Good news everyone. McNugget cricket is exactly what Australia need. At least according to Cricket Australia (the governing body.
Out go the promises of tightening the tournament schedule they made in May.
The way forward is dancing girls and fireworks. Non stop. For two months.
A few days of quiet now, whilst the Australians go off to desperately find some form against Sussex.
The interesting thing about the last couple of test matches is that the problems Australia are suffering are also being suffered by England. The Australian bowling has actually been pretty good after the first day at Trent Bridge, and the England batting, with a couple of obvious, match-winning exceptions, has struggled against them. If the Australian batting can fire - and they don’t need everyone to, just build some good partnerships and stay in - then they could definitely put real pressure on England.
Pattinson’s out of the series, it looks like. Will they bring Starc back? He did pretty well in the first game, I thought, and was unlucky to get dropped - especially since the failure was in the batting, not the bowling.
I don’t think Agar is bowling well enough to really justify his place. I think Lyon may well make an appearance before the end of the series.
How can you argue with that, really?
Much as everyone is kissing his feet for his first innings in Trent Bridge, fact of the matter is he is in the team as a bowler, and he hasn’t been overly good at that job. One almost century aside his other three scores have been <20 in any case. The only reason his batting stats look so good is the totally abysmal performance of the full time batsmen. He may have all the promise in the world, but IMO he needs to go back to Shield cricket and hone his craft some more.
I think one major issue for Australia is that we’re living in the past, we’re constantly rotating spinners looking for the next Warne. He was a once in generation player, and by the powers that be looking to replace him with like, we have a crop of 3-4 spinners, who no disrespect to them, aren’t Warne and will never be. But if we stuck with one of them and supported them, I believe we could at least have our own Graeme Swann.
It’s the same with keepers, Gilchrist revolutionized the idea of a batting keeper. But now it seems we’re willing to accept mediocre keeping skills in return for a ‘better’ batsmen. Haddin is an accomplished middle order batsmen, but his keeping skills are average at best.
Oh my God, this, this, this. We only stopped searching for the next Botham when we got Flintoff (and he was not really the same cricketer) and after he buggered off we’ve not gone back to that well again. Not coincidentally, after Botham retired we were crap for years. Now, not all of it was due to the balance of the side being wrong or “the new Botham” not being an international cricketer - though it doesn’t help if you’re carrying at least one player who shouldn’t have got an international cap - but it was an indication that the selectors were wedded to old ideas about what succeeded and were not looking around for Test match quality players in a different balance. There is always more than one way to skin any cat - hopefully when Lehmann is given more say over the guys that get picked in his squads, you’ll start to see a bit of a change in the personnel and the attitude towards what Australia are looking for.
Here is an interesting piece from my favourite Aussie sports site The Roar. It contrasts England’s treatment of early Graeme Swann with our treatment of Nathan Lyon.
Aaaaaaand we’re back.
Looks like Warner and Lyon are going to come in for Australia. England covered pretty much all the options with their squad but I would be surprised if they change the team at all, given Pietersen is meant to be fit. There is an outside chance England could go with two spinners but I can’t see it - even though Monty has a pretty good record at Old Trafford. I guess we’ll find out the teams in about an hour.
As predicted above. England unchanged and Warner for Hughes (Clarke and Smith up one position and Warner in at 6) and Lyon for Agar for the Australians.
Pitch is meant to be hard and will offer some bounce - which England have sort of ignored by retaining Bresnan over Tremlett. We’ve got a bit of a one day heatwave in the UK today - apparently some weather system coming through from Spain - but will blow over with more cloud cover over the weekend. Conditions for batting might well be at their best today. Oz won the toss - and will bat.
Edit: Oh and Starc is in for Pattinson who is injured but this was a given really, once Pattinson went down.
I’m pretty confident that the Aussies will demonstrate what a mug Jimmy Anderson is and will have lost no more than 5 wickets by lunch. Well maybe 6, but no more than that.
I wonder if Clarke thought of putting England in given that in the last four fourth innings; England scored 231 for 3 to beat West Indies, Australia finished at 371 for 9 to draw in 2005, West Indies scored 394 when chasing a target of 455, and England scored 294 for 4 to beat New Zealand. So despite the fact that Panassar has a five for in every last innings he has bowled in here and Swann has 6 for 110 in one appearance, it doesn’t seem the wicket falls apart on day 5.
Shane Watson seemed to spend most of his innings proving that he can take the shot around his front pad out of his game. Successfully for the most part. He struggled for fluency though and is now out, edging Bresnan to slip.
Rogers is playing really well. Oz have got off to a decent start. 76-1
I only just noticed that our top 5 features 3 batsmen with NO test centuries. I wonder when that last happened?
How the fuck is Khawaja out after review there? He’s never hit it - the sound is bat hitting pad (the field umpire can be forgiven a touch I think, if he’s heard the noise). It’s a shocking 3rd umpire decision.
The angle of the seam never changes after it passes the bat.
It’s a total joke. The field umpire is probably not at fault - from his angle, at full speed, on one viewing, with the noise, he might get it wrong. The 3rd umpire sees nothing on hotspot, the noise is pretty clearly bat on pad, we can’t see any contact between bat and ball on the slo-mo cameras - so how can the 3rd umpire look at that and give it out?
I’m a believer in much of the technology but it has to be looked at by someone with a brain. In this case, it would have removed a wrong decision on the field. Instead, Oz have lost a review and a wicket that they shouldn’t have.
If the DRS is there to prevent howlers, that’s turned a poor decision into a howler.
A fair bit of the psychology there relates back to the previous delivery. Khawaja who is struggling to get his score moving, got one just going down leg, played across the line and missed. Could have just noodled it around the corner for a single. England correctly decide not to appeal. Next ball has a bit more air, much straighter line, sufficient turn to beat the bat and some nice bounce. Khawaja seeing one he can hit to make up for the previous miss goes far too hard at it.
Good bowling, poor shot selection and he get fired to maximise the ignominy.
Shame for Rogers - gone for 84. He looked in good touch, quite fluid.
Ah, if only England knew how to use the DRS.
Well, swings and roundabouts this DRS thing. England have wasted their two reviews and now have to wear Broad getting Smith lbw (Hawkeye says hitting middle of middle) but not given out. Could be costly that - and precisely what Oz have struggled with on their reviews.
Edit. Ninja’d
I hope Broad gets a nice long spell. His 4 wickets at 58 a piece aren’t very scary
Broad’s bowling alright but hasn’t taken any wickets (can you bowl well without taking wickets? Don’t know). These two are definitely set now though. This is likely to be much more competitive than Lords judging by how the Aussie bats have set to their task today.