Australia had a good evening session in the women’s Test and are probably ahead at this juncture. England looked pretty good but the conditions in all the day-night matches I have paid attention to seem to skew so much to the fielding side, that it’s always likely that a good position can be undone. I’m not necessarily against this either, to be honest - batsmen have had it their way for a bloody long time, what with springloaded railway sleepers for bats, shortened boundaries, docile pitches and what not. At some point, batting in a Test match should be hard.
Meanwhile, Paul Collingwood has already made his first appearance inside the rope for England on this tour, albeit as a sub-fielder. The way the team are falling to injury at the minute, it can only be a matter of time before it’s pads on, bat in hand. On the plus side for the tour, it looks like Malan has beaten Ballance for the slot at #5 - given the latter probably shouldn’t be on tour at all, this is somewhat encouraging. On the minus side, James Vince, going off reports, is still flakey as fuck and prone to nicking into the slip cordon. When the quality of bowlers goes up, I predict he will be in deep trouble in exactly the same way as before. Mo’s injured (though they think he’s coming back soon, as it’s not that bad), the bowling looks inexperienced or, in Broad’s case, out of form. Cook can’t buy a run at the moment. The batsmen that have got starts in the games thus far haven’t kicked on to big scores.
In short, it’s looking like, in the words of Private Fraser in Dad’s Army, we’re doomed.
This is fair, though the collapse in the second innings today is not ideal. Bairstow ran out of partners. I still think he should be at 4 given this squad, with Root at 3 and Vince carrying water.
This might well be true, but whether it’s real or not, it certainly seems that batting in the 3rd session in a pink ball game leads to more wickets falling than might otherwise be the case. The county round that was day-night up here and the WI test in early September were played with a pink Duke and it looked like, on the TV and in the match reports from the county games, that it did hoop a bit more under lights. The Kookaburra might be different, I guess - personally, I’ve seen a lot less of the day-night from down under.
The series can’t be won until the 16th December, and preferably until 8th January but can be lost in the first two hours.
England need to win the toss and bat, until lunch tomorrow. Will take anything above 300.
I wasn’t aware of the following snippet of credentials about the England batting line-up
Not an ideal place for so many to hone their craft.
Sending Australia in white flag reminiscent of Nasser Hussain’s brain fade.
Expect Smith would ponder longer sending England in were he to win the toss but Australia’s position and the game will be better served if they take the first dig.
England bat first so we’ll see if Australia’s fast bowlers can do a Mitchell Johnson and if Nathan Lyon can back up his comments from the other day. They’ve put themselves under a lot of pressure to perform. I do think Starc is looking scary. I’m more worried about the old man they’ve put behind the stumps.
I think Aus will win here, Perth and Sydney; Adelaide and Melbourne are up for grabs.
Wait, the cricinfo commentary says that Handscomb is keeping and just took the catch to dismiss Cook. Is Handscomb the preferred keeper over Paine now? Has Paine been selected as a batsman?
Solid day for the Poms. Bit slow but sound none-the-less.
When the commentariat are saying Lyon was the pick of the bowlers and he sends down 24 overs in a day, it’s not a typical 1st day Gabba pitch.
Given it’s on in the middle of our night and I don’t have the package that now carries cricket played in Australia, I’ve not seen any of this. Still, on it’s face, I’d have probably taken this match situation if offered it last night. We’ve certainly had worse opening days of the Ashes in Australia.
Qualified pat on the back for James Vince - seems fair to give him some praise, given I have been pretty down on his selection. Nevertheless, just looking at the scorecard and the run rate for the innings, plus reports of the pitch being quite slow, his being run out leaves open one question: why? They didn’t seem to be in any hurry and content to just try and accumulate runs whilst batting long. Seems like it wasn’t necessary.
The game is pretty finely poised. If Australia can get these two and Bairstow cheaply, then England won’t make 300 and they’re in the box seats. Conversely, if Mo gets set, he likes to accelerate once in and Bairstow is a better than decent bat once set too. It could get messy for Australia in that case. Big first session on Day 2.
According to reports I heard it was a brilliant piece of fielding by Lyon for the run out (presumably born out of frustration at Vince being dropped off his bowling not long before), but still, why take any risks, as you say? Presumably it was a case of wanting to accelerate the scoring to put pressure on the bowling attack.
24 overs in a day is quite a lot, even for a spinner (and especially on day 1) - any chance of Lyon burning out/getting injured? Clutching at straws a bit here, admittedly.
Scoring slowly does have the advantage of using up time in the game if we do get bowled out cheaply (i.e. we might still hold the draw). However, Ali hitting Lyon for 6 already is a sign of optimism, and if there is less turn on day 2 and we can stay in for a good part of the day, the four man attack should tire. Poised is indeed the word.
Video here, I’d say it was a great bit of fielding. They might have been trying to up the run rate a little - 196 in 80 overs isn’t exactly blistering.
Honours even after today? We’ve still got Mo and Malan in, with Bairstow to come, so it’s not hard to conjure up 400, although frankly I’ll be happy if we get to lunch and still have an actual batsman in.
Honours even for the day definitely and to be honest, with such a curious pitch we could be in for a very up and down test. I don’t think anyone truly knows whether the current score is good or bad. Big spin on the first day? What’s all that about?
Very tidy bit of work that. I’d still argue that it’s a chance that shouldn’t have been given up. The run rate is slower than is usual but I’d rather he’d stayed in!
For those up here that don’t have BT, I’ve discovered that a highlights package is going up daily at 7pm on their website. Looks like that’s how I’ll be watching this (with the exception of a Monday morning I have taken off during the Adelaide Test, so that I can meet some mates at a pub for a gentle breakfast and the final session, before moseying into work at lunch time).
So, we just about struggled to 300 (psychologically important) in the end despite looking good for a fair bit more at one stage. We shouldn’t complain because the main complaint of the last couple of years has been the top order failing and relying on a long tail to get us out of trouble. This time the top order played pretty well (especially the new boys) and the tail was the tail. If that can be maintained it just needs a decent knock by Cook or Root, and/or the tail wagging more, and some properly big totals could emerge. A lot of “ifs” there, though.
Then the bowlers did a decent job of showing that 300 is not a terrible start to the match, leaving Australia’s innings in much the same position at the end of day two as ours was at the end of day one. Which means, as ever, the next session is crucial. If England can get a couple of quick wickets, a small but useful first innings lead is on the cards and sensible batting could lead to victory. On the other hand, if this partnership accelerates away, England could be under pressure in their second innings and end up defending too small a total on the last day. Great stuff!