Cricket:2017-18 Ashes

The Game Room
1

I’m obviously jumping the gun a bit here with the first test still two months away but I need an outlet for my schaudenfreude.

What do people think of England’s squad? Jim Maxwell says it’s one of their worst batting lineups ever which reminds me of how Australia were described prior to the 1989 Ashes. That might have boded well for England if it weren’t for the fact that their best player might be watching the series from a jail cell. Ben Stokes had a late night out and things didn’t go too well - resulting in a broken finger and arrest on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm.

I’m a little bothered that without Stokes, England may struggle to field a competitive side, but I have no sympathy for the man himself. He now inherits the mantle from Virat Kohli of the biggest jerk in international cricket.

2

Hmm. I don’t think I would describe Stokes as our best cricketer - that would be Root - but he is certainly more than useful, both as an asset with both bat and ball himself and to balance the side. In that sense, he’s probably one of, if not the, most important cricketer we have. having a million dollar arm is not much use if you’ve got a five cent brain though, to paraphrase Crash Davis in Bull Durham.

England’s squad has predictable flaws in its batting that have the potential to be exposed badly down under, due to the selections that have been made at the fringes. We haven’t had a settled 2, 3 and 5 for several years now and these flaws are squarely at the feet of the current regime (both the selectors for the failure to identify talented players and the development system/structure of the cricket season that is not producing enough red ball batsmen who can make it in Test match cricket). Going back to the well on Vince and Ballance is merely the latest indication of this - both have glaring flaws that were shown up the first (and in Ballance’s case, second) time, we went and selected some other blokes who didn’t work and now we’ve returned to these players who haven’t solved their issues. It is highly likely one or both will play as well. Paul Collingwood - who is going on tour in the coaching staff - has a significantly better first class average than Vince this year, is 41 and has been retired from internationals for several years. At least we have a “break glass in case of emergencies” replacement available!

Stoneman at 2 I have more time for but is right at the start of his international career and is not a given for success either. However, given the make up of the squad, with no other openers present, if he fails, he can’t be replaced within the squad. A made up injury will need to occur to draft someone else in from the concurrent England Lions tour to Oz, I would have thought. Malan falls into the same boat, as far as I am concerned. We’re almost certainly carrying two empty shirts in the squad and have high potential for a third and fourth.

The gameplan for the Oz bowlers is thus very simple - but is the same as the book has been on England for the last several years. Pile the pressure on Cook and Root and try to get them cheaply. Very quickly you’ll have us 100-5 and the lower middle order (which may wind up being without Stokes) will have to bail like hell to get anything like a competitive total. Then, when we’ve scored less than 300, go to work methodically with the bat, build a score and knock us over in the second dig.

That they haven’t addressed these flaws is, if you’ll excuse the phrase, criminal but it was unlikely that they’d be able to either. No one is really sticking their hands up who hasn’t either a) failed before, b) is deemed not ready and they want to blood them on the Lions tour (people like Joe Clarke) or c) have been in bad form and are now injured just as they looked like they were getting it back (Haseeb Hameed). So in one sense, I’m not surprised about this (indeed, even before the announcement I was expecting 4-1 or 5-0 against us), but it is definitely disheartening.

The bowlers - they collectively don’t have the best of records in Oz, of those who’ve played - and don’t generally have the skills you’d think of as likely to cause problems down under. Mo is going to have to bowl brilliantly, they’re hugely relying on Crane’s experience in Sheffield Shield last year (as he has not been pulling up trees otherwise) and the rest of them are swing bowlers, going to a country using a ball that doesn’t swing after about 15-20 overs. Unless they can get it to reverse, they’re in trouble - and lack someone of express pace to mix things up. Again, though, this was predictable. Not many of those types of bowlers knocking around at the minute up here.

So yes. Not ideal. I am not a big believer in the “best batsman must play at 3” shibboleth - there are too many examples where teams have prospered with their best batsman playing elsewhere - but the best England team in my view out of that squad is:

Cook, Stoneman, Root*, Bairstow, Malan, Stokes, Ali, Foakes+, Woakes, Broad, Anderson.

There’s no chance it gets picked. Root doesn’t want to play 3, throwing Foakes in for debut in Brisbane is possibly suicidal (even if he is a better bat in my view than either Vince or Ballance) and Stokes may well be on bail awaiting trial and thus not travelling. Vince or Ballance will likely play 3 and if Stokes is unavailable, Vince or Ballance will likely bat 5 or 6 with Bairstow keeping and dropping back to 7. That team gets smashed. My team above still gets beaten, but, with a fair wind, might nick a Test somewhere.

3

Why did Stokes fight? Did someone bring up Carlos Braithwaith (Remember The Name!) again?

And I disagree that Stokes is the best. He is a bully; great when things are doing well, but falls apart like a cheap Chinese knockoff when there is trouble; see the aforementioned Braithwaite and this years Champions Trophy SF; when he had no idea what to doi when Hasan Ali and Junaid Khan refused to oblige him the occasional long hop.

The English team is that in a nutshell actually.

4

It was gone midnight outside a pub in Bristol that this fight occurred. I wasn’t present, thankfully, and I am no Sherlock Holmes, but I am going to put 2 and 2 together and suggest that alcohol may well have been involved.

5

This is the team I think will line up at Brisbane:

Cook, Stoneman, Vince, Root*, Malan, Stokes, Bairstow+, Ali, Woakes, Broad, Anderson.

It’s a team with holes it’s batting, but it’s the same holes that have been around for years now - I’m not really happy about returning to Vince or Ballance, but it’s not like i have obvious replacements in mind.

Australia have their own problems, but they are at home, and they have to be favourites. I think we’ll be doing well to take a test off them, to be honest. I’m not actually all that worried about the batting, but we don’t have bowlers for the conditions and we will struggle to take 20 wickets.

6

EDIT: I see Hales and Stokes have been suspending pending investigations. God knows how they’ll fill that hole.

7

Root gets put in so soon in an England innings that he might as well be batting at 3. He has proved himself to be the most adaptable batter in England’s line up. Just look at the way he bats in limited overs cricket. There’s no way he’d suddenly struggle if moved to no 3.

8

Against a team of unfettered egos and flat track bullies?
You’re going too hard, too early.

The Australian batting is baling twine and band aids and very few alternatives putting their hands up at this stage.
Yes, its far better in familiar conditions but for most part, if they aren’t scoring at 6 and over they do a collective brain fade.

Warner will go on blazing which will work spectacularly once or twice in the series. The McNugget generation thinks that represents value, I still think it’s indulgent.
Renshaw is learning his craft and needs another couple of series. He won’t win a Test of his bat, but he’s reliable.
Khawaja is the best option @ #3 but he gets pilloried for every failure, even when he gets fired.
Smith is back off his sublime best, now merely world class.
Handscombe continues to improve, you’ll enjoy watching him bat.

The middle is a merry-go-round of mediocrity.
There’ll be a riot if Mitchell Marsh get picked and Maxwell is one gifted eccentric too many in the top six.
Cartwright isn’t good enough to play in a Shield team.

Stoinis might make the transition but at the moment he doesn’t earn his spot for either batting or bowling.
He’s potentially good enough to bowl first change and he has batted #3 for his state.

Maybe, finally the “picked for his aggro, not ability” experiment with Wade has flamed out and we’ll get a keeper with soft hands and a bit of batting application … like the good one they ditched to put in Wade.

Buggered if I know who’ll be the pace merchants. At the rate they break down there’ll probably be 6-7 used in the series. Mind you any class bats won’t even change their guard to play whomever is coming in right arm over.

Lyon but, while he’s good enough to take top wickets in the first innings, he still doesn’t have the weapons to run through the tail on a wearing wicket. So Oz will rely on medium pacers getting LBWs from shooters in the 2nd innings.
In the conditions we might even use two spinners but the only Test standard one at the moment is Agar and we won’t play two orthodox with Maxwell as Plan C.
One factor is the prevailing weather. It’s real dry here. Sydney has had less than 1mm of rain in September. The indications (preseason) The wickets will all have a different and generally more docile nature than previous.
They won’t spin, regulation bounce and only Brisbane might have any life in it.

9

The story floating round is that he was defending a gay couple against an attack with a bottle, which seems remarkably close to the sort of thing his agent might invent to make him look good. There’s a video showing some of the incident which you can squint at to see if you think there is indeed a bottle in one participant’s hand, if you like. I believe that the police had seen this video before making the decision to arrest, so it’s fair to say it doesn’t reflect an unquestionably defensive use of force.

10

This has all been so different from the usual pre-Ashes banter of “We’re great and we’re going to beat you” from both sides. This time, it’s “No, we’re crap! More crap than you!”, I’m not used to it.

11

Of all test openers who have made at least 10 test centuries, David Warner has the highest ration of centuries per test. He also has a better ratio of scores above 50 per innings than Cook, or Hayden, or Langer, or Graeme Smith, or any other opener in the last 50+ years.

Yeah, he looks bad when he gets out - so does every batsman. It doesn’t matter whether you get out trying to hit a six or trying to play a classical defensive push - you’re still out.

Warner is very, very good.

12

I’ve always hoped Foakes, Woakes and Stokes could be in the same team just for the possibility to see something like the Lillee-Willey-Dilley event.

13

Pattinson ruled out of Ashes campaign
With a fit Starc and Pattinson in the line-up I’d have backed Australia at home v England playing with two Cooks, two Roots and two Stokes.

There’s nobody in Australia currently who can bowl medium-fast for extended spells with parsimonious line plus a bit of bobble or cut like say Ryan Harris, or Damien Fleming or Terry Alderman. The option currently in vogue is to pick three strike bowlers (Starc, Cummings, Hazlewood) and grind down at least two of them as stock fodder.

14

Stokes removed from the Ashes party pending investigation, unsurprisingly. They’ve called up Steven Finn, who might even play.

15

Think I’d prefer this to “bolstering” the batting line up with Ballance or Vince (and one of them is pretty likely to play anyway - so it would be including both in our XI). If Stokes is out, move everyone up one slot (Bairstow to 6, Mo to 7, Woakes to 8) and slot Finn in at the bottom.

I note that Bairstow, Plunkett and Ball have all also been fined and issued a written warning for being out on the lash the same night that, separately, Stokes punched that bloke.

16

This would make the team Cook, Stoneman, Vince, Root, Ballance/Malan, Bairstow, Ali, Woakes, Finn, Broad, Anderson, which isn’t actually a bad team.

What they will probably do is put Malan in at 6 and Ballance and 5, just to annoy everyone.

17

I think it likely that they’re going to find a place for Ballance and Vince in the same team. I’m really quite worried about them replacing Stokes with a pure batsman. If they do what Teuton is suggesting, we’ve got three seam bowlers and a spinner with Root’s occasional bowling being chucked into the mix. That puts a lot of pressure on the bowlers and particularly Mo. Too much for my tastes, I think. If anyone of them goes around the park, we’re in deep trouble.

This is why I suggested earlier that Stokes might not be our best cricketer but he might be our most important, with his absence leaving us even more in the lurch. Which is just one minor reason why this whole business leaves him looking like a prize twat.

18

Of course, we could pull the wild card and play Collingwood. He’d turn his arm over to spell the pace bowlers when the ball is old and is in better form with the bat than Vince. Who cares that he’s 41?

I suggested it above in jest. Now I am only half joking.

19

Younger than Misbah in his last Test!.

20

The first ever day-night Ashes test starts this afternoon when the women’s teams play at North Sydney. Australia leads England four points to two after the ODIs and can take the series if they win the test which is worth four points.