Well, it didn’t quite pan out exactly as I predicted, but I did say that this would be done before the first break on day 5 and there it is.
The most consequential captaincy decision in this match wasn’t the Smith follow on - which I said at the time probably wouldn’t matter, and didn’t, despite a mild preference for enforcing it (resting bowlers is one thing but we’re packed with left handers which means you can bung Lyon on for a long spell at one end and rotate your pace bowlers at the other, continue to pick up wickets more than likely and manage the workload like that - plus Cook’s in no nick, Vince is weak, so you’ve got pretty good chance to get Root by the tail end of Day 3 which ends the game before the final session on Day 4, I reckon). The decision at the toss was the most important and England didn’t bowl anything like well enough during the Australian first innings to support Root’s decision. That old maxim about batting first came to mind.
I’m not some sort of seer but this series is panning out pretty much as I said it would on the first page of this thread, at least from an England point of view. You’ve now had a good look at Stoneman, Vince and Malan. Vince and Malan are now struggling badly and Stoneman, whilst the best of the three, isn’t scoring heavily enough. The bowling attack doesn’t have enough to take 20 wickets in a game in Australia. From the little I have seen in highlights packages and reading the press, our spinner looks, to me, injured - and I am more concerned about the side strain he got early in the tour than the finger (Mo’s had a side strain before, been rushed back and bowled like he’s just about capable of turning his arm over - and I thought he was going to be need at full bore to do anything at all on this tour anyway). Cook and Root have been kept quiet and that was the key to ensuring we had low totals. You’ve accumulated enough runs via Smith at Brisbane and through the team in Adelaide to put England under serious pressure. There’s not much else in the touring party that is going to fix this - and the lack of a spare opener in the squad now looks rash at best; given how Cook and Vince are struggling, you’d replace either of them with an opener at 3, I’d say. It wasn’t rocket science and England are getting pretty much what was expected. In a lot of respects, I don’t blame the players - selection and development of talent has got us where we are - no settled #2 since Strauss went. No settled #3 since Trott went. No settled #5 since Bell went. No express pace in the bowling line up. No big spinner of the ball. This series was never going to be close and it isn’t going to be.
Cumbrian, do you have a back up spinner who is decent who could be flown over? (I haven’t been a keen student of English Cricket). I suppose Perth is more known as a pacer bowlers wicket although it has changed over the years.
And Stokes lingering in New Zealand- is the situation such that he will be forgiven?
I don’t disagree, but in terms of straw clutching, we did at least win the second innings convincingly (though it was disappointing that we barely beat our own first innings score), the players should now have settled in a bit in a foreign environment, the bowlers have shown they can in fact take 20 wickets (even though they were denied the opportunity to do this by the declaration, but clearly that was a timing decision), if one or two batsman can step up I don’t think a whitewash is that likely. 120 runs is a much smaller margin of defeat than the first test. Onwards and upwards!
ETA: the above was in reply to Cumbrian. To Cicero: others will know better than me, but if we had another decent spinner he’d be over there already. And from what I can gather from TMS, it’s highly unlikely Stokes will play any tests, even if the police immediately announce that he won’t be charged. He played a club game in NZ this week and looked a bit rusty, apparently - not surprising. Our best hope is he might return for the ODIs.
Mason Crane is in the squad - he played for NSW last year in Shield Cricket (reported up here that he was the first non-Australian to manage to do so since Imran Khan, which sounded implausible and might be an English hype job - but he did force his way in from grade cricket, so someone in Australia must have seen something in him). He’s a young (think he’s 22), leg spinner. I think his season in Oz last year is doing a lot for him, as his figures in County Championship this year were nothing to write home about, but he is thought to have some talent. We could ruin him (a la Scott Borthwick from the last Ashes tour, or Simon Kerrigan from a game against Australia up here at The Oval) if we chuck him in too early. On the other hand, desperate times and all that.
The best spinners in England are all finger spinners - Leach, Bess, Rayner, maybe a couple of others - none of whom are in the squad and, whilst decent up here, I’d have some serious worries about their efficacy in Australia. Leach and Bess also play on a raging bunsen in Somerset (Taunton has been nicknamed Ciderbad on the circuit up here), so the jury is probably out on what they’re going to be able to do on something that doesn’t offer as much assistance. I love Mo (and I appreciate that you’ve not seen the best of him on this tour) but I’ve always thought that he’s the answer at 5 and should be a break in case of emergencies spinner for England. He took a lot of wickets up here against India on their last tour and loads against South Africa too - with a number of them caught at slip, so he was getting some turn, but he needs to be at his very best to be a frontline spinner, in my view. Think they have to find someone else.
Stokes. I suspect that England would have him in the squad in a heartbeat, if they could. They really need the Crown Prosecution Service to say that they’re not charging him to be able to get away with that from a PR viewpoint, I think. The CPS not minded to move that quickly though - plus he broke the guy’s eye socket, so I don’t see how he doesn’t get charged with something.
The other spinner out there with the squad is untried 20 year-old legspinner Mason Crane. In first-class he’s got 75 wickets at just under 44, from 29 matches. Adil Rashid, who’s played 10 Tests and taken 38 wickets at just under 43, isn’t on the squad. He’s only ever been selected for sub-continent tours.
On Cook, you have to begin to ask the question - if you were just picking on recent form, would he be in the team? In his last 15 matches, he’s scored over 25 only 5 times, and over 50 only twice. The hope was that giving up the captaincy would free him to return to his batting heights, but that hasn’t transpired so far. The answer is probably yes, you would have in the team, but mainly because of the lack of other options.
I’m really not sure about this. England got into Australia in the 2nd innings here but in conditions that they’re unlikely to see again on the tour (obviously the lights they won’t see again but getting traditional swing of the type that Anderson and Woakes can exploit is more what I am driving at). It seems more likely that what happened in the first innings, where we might have got 10 wickets but Australia already have plenty of runs, is what we’re going to see…
Lots of talk about Mark Wood coming in. He’s quicker than what we’ve got out there now but hasn’t played much cricket recently and is made of glass. This seems like a long shot.
My mates are suggesting that he’s done. The fire has gone out and he doesn’t seem driven anymore, wants to go and be a farmer. This might be true but I think is heavy supposition on their part. If we’re going to play the guessing game, I prefer my theory (obviously, since it’s mine) that he needs to go and get LASIK. He’s dropped a few chances at slip recently, particularly towards the end of the English summer, and is manifestly in a bad trot. I think he’s not seeing it as well as he used to.
It’s also worth pointing out that Cook, apart from the 766 runs he scored in the 10/11 series, has a pretty poor record in Australia.
The lack of options elsewhere is something I have noted passim. There’s nothing in the squad certainly. We have obviously tried a number of players who have not stuck too. Think we’re desperate for Haseeb Hameed to have a good season this year.
All is not yet lost for England , the Australian selectors have recalled Mitchell March for the 3rd Test in WA.
Now there’d be a hint of a reason for publicity purposes to maximise the number of Sand Gropers playing in the last Test at the WACA. And in dropping Chad Sayers, the best swing bowler we have going round at the moment, from the squad would indicate they want him to bowl. There is no report of injury so he’d not be replacing one of Starc, Hazlewood, Cummins or Lyon.
One option would be to drop Bancroft and have Bro Shaun open but Bancroft is a Groper. so it’s most likely Handscombe or Khawaja out, Shaun @ #3 or #5 and Mitchell @ #6.
You think you’ve got it bad. Down at Surrey, Mitch Marsh is our overseas signing for next year, replacing Kumar Sangakkara (scored 5 consecutive centuries in first class cricket last year and, along with Stoneman and Rory Burns essentially was responsible for Surrey’s survival in the top tier - he wasn’t just productive either, some of the cricket he played was beautiful). So we’ve replaced an all time great with…Mitchell Marsh.
I believe membership sales are down a touch from last year.
I’d never even heard of Sayers :). Bancroft won’t go given the first test - I wouldn’t think- as they are searching for a good opening pair.
Mitch Marsh can’t replace a topline bowler, unless there is an injury. Even then I think someone like Siddle is likely to all of a sudden appear. If he plays I suspect it will be Khawaja who should be worried.
Have any players, in any side, been given more opportunities than the Marsh pair?
I was actually at the Test where Alderman hurt his shoulder tackling an English invader (the day before). I was also there the day India beat Australia to end Australia’s winning run of 400 Tests or whatever it was (22 I think).
I wasn’t there when Walters hit Willis for six off the last ball of the day to bring up his century in a session but I was listening on the radio - I believe it was a gift from Willis to give him a chance.
Top memories. Funnily enough, I don’t have many memories of us performing well there. Even in the series we won in 10/11, we got smashed at the WACA - Mitchell Johnson and Ryan Harris just went rampant.
I dare say that the new ground will be nicer than the WACA but I’ll be sorry to see it go, if only for the name - onomatopoetically, it worked, particularly when it was THE express pitch in world cricket. You knew you were going to get it. Shame they won’t be taking the name with them to the new ground.
Over here, not only is it the ground where we’ve done poorly and strikes fear in hearts and all that, it’s also the one we saw most cricket from - time differences brought the evening session into play over breakfast here and the D/N games there would be on at a decent hour for TV viewing here too.
In Sydney one of the, probably the premier, cricket specialist sporting stores is Kingsgrove run by Harry Solomon and family who are Sri Lankan.
No I don’t claim I know Harry well but my daughter played cricket with his daughter, my son worked in his store for work experience and with 3 kids playing cricket I’ve bought a metric shedload of his gear over the years.
Was there one afternoon when it was a bit quiet and Harry recognised me and said if I had time he had something to show me. Naturally.
So we wandered out to the bat room.
Sri Lanka were about to arrive to play in that years one-day series. Kumar had phoned ahead and asked Harry to prepare six bats for him.
They’d been trimmed to Kumar’s preference, rolled, hammered and were almost ready to play. They were cleanskins, just waiting for the appropriate brand logos to be fixed.
Obviously these are absolute top of the range, probably retail for $800. Their pick-up was phenomenal. They looked like clubs and picked up like hockey sticks.
Harry said Kumar would take all six to a net session. The local clubs would send down a couple of their promising juniors, usually Sri Lankan. Kumar would bat a couple of overs with each and pick two he liked.
Then he’d sign the others and give them to the net bowlers. After the series he’d give the pair he’d used to a charity.
Harry mused that there’d be #11s and other rabbits in 2nd and 3rd grade with single digit batting averages despite using $1,000 signature bats.
That is a lovely gesture from Kumar. Even though I imagine the sponsors/ bat makers would pick up the tab, but there would be a lot lesser players selling those bats. (I heard of a State of Origin League player who would use a different jersey in each half so he would have two to sell).
Can’t come close to that but the first cricket bat I ever owned- that was new- I bought from Bill Brown (Australian opener who played with Bradman). He owned a sports store in Brisbane and he served me.
And while I am here I was wondering of the record for recalls so sent a query to “Ask Steven” at Cricinfo re record number of recalls.
I suspect it may be a query they receive a lot as an answer was available today that Brian Statham had come back 21 times after missing at least one Test.
In the third test, England score their first century. Well done Malan. And more importantly, a century when it counted, coming on at 131-4. Well supported by Bairstow further up the order, which is a call that paid off.
England were 2 wickets away from a not very happy position for a good portion of the day. Bairstow and Malan have done a very good job though, and now we’re actually in the game. I was unsurprised to see Cook get nothing and Vince get caught behind the wicket driving. Stoneman may well hang on post this series on the grounds that you don’t want to change both your openers at the same time. Cook has credit in the bank and will likely go when he chooses. Vince needs getting shot of and that right soon.
Nice story about Kumar Sangakkara up thread there too.
One stat I’d love to see is: how many runs do players who start the day with 100-110 runs tend make, compared to players who get to their century with plenty of time left to play in the day?
My feeling is that most centurions who got their century late on the previous day tend to get out pretty quickly the next morning. Understandably enough, given that the previous day probably took a bit of a mental toll and they have to switch back on really quickly - as opposed to being comfortably in with time to play. But it would be good to see some numbers.
I say this to tamp down my optimism - England should be aiming for something decently north of 400, but I don’t know how much more of a contribution Malan can fairly be expected to make.
I think that would be an interesting stat. I suspect you might be right, though for perhaps more prosaic reasons than simple mental toll. Players who have scored well above 100 before the end of the day’s play are more likely to be openers or #3s - who are more used to starting fresh in a morning and, dependent on where the match situation is, more adept at facing fresher bowlers and a newer ball. Later on in matches, they are also less likely to have bowled, so will also be less likely to have fatigue from earlier in the match to contend with.
I do know that much was made of Andrew Strauss almost always getting out cheaply the following morning if he’d batted all day previously though, so clearly it will depend on the player at the micro-scale.
TMS saying that the average first innings score at the WACA is 320. That would now be a failure but, even if they don’t get 400, England are in good position. I am more worried about how we’re going to bowl now.