Any cricket lovers on here?
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Why is Stokes not bowling? Can only mean he's lost faith in that knee and we're effectively 2 bowlers down with Ali's finger issue0
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4 wickets needed.
Crikey this is tense0 -
Stokes. Broken but brilliant0
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As SAF would say it's "squeaky bum time".0
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Yeah fair play to him. I suspect he'll have lifelong damage to that knee.JimD666 said:Stokes. Broken but brilliant
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I suspect he'll have lifelong damage to that knee.
Good point and something people forget. I know a few ex-pro footballers with shot knees, ankles, arthritis. I know people will say sports stars get paid well and have the fame and glory, but when you can't walk well or play with your kids or grandkids it comes at a price for many.0 -
What a great game0
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I'm not sure I can cope with 4 more Tests if they all end up like this.0
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Words I hate to use but...
Well played Australia. Well played.
Roll on 2nd test0 -
Damn and blast. Hats off to Cummins for stepping up as captain there.0
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Aus needed 70+ when Cummins came out to bat.
England must have expected to win at that point.
Half our house is happy!0 -
Probably bowled a few too many overs with the old ball trying to tempt the Aussies to hit out which they did. Easy with hindsight though I know. The first innings declaration is still baffling me, I just don’t see what they were looking to achieve.0
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Having been brought up by my Dad to believe that the only good Australian is a beaten one, I have to say I can’t join in the “great game” jollity. The purpose of this summer is to win the Ashes and we’ve made that much harder with some frankly baffling shot selection and team selections. And that’s without thinking about the declaration.0
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Sure, England didn't take their chances, and might or might not have won with different selections. But if you didn't enjoy that game despite the disappointment, you're missing out.wallace_and_gromit said:Having been brought up by my Dad to believe that the only good Australian is a beaten one, I have to say I can’t join in the “great game” jollity. The purpose of this summer is to win the Ashes and we’ve made that much harder with some frankly baffling shot selection and team selections. And that’s without thinking about the declaration.
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The first innings declaration is still baffling me, I just don’t see what they were looking to achieve.
He is looking to force a result either way. Obviously Stokes wants to win, but we all need to view his tactics in the wider context. His aim, as he keeps stating, is to save Test cricket. The only way he can do that as a player is to take risks.
Stokes wants to give England every chance of winning, but he is astute, he knows that to get people interested and excited, he has to give the opposition a chance to win to. That is where the drama and the spectacle comes in and keeps people watching. As we all saw clearly in this Test.0 -
I’m not convinced declaring when 8 down on day 1 was essential for that though. They’d have probably been bowled out by the end of the day with 20 or 30 more on the board and, whilst it was tight on time in the end, he wouldn’t have known how much play the weather was going to take at that time.MidlandsGrimpeur2 said:The first innings declaration is still baffling me, I just don’t see what they were looking to achieve.
He is looking to force a result either way. Obviously Stokes wants to win, but we all need to view his tactics in the wider context. His aim, as he keeps stating, is to save Test cricket. The only way he can do that as a player is to take risks.
Stokes wants to give England every chance of winning, but he is astute, he knows that to get people interested and excited, he has to give the opposition a chance to win to. That is where the drama and the spectacle comes in and keeps people watching. As we all saw clearly in this Test.
I applaud the way they are trying to play Test cricket and I’m reluctant to criticise but still don’t think the declaration made sense.0 -
As someone who follows cricket and football I appreciate the debates that arise over turning points in a 90min game because they are fewer and more decisive. A five day test match however almost always raises so many more so I've come to accept the result as a fair reflection of the contest overall. It's frustrating to lose but I think England have more than enough to come back from it.0
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I didn’t see any of the match due to work and domestic commitments, so followed by BBC text updates (and WhatsApps from my sister!) Maybe following in this way downgrades the excitement somewhat without downgrading the sinking feeling of English wickets being lost regularly for reasons other than good bowling.kingstongraham said:
Sure, England didn't take their chances, and might or might not have won with different selections. But if you didn't enjoy that game despite the disappointment, you're missing out.wallace_and_gromit said:Having been brought up by my Dad to believe that the only good Australian is a beaten one, I have to say I can’t join in the “great game” jollity. The purpose of this summer is to win the Ashes and we’ve made that much harder with some frankly baffling shot selection and team selections. And that’s without thinking about the declaration.
My main desire for this summer on the cricket front is for England to regain the Ashes, which is now much less likely than it was. Not helped by seemingly only having one proven test class bowler who is fit at the moment.
For me, the Ashes outcome is akin to whether the Titanic hits or misses the iceberg, with the entertainment factor being akin to the position of the deckchairs.
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If the powers that be are interested in saving test cricket in England (they can’t do anything about elsewhere) then the best way to generate interest would be to can pay per view tv deals (when contracts expire) and make tests available on terrestrial telly again.MidlandsGrimpeur2 said:The first innings declaration is still baffling me, I just don’t see what they were looking to achieve.
He is looking to force a result either way. Obviously Stokes wants to win, but we all need to view his tactics in the wider context. His aim, as he keeps stating, is to save Test cricket. The only way he can do that as a player is to take risks.
Stokes wants to give England every chance of winning, but he is astute, he knows that to get people interested and excited, he has to give the opposition a chance to win to. That is where the drama and the spectacle comes in and keeps people watching. As we all saw clearly in this Test.
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It's a fair point with regards tv rights but I think that are far bigger issues. The IPL and franchise cricket now rule the modern game. Due to scheduling, player commitments and the lack of test nations, the appetite amongst all nations for Test cricket (and certainly 5 match test series) has diminished.
Most players and pundits will probably claim that only the so called "Big Three" of England/Aus/India now have the infrastructure for Test cricket long term.
I think Stokes is coming to it from two angles. Make cricketers, both current and future, aspire to be Test players as the pinnacle of their careers and get the public to feel the same way.
I agree that it has to be more widely available on tv but it also has to be given far more prominence in the world schedule and smaller nations given far more support to develop. Sadly I cannot see it happening.0 -
To be honest, I don't think the declaration was the wrong thing - insofar as the full amount of cricket was played in the full time available - had we been batting any longer, it's possible that we would have run out of time and played for the draw.
What seemed horrendous for me (and what I think will lose it for us) was the shoddy fielding and generally unfit bowlers, as well as gifting too many cheap wickets, particularly in the second innings, although perhaps I accept that's part of Bazball0 -
I don't think test cricket has any problems. A ticket at Lords for the day was £160 and sold out in the ballot.0
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Interesting thought as what Bazball actually is, given that it's obviously not formally defined.shirley_basso said:What seemed horrendous for me (and what I think will lose it for us) was the shoddy fielding and generally unfit bowlers, as well as gifting too many cheap wickets, particularly in the second innings, although perhaps I accept that's part of Bazball
It clearly includes aggression and a willingness to take risks. But there always has to be an appropriate balance struck, and England's batting, particularly in the second innings, was perhaps more "Headless Chicken" than anything sexy or original like Bazball.
Of greater concern though is where is the bowling attack for the rest of the series? We were truly blessed in 2005 with Harmison, Flintoff, Hoggy, Jones (the only series for which he was every meaningfully fit and healthy) and the King of Spain himself, Ashley Giles.
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Yeah - we're saying the same thing, except you are coming from an angle from someone who knows a lot more about cricket than me!1
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I'm not sure that says anything either positive or negative about the long term health of it, but rather that there are sufficient numbers of Southern based cricket fans with a healthy amount of disposable income during a cost of living crisis!TheBigBean said:I don't think test cricket has any problems. A ticket at Lords for the day was £160 and sold out in the ballot.
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Aggers' hot take before the match that Woods should play instead of Anderson, who would be saved for the second test looks good in hindsight.
The quick scoring put England in a position where they could have won the match. Wearing down the fast bowlers with over after over of short stuff at the tail, and not having a fit spinner probably made the difference in the second innings. Also, Cummins batted well for the runs, and didn't quite get the edge off any of the good balls.0 -
An alternative take is that England's quick scoring whilst logging <700 runs in total gave Australia time to bat quite conservatively.kingstongraham said:The quick scoring put England in a position where they could have won the match.
The generally accepted benefit of scoring quickly is that it allows you to bat the opposition out of the game by scoring so many runs, whilst still leaving time to bowl them out twice. Scoring quickly whilst getting out quickly to keep the opposition in the game with a low aggregate score isn't obviously a good tactic, unless a result of any sort is considered better than not losing. Which in the context of the Ashes, I would suggest is not the case, as for English cricketers, Ashes success can be career-defining in a way that results against other nations aren't.
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The lack of a proper spin bowler is an issue when you've got two main seamers who are knocking on a bit and an all-rounder who can only bowl a handful of overs. Having to bring someone out of retirement whose skin has become so soft in the meantime their fingers blister with the number of overs they need to bowl isn't really great. I listened to a few hours of yesterday's match whilst driving back from Manchester and whilst the end result was tight it wasn't one of those exciting matches for much of the time where you get the batsmen playing and missing, balls swinging miles or turning square. Once Cummins hit those two 6s and a 4 in an over the game felt like it was only going one way. Strangely, I felt more confident in an England win before Khawaja got out.0
