Well, here we have England’s seamers coming in with the new ball under lights , which is everything we were hoping for, and… nothing doing.
A cruel but uncomfortable comment from Twitter:
Can’t bat, can’t bowl, can’t field. Can’t think
Root and Malan look like they bat on a different pitch to the rest of the team.
Ashes strategy going to plan… We shall not deviate.
AUS spend the last 4 overs of ENG innings with a bit of wanton bodyline intimidation.
Rather unseemly and unnecessary to my thinking but then you have Anderson wondering (if winning with the pink ball in Adelaide was the primary aim for his selection) why he made himself available for the tour and as for Broad, well it will be one of our last chances to bounce the shit out of the prick.
After a faux day where AUS basically just killed off sufficient time so as ENG gets to bat again at the least ideal time and set a improbable 470+ to win or 4 sessions to draw Hameed cops a rip shorter to catch the top of his left (top) glove.
I reckon he can make it as a Test bat but his technique of playing with low hands might get him in regular trouble on our (or SA) pitches.
It’s a long bridge over a wide river from here.
Root out and with that goes any hope for England of batting out for a draw.
By taking the game well into the last session ENG showed there was something there.
After losing Pope and Stokes early the stubbornness of Buttler and Woakes was commendable.
Butler’s 200+ ball 25 was exactly the kind of innings in didn’t think he was capable of, so fair play to him.
Then he goes and kicks over his own stumps.
Pretty abject by England, all told.
This was fair but damning from the Guardian:
And so England ended up bowling 35 overs of spin in the Test, a curious move for a team who went into the Test insisting that they didn’t need a spin bowler. Indeed one of the more memorable television images from day four was the expression of Jack Leach – England’s main spinner – sitting just over the boundary rope in a yellow bib, watching Robinson bowl and Root about to relieve him. “Unimpressed” barely hints at it
The good teams take these setbacks in their stride, show some faith, reaffirm their principles. England, by contrast, are not a good team and have very few remaining principles to speak of. And so when things go wrong – and they often go wrong – there is little to fall back on but feverish improvisation and blind panic. This, above all, is how you end up rotating three part-time spinners on a turning wicket while your actual spinner with a Test average of 31 watches from a chair.
Be interesting to see if his Day5 update is anything more upbeat than Day4.
Well yeah, but AUS has spent the past half century seeking the replacement for the mythical allrounder role vacated by Richie Benaud and Alan Davidson. With nowt but ephemeral success. Because the task is bloody hard yakka. Few things make for worse preparation for scoring a century in two sessions as bowling for most of the preceding two. Even a once-in-a-generation like Stokes can’t do 'em both.
The problem is expectations. Instead of being happy for the allrounders periodic success with either bat or ball, they are expected to shine with both disciplines, every innings.
The absolute best could do it on occasion in the UK or the subcontinent, but rarely do the locals achieve that on Australian pitches and tourists even more rarely.
Steve Smith, initially selected as a leg spinner ( #8 after Tim Paine) being just one example.
The latest reincarnation (or incantation if you please) is Cameron Green. He’s good enough to make it in Tests, but if that comes to pass it’ll be as a batting #4, not the 198cm, 140k+ opening bowler he may well look like.
The HR powers behind the CricketAustralia throne instructed Smith on Day5 not to use Green as part of the bowling rotation policy. Which was (essentially) complied with. I’m at odds with the commentariat who though Green should have been brought for a series of bursts on to blast out the Buttler/Woakes partnership. The task should have been reasonably expected to have been done by Richardson and Neser on a deck where they and Lyon had plenty to work with. “Hey Jhye, Mickey, whichever of you two performs best today gets the gig at the MCG”.
3rd Ashes Boxing Day Test @ MCG
Captain Cummins of the Aussies tosses the coin
Captain Root of the Pommies calls “Heads”
It’s tails.
Captain Cummins of the Aussies says “We’ll have a bowl”
Residents of the Old Dart mutter a collective “Oh Fuck”.
Cricket followers who recall that appallingly moribund bit of drop in concrete which Alistair Cook ground out a remorseless double century will not recognise what awaits play. I, amongst an awful lot of others, have harangued the MCG’s standard in decades past. Looks different now (was ok last year too). It’s been a bowlers deck all season, hence the inclusion of the local Boland. The reports are the surface is hard but green. Has 11mm of grass. Somebody might get their bloody head knocked off.
Not a good start again
Comparison of MCG this year vs last.
It’s nowhere near as green as the image suggests but the usual colour of the pitch is about the colour of the roller
ENG all out off 65 overs for 185
You can’t judge etc ….
It was green but not that green.
Root, Stokes and Bairstow out to shots that will look worse every time you see them.
Bit of a brain snap from Buttler.
ENG got to within 3 balls of having the best of the 1st session when batting was at it’s most difficult. Then quietly folded.
Awful.
It wasn’t a road, by any means, so you can’t expect them to get 550+ and declare. 300 would have seen us right in the game on this pitch, 185 puts us right on the back foot from the start. Again.
Watch the Aussies get 550 now.
All the chat from England before the match was about how they’d learned their lesson and wouldn’t be playing at balls they didn’t need to.
Really that should have told us what to expect.
Special mention to Butter, who faced 206 balls in the second innings at Adelaide, in a display of patience and application that I honestly didn’t think he had in him. So of course he skies one just before tea.
The good thing about the time difference is at least I can fall back to watching the highlights instead of having to endure it in real time.
@ 6/181 Australia ain’t getting 550, or 350 for that matter.
Given what he has shown he (Green) looks better bowling than batting. Is he is good as Shane Watson or even the largely forgotton Phil Carlson?
Stumps Day2
ENG 4-31 trailing by 51
A day of Test class bowling and catching by both teams
And some pretty substandard batting.
@Cicero
Even his Mum has forgotten Phil Carlson
Green has near equivalent potential to dear Watto … and more likely to fulfill it
I know Shane Watson had frequent injuries but had a test batting average of 35 and bowling average of 34, which I will take all day long.
He never had the “X-factor” of Flintoff, but was an automatic selection when fit for a good decade.
Now Andrew Symonds is an all rounder who never lived up to his potential.