So with Cook and Ballance out early, Bell comes to the crease under pressure. He’s posted a lot of single-digit scores in recent tests (including the first innings of this match). A good score here and he can go into the rest of the series with confidence - fail again and he’ll be struggling for self-belief (or dropped).
I come back to a comment I made in the England-NZ thread.
Could England translate that high-scoring batting approach to the appropriate point in a test-match? I think yes. They showed a willingness to do so on day 1 and after lunch they’ve spotted the opportunity and have pressed the accelerator in no small way. They’ve put on 42 runs in less than half an hour since lunch and that rate will take it away from Australia very quickly if they maintain it…however…I think uneven bounce, spin and swing are beginning to raise their heads.
Bell goes for 60, which is a decent score and should quieten doubts somewhat. Stokes comes in with Root well set on 44 - this could be an explosive session which takes the game away from the Aussies, as in the England-NZ match. Or, over-ambition may take its toll.
There’s still Buttler and Mo to come in too. At this point, the calculation may become more about what the weather is looking like on Sunday. Pushing the accelerator to ensure England have enough runs to defend and time to potentially bowl Australia out is what I would prefer. They’re currently 300+ up - ideally we’re north of 400 by the close of play with something in hand, so that we can have a final thrash tomorrow morning.
England batting like they think they have enough… and I don’t think they do. Moeen Ali is still in, and I would suggest he needs to keep most of the strike now and make an effort to get the target up towards 400. It’s currently 367 - and that may well be enough - but Australia will still think they can do this.
Nearly another 50 as it turns out. Australia need 412 to win. A quote from Cricinfo: “England’s to lose”. And meanwhile Anderson has quietly slipped past Curtly Ambrose on the all-time list.
If England can’t defend this total, they deserve to lose, notwithstanding that they have been on top for most of this match. For the record, 400+ has been scored in the 4th innings of a test match in fewer than 1% of the tests ever played, but teams are more likely to get it now than at anytime before. It could very well be tight.
Australia, after a steady morning, falling in a heap after lunch, 122/6 now, and 400 looks a long way off.
Very straightforward in the end. Suspect that if Warner had managed to stick around instead of losing his wicket just before lunch, the complexion of the day would have been very different. England played bloody well in this game though. Australia, especially if Starc is seriously injured, are going to have to find something with the ball. They also maybe should be having a look at Watson, who gets out lbw against us all too easily. The batting will come around eventually though - the rest of the top order are too good not to.
I’m not really sure it would have, the innings had a bit of an air of inevitability about it - I rather suspect that with him going along at that rate, he was bound to fall sooner rather than later.
Excellent game from England. The only blemish on their entire match was the loss of the three early wickets in the first innings. I do think the complexion of the entire match would have been different if Haddin had caught Root second ball for 0 - we would have been 43/4 if he’d held it.
Watson is looking unlikely to last the series at this rate, especially with Mitchell Marsh waiting to replace him in the wings, maybe even for the next game. Does anyone know if the tour party includes any serious replacement for Haddin?
I don’t know much about the backup keeper, Peter Nevill, except that his form with the bat has been very good recently. Does anyone know what his keeping is like?
I thought Haddin kept well apart from dropping Root. It seems unreasonable to drop him for his batting when the specialist batsmen were generally sub-par as well. I think he’s partly a victim of his success in the previous Ashes when he repeatedly saved Australia from poor starts; he’s now expected to pick up the pieces every time the top six fail.
Nevill is probably the best gloveman of the current crop of batsmen/keepers in Australian 1st class cricket including Haddin, though Queenslanders will argue for their own Chris Chris Hartley. IMHO the best hands belong to Tim Ludeman (SA) but he’s “merely” a sound batsman.
Yes, Nevill is good with the bat, having played for NSW as a top order batsmen when Haddin was available for 1st class duties.
I thought there were some scratchings on the wall in the 1st innings of the Cardiff test when they sent out Lyon as a nightwatchman for Haddin.
“he’s now expected to pick up the pieces every time the top six fail.”
As a point of order you mean when the top 5 fail … Watson bats at six and that’s a given.
I’d honestly be surprised if Haddin was dropped at all during this series, although his recent record with the bat isn’t great - he’s averaged 20 since Jan 2014 and hasn’t scored a ton in that time, although he did pick up a MoM award. His overall average is 32, so that’s a bit of a drop.
Haddin’s average in England this decade is 21.4. Even if you go back to the 2009 series, it only raises his average in England to 30. With the bat, it seems evident that these are not his conditions. Given he’s averaging 20 since the start of 2014 too, you have to start wondering whether, at his age, he’s finished. I’d be inclined to give Nevill a go - on the grounds that England may not have much film/analysis on him, he’d probably go well initially.
Read some stuff about Watson too, suggesting he is averaging 33 since the start of 2010 - curiosity got the better of me and I checked Statsguru and it’s right. He averages 33 with the ball and fewer than 1 wicket an innings in that period as well. How is he still in the team? The only thing he does well is bowl economically (econ of 2.6 - 2.45 away from home) and I would argue that’s probably not enough, given his health issues mean he doesn’t bowl many overs. He’s basically a less obdurate Paul Collingwood.
- He’s scored more Test runs in the past year than all the batsman from Afghanistan, Ireland, the UAE and NZ’s Chris Martin combined.
- He has nearly as many centuries as Marcus North.
- He hasn’t been injured in weeks.
- A lot of people point out he doesn’t take many ODI wickets. This is unfair, he doesn’t take many Test wickets either.
- His bowling’s role is not to take wickets but to be economical. In fact in the past two years the only Australian bowlers with a better ODI economy rate are Johnson, Starc, Pattinson, Cummins, Doherty, Faulkner, Marsh, Hazelwood, Smith, Maxwell and possibly a couple of others.
- He scores runs when the team is under pressure. Several of them.
- He is not in favour of the DRS system and as a matter of honour burns any of his teams remaining reviews as soon as he has an opportunity
- He has incriminating photos of the national selectors. (But hell even if it was Coach Boof & Co sodomising a sheep on the lawn of Buckingham Palace it couldn’t be any more embarrassing than selecting him again … could it?)
I get the impression you’re not a fan but who do you think ideally would replace him?
I guess it would have to be Mitchell Marsh for the next test but his first class record isn’t spectacularly better than Watson’s Test record. I would prefer to see James Faulkner come in once he’s done his penance for Manchester (or has he been kicked off the tour completely?)
Or should Australia do the unthinkable: forget about trying to shoehorn an all-rounder into the side and pick a specialist.
Quoted for truth:
But what’s unthinkable about it?
You don’t get extra points just for having one in the side. Plenty of teams have had sustained success without anything more than occasional part time bowlers. Ian Chappell’s teams in the 70s, Alan Border’s resurgence team, Mark Taylor’s (with Warne & McGrath what is the place of a partime trundler except to kill off some overs before an interval or the new ball falls due?), Clive Lloyd’s power house teams didn’t pick allrounders.
The allrounders who win Tests are those who are in the side on their merits as Test standard bowlers, who can bat. Freaks like Sobers, Miller, Kallis etc simply prove the point of how rare a beast they are.
In an ideal world if form and fitness allowed Australia would take a team with Johnson and Watson batting 7&8. Both capable of bowling above 145km and taking a game away quickly with the bat. Would remind the old timers of the glory days back with Davidson & Benaud.
The top order are there to make 300 runs in the first innings. They aren’t there to wear down the bowlers so that after reaching 5-100 the tail make 200, which has been the Australian strategy for the past few Ashes series.
Whether by good luck or judgement England seem to have picked up a decent selection of middle order batsmen that can also hold down an end for a while and pick up a few wickets. Stokes, Moeen, Wood, Root. They all contributed with bat and bowled with discipline without any of them being a stand-out all-rounder.
In other news, Haddin is out of the second test. Non-specific “personal reasons” which can cover a whole range of unpleasantness for the poor lad. Might explain his distracted performance in the first test.
So who will replace him? Is Nevill as a straight swap the only real option?
Wood was picked for his bowling, Root for his batting. Stokes is the one who’s in the side as an actual all-rounder. Moeen is a bit of an oddity - I still think of him as primarily a batsman, but it seems the team selectors don’t think of him that way.
Agreed, that’s certainly why they were picked but I’d suggest they are putting in decent all-round (with a small a and small r) performances.
Root’s alternate role is probably the most incidental but even then when he has the ball he looks confident. Even though he is a part time bowler he doesn’t give that impression, he just looks the part. Decent figures too even though he’s only bowled 150 test overs or so he’s got 10 wickets at 39 and only going for 2.61. Not to be sniffed at.