This morning the reports indicate Joe Root went to hospital after being hit in the balls, and Ollie Robinson was bowling off spin. There are three more Tests after this ffs.
This morning the reports indicate Joe Root went to hospital after being hit in the balls, and Ollie Robinson was bowling off spin. There are three more Tests after this ffs.
Wait, what?
We could be 150/1 at the close (lol) and still have a zero percent chance of winning. I guess rain is out of the questions, so I guess it's a toss up between bushfire or covid in the Aussie lasagne.
The ball strike was during pre-match throwdowns. He went to hospital!
Imagine the doctor sitting having lunch, checks the cricket score, and then minutes later he's having to examine Joe Root's balls.
Robinson was bowling his off breaks in shades so maybe advantage England?
Even Steve Smith is dropping catches. Game on.
It's off.
Game off.
My missus this morning… “Why are you even watching this? I heard on the news yesterday was the worst England have ever played in a game.”
To be fair I don’t think she is far off and she has absolutely no interest in cricket at all.
I think the sad thing is that they haven't played that badly by their own standards. This is pretty much a par performance for England over the last however many years, it's just painfully obvious how far off being good enough that is.
Joe's balls are further blackened.
The one thing I get from giving Cricket a passing glance is how wild the swings in quality are. I've seen good England, awful England and mediocre England about 4 times over. I remember the Aussies being unstoppable and then becoming fairly ordinary. None of it stays consistent for very long. I guess it's the nature of Test Cricket being something of a closed shop. Not everybody plays the same amount of tests in a year and everything just gravitates towards the bigger nations.
If anyone overseas is wondering, we also hate Shane Warne's commentary. He used to be quite insightful when the spinner was on, but he's so obnoxious almost all the time that it isn't worth it for the odd bit of smart stuff. Equally bad is Mark Waugh, who doesn't even have the odd bit of smart stuff.
Hussey's good though. Also Ponting (who isn't on the coverage, but is easily the best former player Australian commentator at the moment).
From your lot, I've been enjoying Cook a great deal.
Last edited by ItalAussie; 20-12-2021 at 02:37 AM.
Mate, there is zero coverage of this here. It's on in the middle of the night, on a niche channel no one has, we're terrible, and even if you want to watch it the commentary is turned off half the time [to protect our sense of decency] as far as I can tell.
Channel 9 commentary has always been terrible, until it reaches the point at which it becomes endearing [The Greig Effect] but I guess the big characters haven't reached that point yet.
Warne - Only good when discussing spin, and ideally in Sky's backstage bit rather than the commentary box
Ponting - Very good.
Cook - Fine.
Glenn McGrath - needs to stop being so disgustingly reasonable.
Warne is utterly insufferable and I think he's getting worse with each passing year. He's bad enough in his home country but why Sky employ him for England series not involving Australia I have no idea. I guess they just take the most famous names over broadcasting ability (which is also how Beefy held on for about 15 years too long).
The nose beers and his massive ego are just too much for Cricket commentary.
Mooching around the world as a rep for various online betting apps is his lane.
Last edited by Queenslander; 20-12-2021 at 12:49 AM.
Nice of Australia to hold off on delivering the coup de grace until I got up.
Stuart Broad having 3,379 Test runs is one of the most inexplicable facts in sport.
Buttler.
So is Root too dim to realise that by saying the bowlers were not doing the right thing for an entire innings reflects very poorly on him as a captain?
Root has a lot of clueless shite with bowlers on his copybook, the most egregious of which was bowling Jofra Archer into the ground in that New Zealand series, which is still costing us/Archer dearly to this day.
I see we're now Archer-less until next summer as well.
Great.
And on the same day his dog died. I wanted to send him some chocolates or something, poor man.
Well not having to get obliterated by Australia may offer him some small solace.
He knew he needed to bring in the big guns to be any match against the ICC World Test Cricket Champions (TM).Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Zak Crawley apparently due for a recall on this imperious basis:
Australians running for dear life.England renewed Crawley’s central contract in September, however, and have noted the 6ft 5in right-hander’s apparent enjoyment of Australian pitches in the nets and when making 45 for the Lions in the warm-up game. One of Rory Burns or Haseeb Hameed could now make way at the top of the order.
I mean, his average isn't even any good including the one enormous score and it's laughable without it.
Every single Proper Cricket Man going says Crawley is a brilliant player, including the selectors. I've never quite seen it, personally.
I think I'd rather tie a bat to a swingball apparatus and hope the action of the wind in the stadium helps it fend off a couple of deliveries.
Why is it these people adore players who can't actually put a score up for England?
Usually it's down to them having a 'proper' technique (i.e. simple and not like Rory Burns). This may be true but batting is also mental and that's where I would question Crawley.
Ollie Pope has probably fallen down the same rabbit hole.
Hearing Mark Wood going on about how there had been some 'home truths' in the dressing room after the last game was quite funny.
Anderson and Broad must just lol in the faces of the 'leadership group' as they all give their tuppence worth about bowling lengths/plans.
6 test wins in Australia since '86?
My other thought about Wood's comment is that that really makes it seem like only winning one of the last ten tests was absolutely dandy. These things happen lads, stick to the plan.
Now it's one in eleven though? Unforgiveable!
Last edited by Ian; 23-12-2021 at 07:35 AM.
Silverwood's "I'd pick the same teams again" comment did remind me somewhat of Einstein's [alleged] definition of insanity.
Yeah that didn't fill me with confidence either. But it's all part of the idiotic thing of admitted you fucked up being seen as a sign of weakness. Especially when you probably realise your job is on the line.
I believe the full quote was “happy with the skillset we had”
That's a proper call back to the 'execute our plans' era, although arguably we're still very much in that era.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/59761497
Lovely stuff.
With the bat, only Root and Malan have reached 50, once each in each Test. Their two partnerships have accrued 300 of England's 872 runs. The other 38 stands combined have averaged 15 runs per dismissal.
Nice video here of Hameed and Burns doing batting practice using one arm and one leg. Just think of the marginal gains when the England think tank allows them to use all their limbs.
I give up
Do we think any other team is doing this?
I could sort of understand one hand if you were trying to stop a very specific issue such as falling over, but the sight of Has hopping around on one leg is utterly absurd.
He might be working with retards, but it's not the paralympics.
Reading the extremely low res Telegraph backpage on the BBC Gossip page I see Anderson has 'hit back' at suggestions the bowlers are to blame for England being so shit.
However, the real gold is this comment in the article:
Just so much wrong with that. Mike Hussey made his test debut at 30, I think, and "if Crawley seizes his opportunity". Please.Opener Rory Burns - who has struggled from the first ball of the series, where he was clean bowled by Mitched Starc - is expected to be dropped and replaced by Zak Crawley. Given his age, 31, it is possible Burns may not reclaim his test place if Crawley seizes his opportunity.
No need to guess. We know the answer is yes.
Which leads to results like this from last night.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/cri...W5G4LLWO67D7M/
I'm pretty good friends with the former head coach of the The Mighty Ho Chi Minh City FC... granted not on the same level of these guys, but he always insisted on training being as representative of match-situations as much as possible. Like what is the point of playing rondo's at half pace, when in a game situation you don't get that much time - technique only improves if you practise it at match pace. That weas his theory anyway.
I look forward to Burns standing on one leg in the next test with the Aussie front line smashing in at him.
The theory is obviously if you practice in a condition even more difficult than match conditions, the match should be a piece of piss.
Whether that translates into reality is a whole different story.
Not sure why they aren't being made to play the throwdowns with just a stump to bat with [and no pads].
Train hard play easy is real, but 'train hopping around on one leg' is just stupid.
I'm a big fan of the drill where you prepare batsmen for the short ball by just launching it at their throat from 8/9 yards. Been the 'feeder' for that one a bit in my time.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...-ashes-debrief
For the umpteenth time: Why is this happening now?
We've been making the exact same mistakes with myriad different batsmen for years.
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