But who is going to replace Anderson (and potentially Broad)? Anderson has done phenomenally well to largely avoid injury but I can’t see him playing in 2019. Of course he is irreplaceable anyway, we shouldn’t underestimate what a huge loss he will be to the team.
I was puzzled to hear on the radio this morning that Ballance, Curran, and Ball have been dropped from the NZ test squad. Presumably Ballance has not looked as good in the nets as Vince. But as we discussed upthread, this is not necessarily an indication of actually making decent scores on the field. If I were Ballance I’d be pretty fed up, though to be fair, he has (twice) had his chance. I suppose the main reason is that there are only 2 tests, so if you don’t think you’re going to need the players it makes sense to send them home to see family and friends rather than keep them on the other side of the world just to sit on the sidelines.
Getting dropped from the squad without playing a game on tour would test the soul. Would have thought it could have been organised for players outside the squad to play with a district or shires club if the schedule didn’t include sufficient First Class games as warm-ups.
One of the disappointing things about this tour is that I thought the question of England’s backup bowling was pretty much sorted - we’ve actually got decent depth at the moment, with the likes of Wood, Ball, Roland-Jones, Finn, Stokes, Woakes, Foakes, Curran, Overton… lots of options. Turns out it’s not as deep as I thought.
Good win by England, doing pretty much what they have done over the past couple of years under Morgan - bigs guys, big bats, positive intent. Mark Wood bowled well, and showed “what might have been” had he been available for test selection.
Haven’t read the link but I’m pretty sure that’s a lower category of offence than GBH, ABH, or even Assault, so he’s probably got off reasonably lightly regardless of the final outcome. Presumably the CPS felt that a higher charge stood a good chance of being defended on the grounds of reasonable force or the fact he was provoked. Hope all parties can learn from this and move on.
Does this mean Hales is now available for selection immediately?
England take the ODI series, their first series win in Australia ever.
Decent game. Australia were ahead of England throughout the entire chase, in terms of absolute score at the time, but never really looked in it once Smith went. Even with two overs to go, Aus were technically ahead, but Buttler’s rampage at the end was unlikely to be repeated.
The worst thing for Aus is that they did it with a bowler down, and didn’t go after Root nearly enough.
Indeed. I enjoyed Smith’s comment (clearly disagreeing that he was caught cleanly) - I think this is almost verbatim: “I was given out so I had to go. I wasn’t batting very well anyway so it was good to let someone else have a crack.”
Given my previous optimism (both during this tour and others) has been mercilessly shown up, I didn’t dare say so after the Tests, but it seems to me that quite often a team heavily defeated in one form of the game then returns the favour in another, on the same tour. So I’m not altogether surprised by this result. I don’t think the two squads are that different in terms of personnel/ability/tactics etc., so a large part of this has to be psychological. In other words, England had much more to play for.
I think this sells England short. They’re a bloody good limited overs unit - I guess this is what happens when you decide to reduce emphasis on the red ball game and concentrate more on the white ball. Every so often, England will blow up and lose but they’re playing a totally different game with the bat to the Aussies at the moment (i.e. 10 of the 11 players are there to score at a better than a run a ball - and Joe Root gets to do what he wants to shepherd the score along - as I said, if a bunch fail, they’ll fall flat on their arses but it seems to work more on average than not). The bowling and captaincy is also under-rated. Moeen, at best inconsistent in the red ball game, rarely goes at 6 an over, testament to quality limited overs bowling and good field placement. Rashid can get some tap but takes wickets in this form of the game. The pace bowling unit is also pretty handy, capable of bowling good variety accurately.
The one pause I would give is that this is not Australia’s best bowling group in this series. It will be interesting to see where they are when they have their first choices on the field. Sunday was close - if you win the toss, always insert England, they are far better chasing than setting - but the game they won by 4 wickets chasing 300 earlier in the series - I for one was never worried. They were going to get that score and I found it funny that Jim Maxwell on TMS was giving it “the game’s back on” when the 6th wicket went down. I spoke to the radio “no it’s not, England are going to win”. I’d likely have got a bit antsy if they were 8 down.
This England LOI side is strange though - for the bulk of my cricketing memory up to the end of the last World Cup, we’ve been good at LOI cricket for a collective total of about 6 months (1992 World Cup, 2004 Champions Trophy (? - the one where we came second to the Windies), one T20 World Cup win, one runner up). Now I watch them and have to concede that they’re actually good. The level of comfort is in stark contrast with the Test team who always seem to be 2 wickets from catastrophe.
I don’t want to sound overly flippant but it’s because they’re different games. Increasingly the skill sets that are required in LOIs are different to those required in red ball cricket. People look at Jason Roy and Jos Buttler and say " what wonderful players, with great hand eye coordination. Surely they should be in the red ball team? How can someone so talented not be?" but neither has blazingly brilliant red ball records. Selecting people with mediocre red ball records on the basis of promise is the route which gifted us James Vince.
Jason Roy’s top score in red ball last year was 87. Given I’m a Surrey member, I’ve seen him a lot, The Oval is a bit of a road and the guys he’s batting against are not top class bowlers much of the time. He’s not cut out for a red ball international career, I think. He’s clearly good enough to be a professional cricketer - but the difference for him in white ball is that, with the fielding restrictions, the one day wide rule meaning more balls likely to be playable for the batsman, and the time pressure meaning you’ve got to get on with it, all play into his mindset. You don’t get that in red ball/Tests and I think Buttler is in a similar boat (certainly his record is not much to write home about - though unlike Roy as a potential opener, I accept Buttler might well have a red ball role which says “every time, go in there and try and score a 75 ball ton”: down the order, if it comes off, he probably wins you matches; if it doesn’t, there’s still Ali, Woakes and whomever after him to tack on some more runs)
I think someone like David Warner is a bit of a freak, transitioning from LOI to Test. Kohli being brilliant in all formats, likewise. I’m of the view that the squads, increasingly, should be almost non-overlapping (Stokes, Root - and he appears to be in purely as a steadying influence in case it all goes tits up, Ali dependent on his long term future in red ball - and then probably no one else bar Bairstow - and it’s telling that he’s not even England’s 2nd choice ODI wicket keeper, given the presence of Sam Billings). A lack of overlap would also mean that the white ball guys can go and get IPL/BBL contracts, if deemed worthy, which will only improve their skills in that game.
And Australia win the 4th game but almost made a mess of it. After having England five wickets for eight runs they should have won by ten wickets- the pitch was playing well. For the life of me I can’t understand the inclusion of Cameron White.
A win (indeed rare win) for the locals in this format.
However I think that beneath the surface much the same fundamentals of where the teams rank in ODIs apply.
The way that England recovered from 5-8 to post 196 was way, way more impressive than the Australian effort chasing that total down.
And that wraps up the series 4-1 to England. One of the better games of the series, with both sides being in the hunt until pretty close to the end, when a flurry of wickets sank Australia’s chances.
Steve Smith is a worry for them, form-wise. He’s been a good ODI player for them before, and probably will be again, but he was woeful in this series and didn’t have a great 2017.
How much T20 nonsense is there before moving on to more proper cricket? Following Cumbrian’s thesis (which I don’t disagree with), perhaps Australia should look to the same model and consider dropping Smith from the shorter formats. Maybe the natural evolution is to ultimately have three squads - T20, ODI, and Test.
This T20 Tri Series starts on Saturday and runs until the 21st February. The tour of NZ proper starts with ODIs from the end of February.
I would be surprised if Oz drop Smith just yet - he’s probably one of the few who could straddle the formats, though it is true that his ODI form hasn’t been the best as of late. If he were given the Root ODI role of being allowed to do what he liked, whilst everyone else smashed it, he’d probably be in better shape.
Also, not to be big headed, but the one match of the series England lost, was the one where everyone blew up, which is pretty much what I said earlier in the thread. This is a worry for a tournament. If they have a 20% blow up rate, there’s always a decent chance that they foul up in a semi or a final.
Following Cumbrian’s thesis (which I don’t disagree with), perhaps Australia should look to the same model and consider dropping Smith from the shorter formats. Maybe the natural evolution is to ultimately have three squads - T20, ODI, and Test.