What a terrible day. It was miserable. The worst. The hope generated by Jofra Archer yesterday has completely evaporated, and now we have to contemplate our fears becoming reality – fears those of us who care deeply about our first class game have harboured for years.
As I watched England collapse to 67 all out I was shellshocked. But at the same time I don’t think anyone was surprised. We’ve been bowled out for under 100 a record 4 times onTrevor Bayliss’s watch. The only positive – and I dare the management to cling to this particular straw – is that at least we managed to survive a whole session this time.
In truth this Ashes defeat has been four years, if not longer, in the making. Everyone who’s been paying attention knows it. The ECB couldn’t organise a fuck up in a brothel. So why should anyone be surprised that our ODI success has come at such a horrific cost: the worst test batting line-up in living memory.
Most countries manage to have competent test and ODI sides at the same time. Our Ashes foes won World Cups and Ashes series simultaneously for fun. But not England. Oh no. We go from one extreme to the other like a bunch of rank amateurs.
A couple of weeks ago I advocated the popularly held theory that bowling wickets doctored for Anderson and Broad have papered over the cracks for years. Precisely nobody disagreed. However, I then took a slightly more controversial position by suggesting that this approach wouldn’t save us this time. And so it has proved.
The uncomfortable truth is that this particular England batting line-up is so bad, and so lacking in technique, that asking them to face Hazlewood, Siddle, Cummins, Pattinson (or whatever combination Australia prefer) on green tops is almost suicidal. It’s tough to bat against this lot on good batting tracks let alone decks that assist the bowlers. Is it any wonder they got bowled out for 67 today?
With Jimmy Anderson missing, Australia’s attack is just as good as England in English conditions. It might even be better. And with Steve Smith scoring crucial runs at Edgbaston and Lord’s, and Shane Labuschagne proving to be quite the find in his absence, I think we’ve discovered that Australia’s batting lineup, flawed as it is, is also better than ours in English conditions.
My preferred strategy, therefore, would’ve been to prepare tracks that are good for batting. This would at least give us a chance to post big totals and then hope that scoreboard pressure might take its toll on Australia. We’d still need to win the odd important toss, of course, which would enable us to bowl last when there’s some turn for the spinners and inconsistent bounce for the seamers, but at least we’d be able to stay in the game.
Now I know what you’re going to say. England got hammered in conditions like this down under and lost 0-4. However, that England team had no pace to trouble the Aussies. This time we’ve got Jofra Archer, and might have had Mark Wood and Ollie Stone too if it wasn’t for unfortunate injuries.
But there’s no point crying over spilt milk. Australia are a better side than us and they might well have won whatever the conditions anyway. The bottom line is that England have lost this series – and I’m assuming they’ll lose tomorrow because I doubt we’ll be able to chase 150 let alone 300 – because our current domestic structure simply doesn’t encourage the development of red ball batsmen. Graves and Harrison should hang their heads in shame.
On top of all that we have an incompetent chairman of selectors whose whole philosophy is completely insane. The idea that all-rounders rather than specialists wins test matches, and that performing in front of big IPL crowds is a substitute for technique, goes against the whole history of test cricket.
I can’t believe that someone so academically clever, who has played and watched professional cricket for decades, could make such a catastrophic misjudgement. Perhaps Smith was just lying to himself because deep down he felt he had no option but to pick the white ball specialists. After all, the first class cupboard is almost completely bare. And we all know whose fault that is.
The other thing that irks me is that the international summer is basically over now. When Australia go 2-0 up at some point over the next day or two, all we’ll have is two dead rubbers to look forward to. The test summer has therefore been a complete damp squib. It started at the beginning of August and it’s over already within three weeks.
Before I sign off, I’d like to ask you all whether the World Cup win was worth the humiliation we’re suffering now. In my opinion nothing is worth this; nothing is worth sacrificing the first class game for. What’s more, our test team is likely to be very poor for some time now.
If you’re looking for a light at the end of the tunnel you might have to wait a long time. With the ECB fixated on its pathetic Hundred experiment, which makes Ashley Giles’s promise to reinvigorate first class cricket undeliverable, we’ve only just ventured into the dark. And at this stage I’m not even sure where this metaphorical tunnel goes or ends.
James Morgan
I was planning to comment yesterday that if England had batted under those conditions they wouldn’t have made 3 figures. Oh dear – only 2/3 the way there under much better conditions today!
How much longer can Smith, Taylor and Bayliss continue their red ball experiment until the authorities realise how embarrassingly predicable we’ve become? Let’s have a Strauss and Giles team and leave the brain’s trust to their white ball first love. If this was footie they’d have been out on their ear yonks ago. We surely need a few fresh faces and give them time to bed in.
Who am I kidding that any of this is even a remote possibility!
When will the brains trust that are our selectors admit they’ve got this so very wrong? It’s been totally unfair to Roy to persist with him as an opener in the red ball game. I guess Sibley deserves his opportunity but I’m not sure. Number three has been a problem since Trott left the scene. I think the answer is Borthwick, he’ll nudge and nurse and look pretty awful but he’s got that limpet quality which Joe Root would much appreciate as he watched from the pavilion. Buttler needs a rest at least and Pope is back and in cracking form. Steve Davies could take the gloves from Bairstow. Somehow Jimmy has to come back, if fit and maybe Woakes should stand down though that seems harsh. Also it leaves. Bit of a tail, but then the top seven should be responsible for the runs, so:
Burns
Sibley (Banton?)
Borthwick
Root
Pope
Stokes
Davies
Archer
Broad
Leach
Anderson
With next year’s domestic programme set in stone by the lunatics in charge of the asylum nothing is going to change for a while at least but those who masterminded the whole shambles will still pick up the eye-watering pay cheques & so couldn’t care less.
It’s time for Ed Smith to start watching county cricket. We are tired of these white ballers!. Time to ditch Denly, Root, Butler, Woakes, Roy, Bairstow and let’s bring in some batsmen who have shown some promise in the county championship. While we are at it then lets get a proper keeper in and dump Bairstow – even I can get out attempting to hit every ball out of the ground.
Can’t ditch Root, except maybe as captain, as he’s still our best batsman, but is clearly unhappy at 3,
Woakes has just had about his worst game for England at exactly the wrong time. I certainly wouldn’t ditch him either as he’s shown he’s good enough to trouble the best at his best.
Butler I would also keep as he’s shown an ability to adapt his naturally attacking style.
Foakes certainly needs to come in as keeper though I would give Bairstow another go as he’s showing signs that he can knuckle down.
Burns is at least showing some ign of fight, but needs to sort out his approach to the short ball.
Agree about Denly and Roy, they just aren’t up to the job at this level.
It’s important not to over react into panic measures. We need a solid start so the middle order isnt constantly being exposed to the new ball, which is clearly where the problem is. Stick Gatting, Gower, Botham, Lamb and Smith in against these Aussies with a new ball on these pitches and they’d struggle as well.
Brainless batting exposed series after series, Ben Stokes is supposedly England’s best batsman but he just scored his first test century in 2 years and has a mid 30s average. English cricket is going to resemble an abandoned olympic park for years to come. Years of focus on white ball building up to a month of attention concluding with a world cup win, but the ramifications and damage inflicted on the entire system that served the test side will be felt for twice as long.
You can’t just summon test match batsmen, no-one in the england set up ever paused to think why so many batsmen have failed to make any impact on test cricket since Andrew Strauss retired. Instead they pretend that Buttler, Stokes, Bairstow, Moeen Ali can get their technique fixed in white ball and are all capable test batsmen that can “take it away from you in a session” when the only thing that happens is they all get bowled out within a session, and if they all get 40-50 between them and England bat down to 10 then we don’t need 5 specialist batsmen and a competent batting wicket keeper.
Even the media have been sucked in to the moronic Smith approach that form is interchangeable between formats, citing Moin’s 80 in 46 balls against Brummie Bears as a reminder to selectors.
Great to see the reaction of the Headingly crowd to proper test cricket as at least we showed some spunk yesterday and despite only scoring at just above 2 an over they were gripped. I would humbly suggest they will remember that day’s play for longer than any 20-20. Though the irony of out test team is they create this drama through a deal if ineptitude. If both sides had better batsmen it could have turned into a pretty tedious affair as both played for a draw. .
Eh?
Ditch root. That’s a new one. Obviously making him captain and number 3 was an impressively predictible brain fart but he still should be in the team.
I would just have a specialist captain instead of just giving the job to our best bat and killing their form.
But who would that be ? Only Burns of the current England side captains his county and there are only three England qualified County captains and they have a total of 33 Tests between them. Vince, anyone ? Or Malan?
You’re wrong, James. In as much as there is one, the day we kissed the Ashes goodbye it was the day that Andrew Strauss, with the support of Graves and Harrison, appointed Bayliss, someone who has little or no interest in red ball cricket, as England coach ahead of the likes of Jason Gillespie. No one in the hierarchy of the English game gives a (proverbial) for the red ball game – even the M.C.C. plays its traditional opening fixture against the champion county in the Middle East rather than at Lord’s ( and incurs £70,000 of unnecessary additional cost for doing so.)
You are right. I agree with every word.
Thank you.
What about the following side for Old Trafford, assuming we don’t manage to salvage this one:
Burns
Sibley
Root
Northeast
Ballance
Stokes
Foakes +
Curran, S or Woakes
Archer
Broad
Leach
Why drop Roy, Denly, Buttler and Bairstow?
Roy – is not a Test opener and is surely not capable at this point of scoring runs anywhere in the order, he’s shellshocked to the point where a demotion to no.6 is not going to help. He will obviously continue to play in the shorter formats but should not be considered an option in Tests anymore. Even though his Test experience is limited – and the sample size really too small to draw strong conclusions on – the manner of his dismissals has been hugely telling.
Denly – I am glad that he has been given a chance but his late-career renaissance has been shown to be no more than a temporary improvement in form. He is not an answer now, nor going forward and it would not be fair to keep pushing him out there.
Buttler – not good enough to be a top six red-ball batsman at Test level. Great for runs down the order (an ideal seven), but in dreadful touch and needs a rest. Should remain in the white ball setup and is a possible future selection at Test level if used properly.
Bairstow – in need of a rest more than anyone in the side at present. Is evidently suffering from the constant pressures of the international game. Against Ireland he actually looked like he was having a breakdown at the crease. The increase in stroppy outbursts in recent times is a clear warning sign of an individual not coping well with the pressure. If given the gloves should bat no higher than 7. If not given the gloves should be no higher than 6. Should target next summer for a full return in all formats.
Why bring in Sibley, Northeast, Ballance and Foakes?
Sibley – has had a good season in red ball cricket. Two dead-rubber tests against a good bowling attack will show what he can do. Should definitely tour in the winter.
Northeast – another man who has had a good season. He is a classy player and a proper middle order batsman, rather than a repurposed all rounder. He has captaincy experience, which may be vital in the near future if it’s decided that Root needs a break from the role to focus on his batting. Surely he will tour in the winter too.
Ballance – I know this will be seen as a retrograde step, but the cupboard is bare enough that at least one of the moves has to go back down a path already explored. For sheer weight of runs in the county game, experience and the ability to captain he needs to be brought back in. Yes, he is technically deficient. However, so is virtually everyone else and it hasn’t stopped us picking them out of position/away from comfort zones.
Foakes – great gloves (good enough to get him in the side alone, if that were still a choice selectors felt themselves capable of making) and a bat with enormous potential, as we have seen. Seems to have a good temperament and is technically strong. Fully deserving of a place even before this series began.
Sam Curran – I wouldn’t definitely drop Woakes for Curran at OT, but it is hard not to like what Curran brings to the team. He has the ability to take wickets when there’s nothing happening and his batting has been consistently strong for England up to now. He looks like the sort of player who could become known in the end for being a specialist batsman. His strongest attribute though is his will to win and the arrogance he uses to dig England out of trouble. I’m quite glad I’m not a mate of his, he’s be bloody intense, but he has a winner’s mentality that is not as evident in most other people.
I don’t suspect these changes would bring instant success and nor do they seem like they would create a blueprint for England becoming the leading Test nation in the next year or so. However, the changes have three key strengths:
1. They are form based (as much as they can be in this ridiculous calendar).
2. They wipe the slate clean from the first four tests of the summer, which is imperative. The current England side is holed below the water line and needs fairly radical change.
3. It picks players to play the sort of role that they are used to – rather than relying on talented misfits to suddenly become the sort of players they never have been before.
This all feels very cathartic – well done for persevering if you made it this far!
I’ve being saying for some time that Foakes (great gloves, good potential as a batsman) and S. Curran (great attitude, useful v ariation with the ball) should definitely be in the side – they should have been in this one.
Balance!!! You have to be kidding. Recalling past failures is a no no. This present Aussie line up have already worked out Burns, a much better batsman. How long would Ballance last against them with his obvious technical deficiencies.
Agree with Northeast and Sibley but would also be tempted to include as a short term 3 Hildreth.
As you say picking players in their natural position rather than moving them about as though they are interchangeable is the best option, but whoever you pick for the middle order they may still have to face a relatively new ball, which is the problem our present middle order has.
Wow, that was as bad as it could get for England, utterly atrocious batting, I mean Australia bowled well, but that was just moronic stuff.
Now, I’m going to rant here: Joe Root, WTF is he doing out there? First, he tries bowling Archer into the ground, then he bowls Stokes for 14 overs on the trot. Does he have any brains? Is he trying to find out how long it would take for Stokes’ shoulder to pop out of the socket? Root has been more detrimental to England’s cause than any other England player in this series, he gets ducks, drops catches and is an absolutely useless captain, atleast Roy or Denly don’t try to get his own bowlers injured. Replace him immediately, I don’t care who, even I could captain better than this.
When Simon Hughes penned his vision of cricket as consisting of T20 and the Ashes only, he didn’t ask himself what the Ashes would look like if the players only otherwise played T20. We’re now seeing it. It’s arrived sooner than perhaps expected because it’s been combined with pitches and balls designed to get matches over in 3-4 days to introduce shortened Test mtaches by the back door rather than in the open because of the opposition that would provoke.
There’s virtually zero chance of improvement with the rewards being stacked in favour of white ball players. Asking someone “why don’t you become a red ball grafter?” is like asking someone in the 1820s “why don’t you become a handloom weaver?” It’s a vocation heading for the out door and only those who can’t see the writing on the wall would attempt it.
Perhaps West Indies U19s have a good batsman because there’s more chance of getting one from there than from the England domestic set-up.
BTW having three Tests going on at once shows what a lie it was that the Test Championship is about getting fans to watch teams other than their own. It’s about saying “we tried it and it failed” when Test cricket is killed off. SL could actually get to the Final if the weather helps them prevent NZ recovering because SL don’t play India and Australia. It would be like winning the EPL without playing Man City and Liverpool – and a farce that deliberate bodge of a tournament would deserve.
I’ve just turned on WI v. India (OK, I admit it, as the Twenty20 has just finished). There seem to be about 50 spectators there…
It’s in Antigua. Ground is in the middle of nowhere.
I agree and have had several (mostly good natured !) arguments with friends who can’t see that English Test cricket will not survive the disappearance of the County circuit as there will be no nursery to produce Test players, especially batsman. Even going back to the early days of one day cricket, English players have always seemed to find it more difficult to adapt their game to suit the different formats than have players from the other major countries. Now that the short form is actually a totally different form of the game than red ball, they seem to find it almost impossible, and it’s going to get worse.
I still blame the ECB.
The crowds should have booed louder.
Burns – deserves a run but needs to sort out the short ball fast or he’s gone
Space
Space
Root – remove him as captain and never ever ever promote above 4. He isn’t good enough
Space
Stokes – all rounder
Foakes – best wk
Don’t care as bowling isn’t our problem but I’d go for
Leech
Anderson
Broad
Archer (in short bursts not drilled into the dirt like he’s being done.. I’d also remove him from white ball teams to save his pace)
Throw in
Sibley
Crawley
Pope
Even if they act 30.. tell thr top three to grind and literally do not care about runs
Agree with the batting, but Anderson and Broad aren’t going to be around much longer so bowling is also going to be a big problem in the near future.
You are right about Anderson and Broad. It’s a big worry. In their absence Archer is likely to be bowled into the ground. As a young man he is already sustaining injury. He posted a photo on Twitter showing himself to be as an old gentleman on two sticks when he gets up in the morning. A clanging alarm call if I ever saw one.
8 of this lot of sloggers got out to balls they could have left. No technique, temperament or brains for Test cricket. Surrey Seconds would have played better. It’s shameful. I could name ten batsmen from the County Game that would do a better job. Whose the best bat on either side in this game? Labechange whose been playing red ball cricket all summer and scored 1000+ runs. Australia are still better batting and bowling than us. I suppose the morons at the ECB think the 100 is going to solve all the problems.
Hope Archer is alright, or is he another player England have fucked up?
James, isn’t this doom and gloom a bit premature, I would have thought the game still has a long way to go. England may yet bat a 50 over game and get 350…. You may not agree but parachuting in players like Archer is also papering over the cracks. Bringing in these players is great for short term success. Generally, these players are not products of the English junior system, most arrive with existing skill sets ready to go. Meanwhile players coming through from junior levels miss out because parachute players take the available spots. This happens in all sports, not just cricket, and at all levels and not just England. We always hear about developing our juniors as they move through the ranks and then, hopefully to senior cricket. It may take a generation or two but in my opinion is a much better way to achieve long and sustainable term success.
I’d be surprised if they get 200. You can’t bat a “50 over game”. That’s the problem. This is a test match and we are fielding a side of one day players which has been failing for over a year. It’s not just bad it’s complete insanity by the ECB.
I was thinking if England had a” go for broke attitude” and played like it was a one day game (which they can do) they might just pull it off. Not saying it should be done regularly, just on occasions where they need to take risks to win or save the game.
The problem with that is that the Australian bowlers will still play it like a Test match, exploiting the glaring technical deficiencies iof most of our batsman.
The surprising part about this performance is that even though England usually struggle when chasing 200+ since 2014, they haven’t gone so bad against so few runs on the board before. Even so, it can’t really be that much of a surprise with this batting line-up. Completely unfit for purpose.
And how only one bowler has been injured in a Test so far is beyond belief. Broad and Archer (and Stokes too, based on yesterday) will be an inch tall by the Oval if they keep on being bowled into the ground.
Disappointed, despair (well yesterday) but it is a new day and I am going to the Test Match. We will bowl them out before lunch, opening stand of a hundred and Ben Stokes will score the winning runs Sunday morning. All will be forgiven. Come on England.
Both batting line-ups are dire. I was surprised to see the Aussies do as well as they did, but then England are still dropping catches.
The Aussie bowling was very good, first time since Ryan Harris that I’ve felt some proper plans are in place for batsmen. But really, such awful batting line-ups, what can be done with them?
Ok, so we now have irrefutable evidence that the English batting lineup is not of test match standard, or even faintly close. They don’t have the technique or the temperament, and so the Ashes are long gone.
What is also concerning is that the Australian batting lineup is – Smith apart – actually not much better. In particular, and even Smith included, they have shown poor technique against Jofra’s missiles. Archer is very good – but he’s not unique. Before helmets batsmen knew to get in line and never take their eye off the ball. Watch Close aged 45 facing Holding – a far more deadly proposition than Archer since Close had no protective gear to speak of, there were no bouncer restrictions and there were 3 other lethal pacemen in the line up. Modern gear has made batsmen too confident.
I remember someone saying that you really knew the cricket season had started when you heard that familiar sound of leather on Brian Close !
As a point of detail I think that was 1976 and West Indies “only” had Holding and Roberts as express pacemen in that team.
I would have thought that was about the time of Marshall, Daniel, Clarke, Patterson and Croft as well. Don’t remember a time in the 70’s when the Windies only had 2 pacemen to choose from.
As I’m not a Sky Sports subscriber and live in NE Scotland, I listen to TMS and watch the Ch5 highlights, so I don’t get to see games as such.
What I do hear and see tells me one thing, we have sacrificed first class & test cricket at the alter of the white ball game. That’s where the money is and there’s no getting away from that.
Alastair Cook said on TMS yesterday that we played back to Ashes series in 2013/2014 to avoid playing the home World Cup and an Ashes series in the same summer, and here we are doing exactly that.
At the tea interval Aggers was joined by Cook, Vaughan and Boycott to discuss England’s batting and its sorry state. Cook said he spent much of his childhood cricket getting his technique right with hours and hours of practice. Boycott was and his a technique man and his and Cook’s record speak for themselves.
My point is that if we are hoping for our test team to play like teams in the past then we’ll be waiting a long time. The straight bat, stick in, and get the shine off the conker are long gone. It’s all about playing expansive shots and try to take on the bowlers.
I don’t know the players at county level so I can’t make suggestions on who to bring in, but crazy fixture lists, and virtually no off season for the top players can’t be doing any of them any good.
We’ll see with the rest of the series how things pan out but it not looking good from where i’m sitting.
Was the World Cup win worth it? I _think_ so. It now feels a long time ago (apparently it was only last month) and doesn’t really feel like it today, but I think it was.
The World Cup was going to happen anyway, pushing The Ashes later.
That final was amazing, and I got to watch it on free TV, with my 6-year-old.
Suppose we had scraped through an Ashes victory. That would just have felt like another one of those expected home Ashes victories that we always get these days — not necessary anything special. Winning the World Cup is definitely special.
Also, regaining The Ashes would’ve been more ‘papering over the cracks’, letting those in charge pretend that the test team is fine. At least this way they’ve got to admit that something needs to change. Surely?
(I’ve got a ticket for Sunday. At this point I’m not sure whether I’m hoping to see any play tomorrow, or I’d rather England get their losing out of the way today and save the bother of anybody having to turn up for the 4th day.)
In addition to the efforts of the Brazilian President, the print media will put millions of Amazon rain forest at risk with reports and analysis about yesterday’s woeful batting performance by England.
I’m certainly not going to waste my team selecting the team for the next Test. That is Smith’s job, with help of his lapdog Taylor.
They look very fetching, sitting together in their smart suits and shades, which no doubt shield them to some extent from the horrors we see.
That said, my memory goes back a long way and I can recall much better England teams than this one being stuffed by Oz.
We didn’t get into this state overnight and we certainly will not get out of it in a hurry. The lesson will not be learned until the crowds stop rolling up.
In any case it’s not over. The fat lady has not sung but I thought I heard her rehearsing in the distance.
The comments above show how bare the cupboard is. That’s what happens when you take a sledgehammer to the doors as the ECB has done. The simple fact is that the English production line (the county championship) has been trashed for white ball cricket. As has the England team. The best batsman in this test by far has been Labuschagne who played a full county season with Glamorgan. Roy is clearly not a test opener. He might be a KP light no 5 in a better batting line up but we will never know. That’s not his fault. It’s a broken system. Root is a poor captain but who can replace him? He also looks fried by the responsibility (see the dropped catch). Burns is virtually the only specialist batsman who has justified his selection in this series. What a mess!
Worth a one off world cup win? Jury is out.
Worth a WC win? Mmmm.
To me no, because, not meaning to bring up the debate again, I never considered it a win. A great game, but a draw.
Thought it was significant that Root didnt appear in front of the cameras, fielding the awkward questions was left to Thorpe. What wouldn’t we give for him as a player now. He certainly gave a realistic assessment without resorting to cliche. Root I feel is under the thumb of Smith & co, whereas Thorpe is more his own man.
I know you dont change captain in mid series, but we need Root firing as a batsman more than a captain. Though he can’t be blamed for the shortcomings of his batsmen, his handling of the bowlers and over attacking field settings are certainly open to question, with Archer and Stokes risking series threatening stress injuries from being overbowled. If Burns has a half decent rest of this series he may be an option for the winter tours. There’s no substitute for experience.
How about Broad as captain? As temporary measure until a more permanent candidate energes
I don’t see an inability to leave balls that are nowhere near the stumps as a failing in technique. I see it as a problem of concentration. I REALLY want to know what Thorpe and the rest of them are doing to help the players improve….
Didn’t take too long to find an answer to my question…
Whether Roy has the appetite for the role is unclear. A couple of day ahead of this game, he spent much of his time in the nets trying to slog almost every delivery he faced into the stands. Maybe it was an exercise designed to build his confidence but, in the long-term, it is competence than breeds confidence. It rarely works the other way around.
From Dobell’s article for cricinfo. (https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/27446421/jason-roy-woes-test-opener-epitomise-broken-system)
Not a fan of bowlers as captains, it compromises them in the field, and they are usually prone to either over or under bowling themselves. it even happened with Illingworth, a great captain and a good off spinner reluctant to commit himself to proper spells.
As to Roy’s surely now untenable position, if Thorpe can’t restrain him from his natural impulses, a difficult thing to do with such a talented stroke maker with a pretty hyped up temperament no one can. Even playing defensively he’s constantly being squared up. Still say it was worth the risk for a while, but you can’t keep exposing the middle order to the new ball against this Aussie attack and expect to make a game of it. They have to start getting wickets, not being presented with them. Yes, they bowled well in the first innings, but there were only 3 worked for dismissals and this puts so much pressure on our bowlers who then try too hard to produce wicket taking deliveries, rather than just bowling line and length and letting the pitch do the rest.
Brainless batting exposed series after series, Ben Stokes is supposedly England’s best batsman but he just scored his first test century in 2 years and has a mid 30s average. English cricket is going to resemble an abandoned olympic park for years to come. Years of focus on white ball building up to a month of attention concluding with a world cup win, but the ramifications and damage inflicted on the entire system that served the test side will be felt for twice as long.
You can’t just summon test match batsmen, no-one in the england set up ever paused to think why so many batsmen have failed to make any impact on test cricket since Andrew Strauss retired. Instead they pretend that Buttler, Stokes, Bairstow, Moeen Ali can get their technique fixed in white ball and are all capable test batsmen that can “take it away from you in a session” when the only thing that happens is they all get bowled out within a session, and if they all get 40-50 between them and England bat down to 10 then we don’t need 5 specialist batsmen and a competent batting wicket keeper.
19/2. Can’t believe they actually opened with Roy again. Stupidity knows no bounds.
Papering over the cracks here…
However….
Finally number 3/4/5 are batting like it’s a test match !!!
May I be the first to say WOW
May I be the first to say, that England have now won a World Cup on an umpiring howler, and are now still in the Ashes on an umpiring howler.
Australian howler reviewing the Leach LBW, losing their review!
Apparently, it was a good decision by umpire Wilson then. Okay. It was a terrible decision, that won England this Test. Congratulations. If you can only win by bribing umpires and the like, enjoy your victory muffin.
Are you, by any chance, Australian?