What are England going to do if this finishes 5-0 again?
They get rolled over like minnows in Australia. If it wasn’t a historic rivalry then ordinarily you might start consider whether they are worth having 5 tests every time.
5 tests aren’t given to good contests, they are given to teams that bring in the revenue.
Terrible, series ruining news on England’s latest Covid results:
They’re all negative and the whole team can play as scheduled.
This concludes today’s dad joke.
You are a very bad man.
Oh dear.
I took the dog for a walk, and England lost their last five wickets while I was gone!
How four batters could pad up and get to the middle in 25 minutes is beyond me.
Jeez, was looking forward to a nice evening of watching the Ashes and Root/Stokes helping to put up a decent chase total. Looked good an hour ago, but should’ve known better.
I just realized the 25 minutes included a drinks break!
I think more was expected of Watson as a bowler. As for Symonds, he was always more of a batsman who bowled. Very good batsman.
In 2021 England played a lot of cricket.
15 Tests, however many ODIs, T20s and the T20WC
The table below is from Cricinfo’s Statsguru and covers the Tests only.
Joe Root had a rather handy year, indeed one for the ages with 1,708 runs @ 60.1
Gawd knows how many he could have scored if he’d had a partner to stay with him or he wasn’t coming in 2nd drop before the 10th over.
Root (as befits the captain) played in all 15 Test. Batted in every ENG innings (29).
Anderson played 12 Tests, nobody else played more than 10.
Root scored 1,178 more than the next best batter, Rory Burns with 530 @ 27.9
He scored 6 centuries for the calendar year and only Burns scored another hundred in the Tests, (there were 2 in ODIs and 2 in T20s).
Third in the ENG 2021 calendar year Test aggregates?
Extras with 412 @14.2/innings (111 byes, 151 leg byes, 24 wides & 126 no balls)
But, you know, even if we lose our next 9 tests, our Win % will still be higher for the 2020s than it was in the 1990s!
Have sympathy for the pain.
Personally am still scarred by the 80’s.
In 74-75, both sides averaged about 65-70 overs per day. About the same rate as 90 6-ball overs.
We’re getting a lot of post mortem stuff right now, and what’s truly striking about it is that it’s all stuff we’ve known for years.
“England’s cricket structure doesn’t produce quality red ball players because it doesn’t even try to” has been known and understood since approx 2018 when we got white ball fever.
“England’s top order can’t consistently score runs” has been true since Strauss quit and we tried to find Cook a new partner. At some point in that endless rotation of county players somebody might have started asking themselves questions, you would think.
This is a big exercise in “the purpose of a system is what it does” and what this system does is produce bad Test teams.
I think this whole “everything stinks” is not helpful. Vaughn is talking of an “Australian juggernaut”, which is wrong. Australia is a very flawed team.
Mind explaining this to the Yank(s)?
I understand the red ball is used in Test cricket and the white in the shorter matches. I also (sort of) understand the risk vs. reward scenarios - short matches you take more risk for more reward due to limited opportunity (runs are worth more than outs), long matches you trying to stay in there and score runs only in “safe” situations (outs are worth more than runs).
Is batting really that much different that a competent white ball batter can’t switch to “grind mode” and build a decent score without swinging for 6 (or 4) and getting out instead?
I think that there are far more differences between test cricket and white ball cricket than just the batting. But as far your specific example goes, think of a baseball singles hitter that can foul off pitches repeatedly until he gets the pitch he wants vs. the home run hitter. Would the latter be expected to be able to survive by fouling pitches off? Maybe in some cases, but don’t think the skills are interchangeable.
As a qualification:
Red ball is Test and first class cricket (4 days in AUS, 3 days in ENG). Also in club cricket in multiday formats. Most lower grade competitions played over one day, whether limited overs or not use a red ball.
White ball is used only for one day, limited over formats.
As to the pertinent question:
I muse and post something hopefully more considered this evening.
I thought CC has been four day matches for 30 years or so.
First class in England is four days, as I think it is in all the Test playing nations now.