I don’t think it was ever that tough to bat on this pitch, it’s just that England bowled in the right places, invited Australia to self-destruct, which they duly did. They also caught everything - if you haven’t seen Stokes catch to remove Voges, it’s worth looking it up if you can. One the very best.
The entire Australian innings fits in a tweet. It looks like this:
04W24W0W04100000W40000110W020000401000W000000000101000011W0011200010040040000W1W30000000000000400000000000001004W
That may be so Cumbrian but regardless, it is a treat to watch Root bat, a really lovely century from the lad and Bairstow looks like he wants a taste as well.
ETA…whoops!
Clearly your fault!
Still, 209 lead. No real celebration from the Australians, which says a lot.
Seen it, remarked on it (and the other catches) up thread. Have been fortunate that the tube strike has meant I have been working from home with the TV on.
It has demonstrably got a lot easier to bat on this pitch, just by watching the play. Starc got it to move first up and the ball has moved progressively less and less as the cloud cover was lost and the pitch dried out. If England had lost the toss, we might not have capitulated for 60 - so England do deserve credit for bowling and fielding well - but we would have struggled in that first session.
Yeah, you’re right, it was definitely a day to bowl first.
Got to wonder about Australia’s decision to take out a bowler, especially now with them having to bowl David Warner on the first day. I thought Mitchell Marsh bowled pretty well in the games he played, especially at Lords. I had assumed they’d drop Voges, if anyone. All the hallmarks of a selection committee that doesn’t really know their best XI.
I saw some headline before the match that suggested Mitchell Johnson was promising England lots more of the throat balls that got him a couple of wickets at Edgbaston, and I was thinking at the time: yeah, right, what undid you in the Third Test was not enough snapping, snarling, and watch-out-for-a-fucking-broken-arm bullying, rather than, for instance, piss-poor technique when the ball’s swinging and seaming.
Well, this could very well all be over inside three days twice in a row, and Australia learned nothing from the last match, as Boycott was very cheerfully observing from about the first wicket down. England are two hundred up with six wickets in hand, thank you Root and Bairstow, and they have the frightful prospect of Moeen Ali coming in at nine. Who’d be an Australian bowler right now?
Cook must be mightily relieved that his decision to have Australia bat has paid off so well. No matter what the conditions, the gods of cricket have so often punished captains who didn’t choose to bat when they won the toss. Well bowled Broad (who’s now tied Trueman’s record), well fielded everyone and especially Stokes - “how he caught it only he and Satan know”, to quote Flashman.
Nan batted better at Christmas.
with a stick of rhubard?
I was there to watch the game (first time at Trent Bridge - corporate jolly) and it was just surreal to watch the wickets fall as they did. Best morning of cricket we could have wished for, especially as we were sitting at about 5 o’clock to the wicket, so had the perfect view of each slip catch. Some wag behind us was at one point complaining that test cricket was getting really dull, there hadn’t been a wicket for nearly 8 balls.
(Aside - I’m SO lobster red, burnt to a crisp really - it’s quite the hazard sitting outside with great cricket and beer on tap all day)
There’s no soft soap when the PT family play cricket.
Nan’s been known to sledge Gramps.
“c’mon you old bastard, you bat like you shag, slowly and with no real technique!”
that sort of thing?
I’ve mentioned before on this thread, and elsewhere, that having been brought up on English cricket in the 90s, I have a low threshold for seeing potential failure by the England team. They must win this game surely? The way Australia have started their second innings (and the devil may care, arrogance bordering on hubris, manner of the finale of England’s innings - when they could have focused on batting remorselessly through to the end of Day 2 and thus put Australia in a huge, huge hole, instead of just a huge hole) has already put the seeds of doubt in the back of my mind.
5 down. Still 142 in arrears. Even someone like me can afford to relax a bit now, I think.
I suspect thats pretty much what the Aussies said in 1981 Headingly.
Hmm. Not worth thinking too deeply about that.
Over the course of this series, Michael Clarke averages 16.71. Extras currently averages 15 or so. Extras is still batting in this game, mind you.
If I were Darren Lehmann, I think I would be having a meeting with Clarke tonight saying “go out on your own terms in the press conference after this game, or we drop you for The Oval”.
Done and dusted. Australia have lost two Tests in as much time as was scheduled for one. Well done Broad and Stokes for stepping up in Jimmy’s absence, would be great to see England complete a 4-1 rout in the final Test but pride goeth and all that.
Outstanding test match for England. Australia didn’t actually play that badly after the first session on day 1 - England will have hoped for more runs in their first innings than they actually got, and then the openers put on a great stand. Once they went, though, it was a steady procession of wickets, and the early loss of Smith and Clark meant that it was just a matter of time.
An innings and 78. Big win.
(( ETA: 10.2 overs - 2 balls over the amount that would see everyone get their money back! They’ll get 50% of it back though))
I’m still very pleased that England are sticking to their aggressive batting mindset, no doubt it will lose them some games but overall it suits them.
However, I think the most encouraging stat. of the last two games has been the bowling, apparently England have had 4 different bowlers take 6-fers in the last 4 innings. I said going into the series that I wondered whether we had the attack to trouble a top-class team. Seems we have as long we agree that Australia are still a top-class team…perhaps that is now a point of discussion.
I think what we’ve learned about the England bowling attack in this series is that, as long as there is movement in the air or off the seam, they are capable of causing teams problems. The jury has to be out on them until they do it anywhere other than England on flat decks though - the one deck with little movement in it that was produced saw England struggle mightily with the ball. They have to be capable of producing reverse when they go abroad as they’re not going to see a wicket with live grass on it anywhere else in the world when they tour - why would any groundsman do that to their home team? Given they’re about to play Pakistan away and then South Africa, the best side in the world right now, also away - this side is going to have tough tests in non-English conditions very soon.
The Oval Test is actually pretty important for this side. Surrey carry two spinners into every game in every format on the ground and a bold selection would be for England to follow suit. I love Moeen as a bat but have said elsewhere on this board that I think that’s what he is - a bat, who bowls part time. He has taken a few wickets in this series but has not really been called on in the last couple of games. When he has bowled, he has gone for runs. People are calling for Rashid in the press, and I’m not averse to that so we can see what we’ve got there - plus we will probably need to play two spinners in the UAE in November - but it will require movement in the side. If they bring Rashid in, Bairstow keeps to him for Yorks, so I’d drop Buttler (who has scored little in this series) and push Mo up the order. If things don’t go well spin wise, the pressure on the seam bowlers to find reverse late in the lifetime of the ball is going to be even higher. I’d also drop Lyth (who keeps nicking off cheaply) and bring in Hales to open.
As for Australia, it was predictable that Clarke was going to go - he just looks absolutely shot. To a degree, they might find that they see the reverse of England - i.e. live grass on wickets away from home for the foreseeable future, as the bowlers didn’t get enough out of the wickets and the batsmen didn’t cope well with it. On the plus side for the bowling though, most of it is young enough to hang around and get better over time. Hazelwood was disappointing in the end, for a guy who I thought would be tailor made for these conditions. Next time he comes up here though, he’ll have learned a lot and I expect him to be a real handful. It’s the batting order that needs remodelling - I thought Khawaja looked good last I saw him but somehow he’s not been deemed good enough to win a place on this tour. You’d think he and several others will be in prime position to step up from the A squad.
One final note - I suspect that this series may have played out somewhat differently if Ryan Harris’s leg hadn’t finally fallen off. That was possibly the key event and it happened before a ball was bowled.
We’re off at the Oval.
Australia have batted for an hour, scored a whopping 17 runs in 13 overs, and lost no wickets. (At Trent Bridge at this point they were 38/7.)
I am, no word of a lie, thrilled. But where was this application earlier in the summer?