enough to know he is very dismissible when the platform hasn’t been established which is the main issue.

Denly on the whole outbowled Moeen today which is a major concern. Should have had the wicket of Head and troubled Wade early on. Moeen was dreadful really. His bowling has been covered but I was massively unimpressed with his body language. On the referral they used on the Smith LBW, I know it was missing but Mo didn’t even appeal and it wasn’t that far away! It just yelled out to me he was a beaten man by that point which is not what you want to see.

Thought Root had a poor day too. Besides the Woakes thing (unless there was an injury), thought some of his fields were poor - particularly when Wade first came in and we had an opening. He was allowing Smith an easy one on the last balls of overs to shield Wade a bit early on and help him get in. There is the mitigation of only having two specialist seamers and 0 spinners (on today’s evidence!).  

The pitch is fairy placid for the seamers now, not much carry or movement at all. So England do have a chance tomorrow, but it is spinning so much and England are prone to collapsing in a heap I can’t see them saving it.

[Dolphin Ziggler]

My #roadmap for tomorrow

England will want to still be batting at the end of the day, to secure the draw. The best way to do this is to lose as few wickets as possible.

Australia will want to take 10 English wickets, before the end of the day, to secure a win. The best way for them to do this will be to take as many wickets as possible.

Okay I get the message. No worries folks. No more road maps from me.

My parody was done with fondness. Imitation and sincerity, etc. I will also be actually being paying attention to the Denly/Roy/Burns average. A kind of running joke to share, as it were.

Olly I have no control of. Nor fondness. He disgusts me every single day

[guildfordbat]

JD - thanks for your report. Always good and helpful to hear from someone at the ground.

Was there a view amongst the crowd - as from several here - that Paine goofed in making the declaration too late?

Although it didn't work tonight, I understood his apparent thinking as per my earlier post. It's not just about having a sufficient lead. The more you tire out your opponents and hack them off may mean you have more chance of taking 1 or even 2 wickets in 8 overs than 18. I'm sure the knives will be out for the Aussie skipper if we escape with a draw being 8 or 9 down at stumps but, as I say, I'll still appreciate his reasoning.

[alfie]

Does seem a slightly later than necessary declaration...though as guildford points out there can be more than one way to view the ideal time for closure in these situations .Anyway nobody will care if they bowl England out tomorrow. Which you'd have to think is likely : has been six years since England last batted all day to draw a Test.
Suppose it does offer an escape chance though , which surely wasn't there had they been two down at stumps chasing say 320. Bat sensibly , five overs at a time ; as "normally" as possible with no silly risks...and if a spot of rain assists at some point well that would be handy...
Lyon is the big threat of course ; but he probably won't bowl them all out unaided so if they can make the pace bowlers keep working overtime , on top of their heavy first innings loads , they just might cause the attack to run out of puff before England run out of wickets. A slim hope ; but better than none.
I certainly wouldn't be betting on survival. But if they were to bring it off it would do a lot to counter the gloom and despondency that is undoubtedly descending around the camp at present. If they get skittled by tea I can see the usual football style kneejerk calls for heads to roll etc taking over the airwaves...

[alfie]

Still haven't seen any remotely believable excuse for letting Woakes hang around as a specialist fielder for nearly the whole innings.

Must have been some reason (?) But if anyone thought it was a good plan they might want to revisit the data in the light of events...

[CaledonianCraig]

Still haven't seen any remotely believable excuse for letting Woakes hang around as a specialist fielder for nearly the whole innings.

Must have been some reason (?)  But if anyone thought it was a good plan they might want to revisit the data in the light of events...

The only thing I can think of is late on Saturday we saw Woakes diving to field a ball and he seemed to injure middle finger on his bowling hand. The camera stayed on him as he got up holding his hand and grimacing then shaking the hand a couple of times in pain then the camera left him. Perhaps an injury?

[robbo277]

Anyone talking about changes to the balance of the side should consider that well either have a fit Anderson or a replacement so our balance will already be better.

Anyone considering the place of Denly or Bairstow is also discounting a potentially match saving century or even 50 off 200+ deliveries.

Still a game to play today before we get too worked up about Lords. I hope Roy can get in and get going, just to see how Australia react to it.

[JDizzle]

JD - thanks for your report. Always good and helpful to hear from someone at the ground.

Was there a view amongst the crowd - as from several here - that Paine goofed in making the declaration too late?

Although it didn't work tonight, I understood his apparent thinking as per my earlier post. It's not just about having a sufficient lead. The more you tire out your opponents and hack them off  may mean you have more chance of taking 1 or even 2 wickets in 8 overs than 18.  I'm sure the knives will be out for the Aussie skipper if we escape with a draw being 8 or 9 down at stumps but, as I say, I'll still appreciate his reasoning.

There was a little bit of discussion about it, but it wasn’t that contentious. The Aussies who I was sat next too seemed perfectly content with it and were confident about rolling England today! Pat Cummins caught up a little bit in the end, but he started very slowly and it seemed a slightly pointless innings from a number 9. That was the only time the rumblings really went on.

I thought it was a mistake to open with Siddle too. I presume he didn’t want Burns and Roy to be able to leave too many early on, and Siddle is always at you, but surely you want your strike bowlers in Cummins and Pattinson on?

[JDizzle]

Also, numbers on the shirts are really helpful when you are in the ground - should definitely be here to stay.

[guildfordbat]

JD - thanks for your report. Always good and helpful to hear from someone at the ground.

Was there a view amongst the crowd - as from several here - that Paine goofed in making the declaration too late?

Although it didn't work tonight, I understood his apparent thinking as per my earlier post. It's not just about having a sufficient lead. The more you tire out your opponents and hack them off  may mean you have more chance of taking 1 or even 2 wickets in 8 overs than 18.  I'm sure the knives will be out for the Aussie skipper if we escape with a draw being 8 or 9 down at stumps but, as I say, I'll still appreciate his reasoning.

There was a little bit of discussion about it, but it wasn’t that contentious. The Aussies who I was sat next too seemed perfectly content with it and were confident about rolling England today! Pat Cummins caught up a little bit in the end, but he started very slowly and it seemed a slightly pointless innings from a number 9. That was the only time the rumblings really went on.

I thought it was a mistake to open with Siddle too. I presume he didn’t want Burns and Roy to be able to leave too many early on, and Siddle is always at you, but surely you want your strike bowlers in Cummins and Pattinson on?

Cheers, JD,

The Sky comms thought the same way as you as to why Siddle opened. Like you, I wasn't convinced and noted that Pattinson replaced him for the final over.

[guildfordbat]

Also, numbers on the shirts are really helpful when you are in the ground - should definitely be here to stay.

That's what I posted here to Soul on day one. The priority should always be given to people like you who have forked out good money to watch the game at the ground.

[Soul Requiem]

I almost feel that long term it would be better to be blown away today so that changes have to be made;

Burns
Roy
Sibley
Root
Stokes
Buttler
Foakes
Woakes
Broad
Archer
Leach

Depending on conditions at Lords you could feasibly leave Leach out and bring Curran in, he lacks pace but the different angle across Smith would be something else to think about. In a perfect world you would open with Sibley instead of Roy but I always feel more comfortable having someone who in theory can bat time at three, Denly is clearly not up to test cricket and his selection for this game seemed a bit off.

I must sound like a broken record banging on about the wicketkeeping but your spinners need confidence that if they create chances that they'll be taken and it baffled me when Foakes was dropped in the first place, he was a major part of winning in Sri Lanka and kept well in the Windies too. As per usual the selectors stick with underperforming players that are part of the leadership clique and drop those who are outside of it, reminds me of the 90's in that sense.

The less said about Moeen the better really.

[Soul Requiem]

Also, numbers on the shirts are really helpful when you are in the ground - should definitely be here to stay.

That's what I posted here to Soul on day one. The priority should always be given to people like you who have forked out good money to watch the game at the ground.

Tradition, tradition, tradition should take priority.

[guildfordbat]

Anyone talking about changes to the balance of the side should consider that well either have a fit Anderson or a replacement so our balance will already be better.

Anyone considering the place of Denly or Bairstow is also discounting a potentially match saving century or even 50 off 200+ deliveries.

Still a game to play today before we get too worked up about Lords. I hope Roy can get in and get going, just to see how Australia react to it.

Hi Robbo - yes, there is no need to rush in selecting the side for the next test. It can wait at least until after stumps. There's a lot to be said for a bit of patience. Just maybe plans to get Smith out could have worked better with some.

Until the early 1970s Australia often used to pick and announce their team for the next test before the current one was finished. In only his second test and whilst at the crease against Pakistan, John Benaud, kid brother of Richie, was not impressed or happy to discover he had been dropped for the next match. This method and approach to picking a team ended soon after this as an infuriated Benaud hammered his way to 140 odd leaaving the Aussie selectors with considerable egg on their faces.

[Duty281]

I doubt England will make wholesale changes - they wouldn't want to be seen as panicking. I'm expecting two changes for Lord's - Leach in for Ali and Archer (if fit, if not Curran) in for Anderson.

Bairstow and Denly's place in the side will probably be up for discussion later in the series if runs continue to desert them.

[guildfordbat]

Also, numbers on the shirts are really helpful when you are in the ground - should definitely be here to stay.

That's what I posted here to Soul on day one. The priority should always be given to people like you who have forked out good money to watch the game at the ground.

Tradition, tradition, tradition should take priority.

Soul - unfortunately, there is now a very modern approach to pricing for admission to test matches. If JD was paying 10 shillings (50p) to get into the ground and sit on the boundary edge as happened in yesteryear, I suspect he might be happy to forego players having numbers on their shirts. As it is, he yesterday - and me at the Oval in September - are paying through the nose to attend. Anything which helps our viewing (without being too garish, as I posted to you before) and goes some way to giving us value for money should be encouraged.

[guildfordbat]

Soul - as always, a game of opinions. I'll leave it there other than to add that I think there are a lot more concerning issues in English cricket and I don't just mean the make up of the test side.

Edit: this was in reply to your further post about numbered shirts giving the game a football style mentality. That post seems to have disappeared!

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