Stumps: England 488-7. Australia 280.
Memo to England’s batsmen: very, very well done.
The mark of a champion team is their depth of resolve with the bat. Today, our batsmen approached their task with total authority, and transformed a slightly perilous position into a virtually impregnable one. In the past, we would have collapsed by lunch.
Cook batted beautifully – this was perhaps his best innings of the lot. Or at least I think it was. Judging by the way he played for the previous two years, I’m still tempted to believe we’re now watching Alastair’s twin brother – the one who’s good at batting.
Until this series there were two particularly frustrating things about Cook:
1. He’d make a big knock, and then go off the boil again for the next six months.
2. His “will this do?” atttitude. He’d get to 113, assume he’d done enough to keep his place, and then get out.
How differently he plays now, with a greed for runs which is marvellous (if all too rare) to witness in an English batsman. Daddy hundred after daddy hundred, Cook just keeps going, and going, and going. How sick the Australians must be at the very sight of him.
In cricket, the best teams are also usually the luckiest ones, and we’ve had more than our fair share of good fortune all series. So far in this match, both Cook and Bell have been dismissed, and then reinstated. We’d like to hear your views on the Bell incident. Ours is that any blame belongs to the UDRS, not Bell himself. Once you have a review system, the players have no choice but to try and exploit it for personal advantage – because if they don’t, their more ruthless opponents will. Plus, when Bell says he didn’t know whether he hit it, we can’t be sure he was mistaken.
From a supporters’ point of view, it was terrific to see Belly play so gorgeously, and to finally record his first century against the old enemy – in his eighteenth Ashes test. Any sharp practice alleged against him is massively outweighed by the antics of Phil Hughes and Brad Haddin – who were downright cheating.
Australia were a shambles today, and it was joyous to watch. Let’s make the most of it: they will surely never be as bad again in our lifetimes. Their whole approach begs so many questions. Why does Clarke keep smiling and laughing, as if he were playing a village match, rather than having his test side pumped on captaincy debut? And what on earth is the point of Steve Smith, who bats below the keeper, but has only bowled ten overs out of 141?
The pick, as always, was the hapless Super Mitch. This was his last chance to make a meaningful impact on the series, and he flunked it. Take for example his first delivery with the second new ball – a crucial opportunity for Australia – which he sprayed four feet wide of leg stump. Mitch is an Ocker version of Steve Harmison, or even Devon Malcolm. In patches, quite brilliant – but infuriatingly inconsistent and mentally fragile.
He was very unwise to publicly admit his contempt for the Barmy Army’s taunts. Talk about egging them on. And for an Aussie, what a hypocrite. If he’s not man enough to field on the boundary, with 10,000 England fans singing “Mitchell Johnson, your bowling is shite”, to the tune of Sloop John B (below), he has no place in Ashes cricket. John Snow had bottles thrown at him in 1970, and he still managed to bowl his side to victory, not run away in tears.
Maxie Allen
I don’t see that the Bell incident was actually controversial. He says that he didn’t feel the ball on the bat and that he didn’t know if he had got a touch or not. Given that the review system is in use that is a good enough reason not to walk but to ask the question. He first asked Matt Prior, who told him that he didn’t think there was a touch, which is all the more reason to request a review.
I don’t see how there can be any question of sharp practice. If he had felt a touch then he must have known that it would in all probability show up on the UDRS. Granted Hotspot is not 100% accurate, but it shows the contact in the majority of cases. The fact that Bell though it worth using a review on suggests that he really did not expect a negative outcome.
Great stuff though…..!
Aussies lost whatever moral high ground they thought they might have after that disgraceful appeal by Hughes/Haddin. Cook knew straight away and stood there, half grinning, knowing what was to come. What idiots. And the idea that they of all people could have a go at a batsman not walking, after their open disdain for that practice of the last few years, simply beggars belief. I hope we go on to administer an(other) utter thrashing here, a 3-1 win and a very satisfactory Ashes series!
I agree Andy. What intrigues me though is that snicko clearly showed a nick (not that Bell would have necessarily felt it)
Which is more reliable – hotspot or snicko? Bob Willis seems to think that hotspot is more reliable. I’d be interested to know what other people think.
I think people are being a little harsh on Hughes. People usually believe what they want to believe – and Hughes might have been trying to convince himself that the ball carried. At first I thought his reaction was over the top – and I had sympathy with Botham’s view – however, on closer inspection he soon raises his arms in a ‘did that carry?’ way. Alastair Cook has also confirmed that Hughes at no point claimed the catch – and admitted he wasn’t sure more or less immediately. I think Atherton had a more balanced view i.e. Hughes was guilty of being weak, (by not immediately saying the ball bounced) rather than outright cheating.
I recall the earlier debate about the DRS on this site. I said then players will us it to their advantage – law of unintended consequences applies in cricket too.
Whatever Bell might or might not of done, both sides have tried their luck with the system. Sometimes it is a gamble worth taking the in the context of the game and DRS.
Boycs made an interesting point about the incident on the TMS summary: the umpire must have heard a nick; hotspot showed no mark; video replays suggested that bat was away from body and pad with the ball passing very close to the inside edge. With this inconclusive evidence Boycs felt the on-field decision should stand (similar to the lbw marginal calls). I think he has a point.
As for Johnson. Suck it up mate.
How many England players over the years have been abused by Aussie supporters? Ask Monty…
According to TMS the issue with Snicko is that is takes about 5 minutes to isolate, synchronise
and present the evidence. That really is too long to wait. Clearly still work to do on the technology.
Regaring Boycs’s view – as I understand it the eveidence was just passed back to Aleem Dar and it was his decision to reverse his initial call. That is putting the matter in the hands of the umps, which would seem to me the correct choice.
If it was up to me, I would abolish the DRS as it currently stands and simply award each team one single review per innings – and it would be the coaches who decide when to use this (in consultation with the 3rd umpire). Each dressing room would have a red light outside. When the coach decides to challenge (which could be AFTER watching the initial TV replay or before) he presses a button and the light illuminates, so everyone knows what is going on. That’s what happens in NFL and it works brilliantly – although the head coaches throw a red flag onto the pitch (which obviously isn’t practical in cricket … unless Tom Moody is the coach, and the flag is attached to a haggis).
My solution isn’t perfect, but it would stop the players from challenging the on-field umpires (which looks bad) and it would stop people trying to exploit loopholes in the current system.
The reviews should be to prevent clangers. I think my solution would achieve this better than the current system. An on-field captain cannot see clearly whether a ball pitches outside leg etc from 2nd slip any way – and it’s unfair that he has to make a decision quickly when his perspective isn’t ideal. It’s also unfair to ask a captain to question the umpire. He must feel very awkward.
A coach and analyst watching a TV, with the ability to replay incidents over and over at a seconds notice, have a much better view.
Andy – I agree but I wonder what was said to Dar and why he changed his mind. He must have been sure Bell hit it. Yet he changes his mind on (unknown) partial evidence from the third umpire. Did he change his mind because this mad him doubt the original basis for his decision, or because he felt he could not overall hotspot. If it is the later then the umpire has lost his authority to hotspot; yet Sniko later shows that Dar may well have been right!
Morgs – interesting idea but how long do you pause and wait. How would players know to wait while the coach decided? I don’t see the captains reviewing as problematic, it happens all the time and reviews appear to be done quite gentlemanly. Cricket I played on the pitch not from the boundaries edge. What next? ear-piece so the coach can direct the fielding team?
Morgs here in official guise! My propsed system wouldn’t take any longer that the current one does. Players generally know when they’ve nicked something and so they’d know whether to hang around and stand their ground. Giving the coach an option to call the Third Umpire and tell him an obvious mistake has been made wouldn’t really place more emphasis on technology than the current system. In my opinion, it would be cleaner too – because players won’t hang around chancing their arm and trying to exploit loop holes in the system.
Giving the coach, who has the best view, the right to appeal once TV replays show that an obvious error has been made (which is usually established within a few seconds) is totally different from the coach making field placements etc …. although, it could be argued that Strauss’ tactics are usually so inflexible that they’re bascially decided in conjunction with Flower before the game has started any way!
My guess would be that Dar heard a sound – as we did on the TV coverage – and took the view that it was most likely bat. On seeing the Hotspot evidence – or lack of it – he probably decided that there was reasonable doubt, and that the sound could have been something else.
On the subject of Mitchell Johnson I think he’s a rather confused fella and has made the same mistakes as in 2009.
Apart from a wonder spell in Perth he has done nothing with the ball, and a couple of decent knocks coming in at 8. What makes him feel he that he can continually sledge the England players? Surely the should just laugh at his taunts.
The fact he has shown that the Barmy Army has got to him just means he’ll get more stick. I for one hope England have another knock so there is another opportunity to knock him.
I was at Headingley day 3 when Broad and Swann had some success against Johnson & Stuart Clark with a few 20 overs off them. The match was Australia’s already, so different contex to this match, however the reception that Clark had at fine leg was a rapturous ironic applause – to Clark’s credit he doffed his cap and accepted the banter. Thus mutual respect between Clark & the Western Terrace.
So Mitch, lighten up, accept the banter and finally keep “bowling left, then riiiiiiight….”
Here here Cake! I agree
Spot on, Anthony. Some Aussies can take it – Lee, Warne, Gillespie, spring to mind. Others like Langer and Mitch have a sense of humour failure when things don’t go their way. Apart from one spell in Perth, this has been a disastrous series for Super M.