It’s not broadcast over the PA. But it is broadcast over the radio and tv comms, and you can get earpieces in the ground that let you tune into those comms and hear it, so a lot of the crowd know what happens at the same time you do.
Thanks, but they show everything else; i.e. the bowler front foot, hot spot, snicko, ball tracking, catch/runout reviews, etc. on the big screen, correct?
Good “prediction”!
Wow! How about picking some lottery numbers for me?
It was depressingly predictable. It was good to see Malan get some runs though, and Root may yet break the record for most test runs in a calendar year - he already has the English record.
Not a surprise to see this match pan out the way it did. It’s far from a vintage Australia team but the English batting efforts constantly is below par. Joe Root has gone up in my estimation this year as an elite level batsman because of the mediocrity around him. Sometimes I watch the lower end English players play better shots than the openers and there has been a revolving door of opening batsmen in this England team for many years. When so many players are tried and fail there has to be some deeper underlying fault.
The way to measure elite batters is in comparison to other elite batters.
Root’s money shot is the thick educated edge between slip and point which gets him buckets and buckets of runs in England and the subcontinent because the pitches don’t have much bounce. In Australia the same shot too often carries waist height into the hands of 2nd slip.
My estimation of Root has also gone up because he is showing signs that in his third and likely last Ashes tour he has tweaked his technique to allow for the local conditions. But we have only ever seen glimpses of his best here and consequently, weigh of recent runs notwithstanding, IMO he’s not in the same pantheon as Kholi, Williamson and Smith.
I think when Root and Kohli are both finished Root will go down as the better test match batsman. Kohli as a limited overs batsman is far superior. But he hasn’t scored a hundred in over two years now and I think this is a clear decline whereas Root is getting better. His only problem until the last year was converting 50s into 100s. That’s changed now.
I agree this is probably his last chance of proving himself in an away Ashes tour. He’s got a lot of pressure to get that monkey off his back and also carry his team. India without Kohli managed to win in Australia last year but England without Root can’t put up a competitive score. That’s another reason I think Root will go down as the better test match batsman.
Smith and Williamson above them both.
The thing is, the lottery is hard to predict, whereas abject England batting performances…
2nd Test, Adelaide
Aust wins toss, bats and after 40 overs are 1-77 with Warner 42 and Labruschagne 25 in a 71 run partnership off 200 balls going at 2.15/ over.
Can one of the SDMB cricket fraternity explain what the fuck is going on?
England come out here with a plan if not preparation.
Try and get a draw in Brisbane, win with the pink ball at Adelaide.
From 1up and the 5th Test now under lights in Hobart an unlikely series win might just be on.
In Brisbane, with subpar support from their field, the bowled well and without luck. The Aussies strategy of hitting Leach out ot the attack worked.
The over rate was appalling and has cost the team $300k.
They pick four seamers, no spinner. Anderson and Broad come in.
The best swing and seam merchant of his generation.
So now we have the ENG seamers bowling short and into the body with 6 on the leg side and 3 on the leg side boundary. Plus two close under the lid. About as close to leg theory as we can get under modern rules. So Stokes is bowling around the wicket, banging it into the ribs @ 135k. If that was the grand plan, why not select Wood who has real 150k heat?
And bowling their overs so slowly they may well not get to use a new ball under the lights.
They thought all this out over the past 18 months?
Can’t really read the minds of the leadership but I think they’re basically overthinking it.
Having picked an all seam attack and dropped the quick, they’re now worried the ball’s not doing much during normal daylight hours. Stokes is going short but no one is really pitching it up (in the bit I saw this morning, anyhow)
They’re pinning a lot of hopes on dusk making the ball move and the batsman doubt themselves, and trying to keep scoring down till then. This is midsummer so dusk will be pretty late in the day, so to speak but nevertheless!
Classic commentator’s curse from the BBC text feed there:
64 overs
Aus 172-1
David Warner is into the 90s and not really looking like getting out any time soon, I should add.
…David Warner is out!!
Ha! Followed up by:
Steve Smith has one run to his name and is not really looking like getting out any time soon
.
What’s with the over rates? It’s gotta be strategic.
These guys are going to head home owing the ICC over a million dollars!
52 overs only done in the first two sessions. Yes it was hot, but not that hot and they are going to fry tomorrow. They got through the overs much quicker in their recent Indian tour and that got pretty toasty. Even the West Indians when in the pomp of their “four fast bowlers per innings, four bumpers per over” phase bowled more quickly. Joe Root aiming a yard down leg side to dot up a few overs ended up bowling 11. The field weren’t chasing boundaries … Aussie were only scoring at 2/over.
Then, to blow the “it ain’t half hot, Mum” excuse out of the water, in the third session, under lights they bowl 21 before scheduled close, get another 30 mins of play and still can’t get their quota.
I thought this was the Test ENG had plans to win?
5 seamers, none being express, bowl 78 overs in 6 1/2 hours.
Back in the bad old days the well lubricated amongst the crowd would start throwing cans and a start a slow hand clap if the over rate fell below 15x8 ball overs an hour. In 1974/5 Thompson and Lillee & Co were bowling 100 overs in a day.
Gives you the screaming idjits
Current odds on ENG victory 16:1
Under/Over on Aust 1st innings 460
And ENG a dropped catch off having a a day much as planned?
Another “wicket” off a No Ball! What a mess England are.
Doesn’t the attitude of modern top order batters give you the shits?
Labruschagne has been dropped off a legside chance, then dropped with a sitter, then caught off a no-ball (all by Buttler). Which is more luck than most of us get in a season. The score is 2-250 and the opposition are on the mat gasping for air. But you decide to pad up to a ball that’s going to knock over middle peg halfway up (you’ve got a bat rooster, use the fucking thing). And then when you are rightly given out with no hope of a redeeming feature, you burn a review on an indulgence. You selfish prick.
If somebody else gets burned later in the innings without a review to call on … be that #4 or #11 … I hope they wrap their bat around your head.
473-9 reminds us that first-innings declarations are essentially an insult: we’re stopping because we want to, not because you can get us out.
I don’t know if bowling under the lights is really the monstrous challenge England think it is, but they do think it is and have now put themselves in the position of opening their first innnings under exactly those circumstances, so that’s going well.
Whether by luck or good cricket, the fortunes have almost unbroken flowed in AUS’s favour.
Burns nicks off to Starc. Had to play it. Burns’ technique looks like it has a couple too many moving parts.
Malan and Hameed at the crease. They might just be good enough to survive this session.
It’s a big ask.
Indeed!
I know Test cricket can swing, but honestly, how do we get out of this? If Root and Malan contrived to put on 200 we’d still need another 273 to break even. Where’s that coming from? Do we think we’re going to bat for the draw on a 5th day pitch?
Woe, woe and thrice woe.
Well England are 5 down for 164 after a period when Root and Malan both looked comfortable. The bowling looked far more unpredictable when Broad and Anderson bowled, which emphasises how good they are and also emphasises how strange the decision to omit both in Brisbane was.
As for the the commentators, they are making me wish Lawry was still working.