Stumps Day 2
England 302 (Vince 83, Malan 56, Stoneman 53)
Australia 165/4 (Smith 64*, S Marsh 44*) trail by 137
Poms clearly, though not overwhelmingly, in front to my eye.
A day the visitors could have taken more advantage. Another 25 from the tail would have been icing but ain’t nobody sneezing at the 300 score.
Then a predictably indolent batting display showed the locals batting frailties are seemingly intractable.
Promoted as the “best defensive bat” in the country debutant Bancroft pushes hard a something you’d expect him to ignore and nicks it off. #3 Khawaja get LBW playing for the spin from Moeen Ali on the 2nd morning that came straight on with the arm … whoda possibly thunk that?
Warner get out hoiking, it looks good if it works and crap if it fails.
Australia need a lead of 50+ else the Test is Englands to lose.
On this deck even Ali will get turn on day five, even if there’s bugger all bounce.
If Marsh turns out to be the guy who hangs in with the skipper and delivers the required lead half the Australia cricket fans will be morose to the point of suicidal.
I think I would put Australia marginally ahead at the moment, though a lot potentially rides on both the guys at the wicket right now, especially Steve Smith. Shaping up to be a really good match this though - there’s not a lot in it at all.
Despite making Australia only slightly up, think they will be much the happier with how Day 2 actually went. 240 ish for 4 down to 302 ao is a good result for them (notwithstanding Dead Cat’s reasonable point that the tail has bailed England to 300 a lot recently, so they’re probably due an innings where the top order actually does its job and they behave more like a tail. Nevertheless we have had better recent results from our lower order than this - think it’s an inkling of what the lack of Stokes does to our batting order, to be honest. I’m a big believer in Mo and think he should be batting higher up the order on talent alone but there’s not getting away from the fact he’s damn useful down at 8 to bat with the tail). Likewise, the Australian recovery from 70-4 is a decent effort for them. England had moments where they could have blown the game apart but weren’t quite able to do it.
Cross posted at the same time as PT. Funny how we’ve seen the game in opposite ways. I agree that a lead of only 50 runs either way is probably match winning. Even 25 would be worth its weight in gold.
It is a fascinating test. The fact that we are all seeing the balance in slightly different ways tells us all we need to know. Dead Cat said “as ever, the next session is crucial” and that has been true for every session over the last couple of days which makes from a good game.
I think England may have the slight edge with the Aussie lads having to start again tomorrow and fresh bowlers plus a new ball in the mix around lunchtime.
A first-innings lead of 25 would indeed be useful on this pitch, but when either side could easily post something like 120/10 in their second innings, this one is probably going to keep us interested right down to the wire!
I will make the following (not very bold) prediction: whoever wins this Test will take the series. It will be such a psychological boost for either team, and with neither having a preponderance of actual talent and/or form, psychology is even more crucial.
I’d rate England marginally ahead, as runs in the score book outweigh potential runs in the pavilion. Looking forward to another day of ebbs and flows.
Stumps Day 3
England 302 (Vince 83, Malan 56, Stoneman 53)
Australia 328 (Smith 141*, Marsh 51)
England 33/2 after 16 overs
Wheel has turned and Australia slowly ground it’s way to advantage and then the 16 overs at the Poms proved full of venom and put a couple of handy wickets back in the shed. As noted above the 25 runs lead was gold.
In the start to the day the view seems to be that Broad bowled a very good slower ball to get Marsh caught driving. A wicket which could have opened the prospect of a quick steam roll of the tail. I’m of the view Marsh badly picked the length and a delivery he should have easily defended off the back foot. As it turned out Cummins played very well in support and the opportunity was lost.
It wasn’t an innings to feature in the scrap book from Smith but he was largely untroubled doing exactly what his team required.
The commentariat were also fulsome in praise for Root’s captaincy vs Smith. Bowling medium pacers to 3-6 fields with third man, no slip and nobody in front of the wicket on the off side. Then three on legside fence and three in the circle from mid wicket to a deep leg gully. Obviously to that field the bowler needs to direct most deliveries chest high on a middle & leg line and hope Smith got impatient. I thought it really negative and as it didn’t succeed we hopefully won’t see it again.
Ball seemed to be the nominated one to do most of the bowling to this field and he didn’t seem to have the pace to make it succeed and he didn’t look to be enjoying his work. Woakes was out of sorts in each of his spells. Broad and Anderson were sound but IMHO restricted by the fields and it was indicative that Root brought himself on to pick up the last wicket of Lyon.
Poms need set a target of 200+ tomorrow to regain the advantage. I’m not sure whether they’d be best served to get them low or quick.
Even this Oz batting line-up could be expected to chase 175 on this deck.
If the target reaches 250+ then it’s odds on England but I can’t see the Poms getting to the nearly 300 needed in their second dig.
I think Smith’s reaction on reaching his century was fantastic. Virtually saying to the rest of the team “Play for your country”. However Australia can’t rely on Smith forever. Good batsman, but not Bradman.
Never could understand Renshaw going or the fascination with Khuwaja- he can’t play a decent spinner. I will not even mention Paine rather than Nevill or Marsh yet again.
Stumps Day 4
England 302 (Vince 83, Malan 56, Stoneman 53)
Australia 328 (Smith 141*, Marsh 51)
England 195 (Root 51)
Australia 0-110 (Warner 60, Bancroft 51) after 34 overs.
Need 56 to win with 10 wickets in hand.
Well that’s torn it.
One poor session [yesterday when England couldn’t break the Smith-Cummins partnership] and England have been unable since then to turn the tide back with either bat or ball.
If you’d claimed pre-match that on a Brisbane pitch a significant difference between the sides was Lyon v Ali you’d be accused of overthinking it. But Lyon bowled well, for 60 overs and allowed better rotation of the quicks and Cummins was better than Woakes & Ball who were needed more since Ali was below his best.
Apparently you can now get 100-1 on England winning the Ashes, which I presume isn’t the same as retaining the Ashes which is the aim of the exercise.
There are plenty of rumblings about fitness of the England attack for the 2nd Test next week but my thinking is the difference between the batting line-ups is mainly that the English are facing a better 2nd/3rd change bowlers.
Lyon is terribly underrated. I was following the commentary today and a sub continental poster was saying he was only in the side because he is all Australia has- yet he takes wickets everywhere he goes.
I wouldn’t be rushing into backing Australia at silly odds. The middle order remains a worry.
I remain part of that Australian cricket mode of thinking which says if you are going to bowl you either do it real quick or turn it square.
With some reluctance we acknowledge the value of a medium pacer who bowls tight, gets the ball to bobble and cut a bit. Bob Massie, Terry Alderman, Damian Fleming. They are better suited in English conditions and consequently they produce them more consistently. But offies are a bit naff and really need a captain who’ll support them e.g. Ashley Mallet had Chappelli firmly in his corner.
In this dinosaur’s paradigm the spinners role is to make short work of the opposition tail on a wearing wicket and bowl the team to victory.
Lyon doesn’t do this, even in conditions that favour him. But he takes top order wickets in the first inning like no right arm orthodox I have known.
He grows on you.
On the plus side, England were in this game for much of it and had a number of match positions where they could have pressed home the advantage and won. On the minus side, the margin for error is very thin and they fell away badly towards the end of the game.
PT’s analysis is correct - on this evidence, England lack the depth in the bowling attack to be able to push on for victories consistently, and will probably need a couple of world class performances from Broad and Anderson to give themselves the best chance of victory. The batting line up is still quite brittle too - Cook hasn’t scored much at all recently, and collectively they played the short ball badly, which is worrying for what is to come - though we’re led to believe, up here at least, that Perth is not what it was in terms of pace.
Lyon is very good and deserves his due.
England could do with catching Australia’s top order beginning their innings in the 3rd session on one of the days at Adelaide and somehow get the thing hooping around. Long way to go, but defeat there and this thing will be over by Melbourne. Again.
It’s rather a difficult match from which to grasp the teams. England were clearly on top at one stage- but only at one stage. Nevertheless I think a ten wicket win really flattered Australia.
To me, both sides were - in racing terms- short of a gallop. It will be interesting to see how they back up within a week and with Ali with a bad finger he “may” be in doubt.
Although I dislike Broad I don’t doubt his ability. Anderson is getting towards the end of his career and he averages about 38 with his bowling in Australia.
2nd Test,
Stumps Day 1
Australia 209 - 4 (Khawaja 53)
A couple of breaks for rain crimped momentum of the day. Neither side seemed really interested in getting on with the game, as distinct from getting on with verballing and impotent aggro.
If Australia had won the toss and batted you’d have liked them to have been in a slightly better position say another 50 runs for no more than 4 down.
But as England won the toss and sent Australia in, then England’s expectation would surely have been at least 7, maybe 8 down for 200.
Thought Roots captaincy was substantially more conventional and effective once his bowlers decided to bend their backs to the task. Thought Overton did OK on debut.
Root tends to come up with these highly thunk out 6-3 or 3-6 fielding plans particularly leg side which prevents his bowlers from standard ways of getting wickets i.e. bowled & LBW
Then if a couple of deliveries get put away he pulls the pin and goes defensive.
There aren’t any gremlins in the pitch and so if Australia get around the 300 mark then I expect England have the capability and hopefully the application to get back on par.
I guess you could say things never turned out the way Root planned. Once again Anderson seemed to bowl well enough for little return. Marsh did well, although I am yet to be convinced about him.
Stumps Day 2
Australia 8(dec)-442 (Marsh 126, Paine 57, Khawaja 53)
England 1-29
The locals slowly ground the England attack down to near ineffectuality through the day in compiling a very solid scorecard with 7 batsmen getting solid starts with the other being run out.
Watching England set 3 on the leg boundary and then bowling a continual stream of short pitched crap at #10 Lyon hoping to get a rabbit out hooking was my cricket low-light for the weekend.
It’s just going to be returned in spades 10kph faster at the far worse bats in the England tail tomorrow.
There are few terrors in this pitch, England should be expected to bat through day 3 and post 350 to keep alive what I still think is a series between two modest teams.
Interesting turn of events at the end of today’s play. Hard to criticise Australia’s decision not to enforce the follow-on, even with hindsight. I still expect them to win this game handily even if they have to defend 300 or so, which in itself would take an extraordinary England performance tomorrow. Realistically a target of 400 is much more likely, and there’s no way we’re getting those.
Still, I presume the talk in the England dressing room will be all positivity - nab a few quick wickets tomorrow, then prove we do know how to bat after all. Would be a good one to win…
