Reports are that the degree of swing achieved is the lowest of the 5 prior Tests at this venue. There is some, but not excessive lateral movement. There is good but not unreasonable or expected bounce.
This days play and tumbling wickets is almost purely airspeed pitched at short of a length.
Today saw the most wickets on the opening day of an Ashes test since 1909. Looked to me like it was challenging with the pace on display but generally that the batting was poor. Nobody was leaving much (I didn’t see the England innings but I can guess how that went). I don’t think this is a pitch that lends itself to trying to get bat on every ball.
I went to bed at (I think) 50-3 and woke up to see that the bowling dominance continued for another five hours.
I got up this morning to see Aus at 19/1 after rolling Eng over, and then had a long drive to listen… it was great
If you review the dismissals of both team’s top six you don’t see many that are the consequence of “poor” shots. A couple got nasty lifters. Few were dismissed by deliveries that could have been left. Both innings showed signs that after 20 overs with the ball losing its hardness that a reasonable total could have been posted. The momentum was lost with a couple of key wickets.
Both keepers fell to poorly thought out shots in the circumstances but in both cases they were trying (with some success) to revive a near destroyed innings.
And the tails folded in the the heat.
The bowling was good, disciplined, quick and extracted what life was there and the fielding was Test standard.
Seems from the highlights that Jamie Smith gloved one very faintly, was not given out, but as soon as the review was asked for, he walked. Don’t think I’ve seen that before.
Is that what really happened or does the editing just make it look that way?
That’s what happened.
Well, after the first innings, it was always going to be a out which side remembered how to bat , and England emphatically were not that side.
If my maths is right, Englands top 6 have scored 192 for 12 this match.
All very exciting is way but this is not Test cricket, it is barely an exhibition match.
Is this anything close to the shortest completed ashes match? I don’t remember one ending in two days before.
Sounds like he would have survived the review in the second innings as well, if he didn’t start walking off upon seeing the first replay.
From his body language he absolutely hit it, right?
Shortest in at least 104 years, so unless you’re very old indeed…
Looking at the scorecard from the 1921 two day ashes match, that went for over 200 overs, so in terms of overs this one was definitely shorter at 140 overs.
200 runs in a session to win a Test. Outrageous.
And this folks is why Aussies think that Bazball is a crock.
In the first innings the ENG pace attack was simply outstanding. Consistent sharp pace, line & length. Bulled the AUS batters out of the contest. Probably ended Khawaja’s career.
But then needing to back-up for the second innings, being short on match fitness and with a short recovery the standard fell away precipitously. The pace was gone. Archer was bowling sub 120k. They were bowling slow bumpers. So short they were being called wides. Bowling like in a T20 trying to minimise boundaries.
Concur that, whatever this was, it wasn’t Test cricket to my anachronistic thinking.
2nd Test IND vs SA Guwahati, Assam, India
Following on from the 1st Test where IND contrived to play on a rank turner for home advantage and were hoist on their own petard, failing to chase 123 in their second innings.
And again IND are totally outplayed in all facets by a handy all round team with a couple of dinky spinners on a helpful, but not unreasonable deck.
SA 489 & 5d-260
IND 201 & 140 losing by 408 runs.
We are coming to the point in international cricket’s development where the sheer scale on IND cricket’s playing numbers and dosh to splash should make them prohibitive favourites to win every series whether home or away against all pretenders. And yet they have lost the last two series at home to NZ and now SA.
IND batters are now no more proficient to play against spin than touring teams.
Now yes, IND had a couple of their first choice missing, but IND’s thirds should now be of sufficient standard and experience to hold their own against other nations firsts.
While the prospect of (IND coach) Gautam Gambhir’s head on a metaphorical spike would add some pleasing frisson in the aftermath, it’s the board of political hacks who thought he was capable of the task required who should be shown out the ignominious door.
Why are we using abbreviated all-caps team names?
Who is this “we” of which you speak?
I use it for concision and clarity.
Out of near 600 posts in this thread, that’s the most egregious utterance I’ve made?
I most certainly ANA expert. So what follows is an actual question, not a gotcha or rhetorical question. …
ISTM Indian cricket is (in)famous for rampant corruption.
Is there any sense that corruption explains the disconnect between potential and results?
Aside:
Every sport worldwide is suffering from the onslaught of planetary scale gambling money. I do not mean to especially impugn the Indian cricketers here. They might be early adopters but they’re far from alone.
There’d have to be some sense … but to what degree I’m not qualified to speculate.
International/domestic cricket calendars are filled with inconsequential games. My limited understanding is most of the problematic betting is on spot markets ie will a batter hit two boundaries this over, will a bowler deliver a no ball on the 4th delivery of the 20th over, when will the batting captain declare etc. rather than on the overall result. The spot markets are much more susceptible to illicit attempts to fix.
I think nepotism, cronyism, patronage, favoritism and political interference etc are more likely culprits. Call me naif.
That probably explains 80% of all political, corporate, or sporting decisions worldwide. Humanity just sucks.
Seriously, thanks for your thoughts. Caveats and all.
The India cultural obsession with cricket is unfathomable. I love the game but am a neophyte by their standards. It can have some unnerving implications.
I was on a cricket tour to the subcontinent earlier this year. One team, from a local cricket academy, were U15s. Of the 16 in the squad probably only half will go on to play senior cricket of any standard with a grade club. Maybe one of them might eventually be good enough to play in a grade club’s premier team which would be the rough equal of baseball AA level team.
They were fixtured to play against eight local academy U15s and performed very well early on and as the tour progressed the opposition increasing used ring-ins. The Indian online database is awesome and you can follow essentially every team, fixture and player’s career stats.
In Jaipur the local academy’s notional U15 team opened their batting with two guys who were 27 and they demolished in very short order the modest target being chased. Indian administrators really do like to intervene and push the envelope. What their own U15s gained from this, apart from not losing to an Australian team is somewhat of a mystery.
AUS v ENG 2nd Ashes Test Brisbane
ENG won toss and batted and had a pretty good day.
9-325 @ stumps Root 135no, Crawley 76, Archer 32no; Starc 6-71
A return to something approaching cricket normality.
After a poor start; Duckett nicked off a good 'un, Pope chopped on with a poor shot Crawley & Root put on a century playing the sort of cricket their home fans expect of them. Root got his first ton in Australia in good style and essentially chanceless.
IMO AUS bowled a bit too straight.
Fielding was good. A couple of neat catches and Inglis’s run out of Stokes swung momentum. Carey’s glovework was immaculate, keeping up to the stumps for the seamers.
The AUS over rate was appalling with 5 seamers and no spinner.
The target of 80 overs before the new ball and 90 in the day. We got just 74 even with play extended by 30 mins. Umpires made no attempt to intercede.
The last hour went twilight zone.
ENG were 9-264 in 66th over when Archer walked out. Root already had his ton. The commentariat speculated that Stokes would declare giving his bowlers the chance of a sharp 12 overs at the AUS top order. AUS captain Smith patently didn’t relish the prospect and slowed the game considerably hoping to string the innings out until the period to bat was minimal. ENG defended stoutly, swung the bat lustily. Scored handy runs. Archer took singles of the last delivery of overs. A sort of game of chicken that I thought ENG won. Don’t know if Stokes ever seriously considered the prospect but an unbroken 60 run partnership might have been more value than one wicket, maybe 2.