The Ashes 25/26

[Booney]

It our fault for believing the hype they built around themselves.

[wenchbarwer]

Was the hype ever that believable, though?

[rd]

Whilst I am loving the current Ashes scoreline of Australia leading 2-0 after 2 Tests, I am missing the traditional fighting spirit of the English team.
I grew up in the 1970s – English batsmen were of the calibre of Boycott, Edrich, Cowdrey etc and our bowlers had to really earn those wickets and not get them handed to Australia by playing wild shots outside off stump after having batted for a dozen deliveries.
Similarly, our batsmen had to score runs of English bowlers like Snow, Willis, Underwood and it was hard enough to stay in let alone score freely. A bouncer from John Snow was designed to shake the Aussie batsmen up and not just being a hum drum method of not being scored off that ball.
The English preparation for the First Test was abysmal. A camp and a bit of a hit up against another group of English cricketers.
Bit like an AFL side preparing for the AFL season by playing trial matches against SANFL, VFL or WAFL teams only.
Like their ancestors, this English team should have arrived in Australia in late October and played South Australia, Victoria, NSW and WA prior to the First Test.
All their touring players would have played 2-3 matches each against strong opposition and be match hardened. Same goes for the Australian players who would have played a similar number of first class matches as well.
There would be no excuses for failure,
After that test, they would then play QLD prior to the Second Test.
They then play TAS prior to the Third Test and then play Boxing Day and New Year Tests as per normal scheduling.
Couple of obvious problems with this plan.
The State teams would like to rest their better players from these games – but wouldn’t do it if these games formed part of the Sheffield Shield season and so the State teams would earn points like any other Shield match.
After the SCG Test is completed, I would then have England play as the 9th team in the Big Bash throughout January – there’s 8 sold out English BBL games there in a heartbeat.
Cricket authorities love money and the Barmy Army would pack out the English Shield games and BBL games in addition to the Tests.
So, this plan requires the English and Australian players to be fully devoted to first class cricket and their country from late October to early February – surely extra financial inducement would be available to them by their respective boards.

[Lightning McQueen]

In the second innings England scored at 3.2 an over...........i'm not sure how people can say they haven't tried to adapt. That's as slow as they've gone in many years. That's almost as slow as test sides will go these days. Even taking out Stokes and Jacks partnership all the other players tempered back their natural aggression.

Yeah some players are struggling with the extra bounce and instinctively playing shots, we wouldn't play on our wickets but they're hardly the first lot of tourists to struggle with the extra bounce. Especially given first up they've been sent to Perth and Brisbane two of the bounciest wickets. But its not like their getting out charging down the wicket or trying reverse ramps.

The biggest criticism has to be on their preparation. Easy to mistake their tour as a working holiday with cricket on the side. Why some of the guys didnt play the lead up pink ball game ill never know.

Very good post
From what ive seen the Australian batters after the 1st dig in Perth have played as many iffy shots as the Poms
The Ozzies have done it better though
Steve Smith, for example , who entertained us all, played crazy shots, the type he really does not need to play v The Joff
The Green step back to the square leg fence and bowled was a shocker

BOOKMARK
The ball swings more in EG
We might be posting about the Australian batting techniques if they fail on the next tour of England

POMS rest of this tour
Batters who should or should not BAZBALL
CRAWLEY .................DEPENDS ON STATE OF GAME (next one is in SA)
DUCKETT ..................YES
POPE ........................DEPENDS
ROOT........................ NO
BROOKS.................. ABSOLUTELY MUST
STOKES................... DEPENDS

[dedja]

Should be close to enough Dad jokes to fill a book I reckon.

[woodublieve12]

Very proud parents

[Booney]

Helped me make runs.

[Armchair expert]

"up and down the gears"

has entered cricket vernacular

and I don't like it

[gadj1976]

In the second innings England scored at 3.2 an over...........i'm not sure how people can say they haven't tried to adapt. That's as slow as they've gone in many years. That's almost as slow as test sides will go these days. Even taking out Stokes and Jacks partnership all the other players tempered back their natural aggression.

Yeah some players are struggling with the extra bounce and instinctively playing shots, we wouldn't play on our wickets but they're hardly the first lot of tourists to struggle with the extra bounce. Especially given first up they've been sent to Perth and Brisbane two of the bounciest wickets. But its not like their getting out charging down the wicket or trying reverse ramps.

The biggest criticism has to be on their preparation. Easy to mistake their tour as a working holiday with cricket on the side. Why some of the guys didnt play the lead up pink ball game ill never know.

Stolen from Reddit

"Zaltzman on TMS:

In terms of overs taken, England have batted for 219.1 overs in their 4 innings here. We had 36.4 overs for that one partnership between Stokes and Jacks today, either side of that they have lost 39 wickets in 182 overs, a wicket every 28 balls faced in the series. It's the fastest, in terms of balls faced batting, England have ever gone 2-0 down in Australia more rapidly and by quite a significant margin. To put it into context in the 2013/14 series when they were destroyed by Mitchell Johnson, when they were 2-0 down they'd faced 303 overs, so 85 overs, a whole day's batting more in those first two tests to go 2-0 down to the Johnson inspired Australians then. So this has been extremely rapid.

Starc and Boland batted for 27.2 overs which was crucial in shaping the game yesterday. England's 8th, 9th and 10th wickets across all 4 innings of the series have lasted a total of 27.5 overs. A wicket every 14 balls for the 8th, 9th, 10th wickets. On paper it's a strong England tail, on the field it has capitulated rapidly. Atkinson has a test 100, a number of other scores in the 30's and 40's. Carse has a test 50, a couple of first class hundreds.

The Jacks, Stokes partnership, 59 in 24 overs, was the lowest scoring full session of the Bazball era. It's also the first time that Steve Smith, has scored 4 sixes in a Test match, which given the nature of Bazball, is an anti-cherry on top of a disappointing cake."

[whufc]

It our fault for believing the hype they built around themselves.

Didn't fall for it as per my Australia 4-0 series win prediction.

[am Bays]

I'm still in awe of Carey's performance.

I'm sure there's several in here who've been in the nets and had the bowling machine cranked up to 80 MPH (~130 km/h) and even 90 MPH (~145 km/h).

60-70 I could sort of handle, but 80 and 90 MPH was getting out of my depth. Thank god I was wearing brown undies...

For Carey to be taking hoops at 135 km/h on a pitch with variable bounce consistently like shelling peas is beyond my comprehension.

Similarly, Ponting rocking on to back peg and pulling Shane Bond sending down wheels at 150 km/h at the WACA in 2001 at Akhter in 2000 is next level, too.

Elite sportspeople are wired differently or as NP Craig used to say, they're different species...

[Lightning McQueen]

So who's in/out of next test with Solar Panel Pat, the GOAT and Brokeback Mountain all available for return?

[wenchbarwer]

I'm still in awe of Carey's performance.

I'm sure there's several in here who've been in the nets and had the bowling machine cranked up to 80 MPH (~130 km/h) and even 90 MPH (~145 km/h).

60-70 I could sort of handle, but 80 and 90 MPH was getting out of my depth. Thank god I was wearing brown undies...

For Carey to be taking hoops at 135 km/h on a pitch with variable bounce consistently like shelling peas is beyond my comprehension.

Similarly, Ponting rocking on to back peg and pulling Shane Bond sending down wheels at 150 km/h at the WACA in 2001 at Akhter in 2000 is next level, too.

Elite sportspeople are wired differently or as NP Craig used to say, they're different species...

Whilst I also appreciate his efforts, especially that diving catch with frigging Marnus in the way, this kind of stuff has been going on in baseball for years, at much higher speeds and distances!

[Trader]

Always plenty of stats floating around cricket, but this is one of my favourites at the moment.

Test match bowling averages:
Joffra 32.xx
Travy Head 32.xx

[woodublieve12]

I'm still in awe of Carey's performance.

I'm sure there's several in here who've been in the nets and had the bowling machine cranked up to 80 MPH (~130 km/h) and even 90 MPH (~145 km/h).

60-70 I could sort of handle, but 80 and 90 MPH was getting out of my depth. Thank god I was wearing brown undies...

For Carey to be taking hoops at 135 km/h on a pitch with variable bounce consistently like shelling peas is beyond my comprehension.

Similarly, Ponting rocking on to back peg and pulling Shane Bond sending down wheels at 150 km/h at the WACA in 2001 at Akhter in 2000 is next level, too.

Elite sportspeople are wired differently or as NP Craig used to say, they're different species...

Whilst I also appreciate his efforts, especially that diving catch with frigging Marnus in the way, this kind of stuff has been going on in baseball for years, at much higher speeds and distances!

Carey travelled much further than a catcher would. Alos outfielder and infielders don't start from a crouch position and start stationary.

[wenchbarwer]

Whilst I also appreciate his efforts, especially that diving catch with frigging Marnus in the way, this kind of stuff has been going on in baseball for years, at much higher speeds and distances!

Carey travelled much further than a catcher would. Alos outfielder and infielders don't start from a crouch position and start stationary.[/quote]

I'm talking about receiving the pitch, that catch was excellent, he covered about as much ground as an outfielder would.

Pitchers these days regularly exceed 100mph/160kph.

Infielders & outfielders are much the same in both sports, it's the velocity off the bat and distance the ball is hit that's the biggest discrepancy.

[Lightning McQueen]

[wenchbarwer]

Pretty confident I could recite that episode, line by line

[Aerie]

Whilst I am loving the current Ashes scoreline of Australia leading 2-0 after 2 Tests, I am missing the traditional fighting spirit of the English team.
I grew up in the 1970s – English batsmen were of the calibre of Boycott, Edrich, Cowdrey etc and our bowlers had to really earn those wickets and not get them handed to Australia by playing wild shots outside off stump after having batted for a dozen deliveries.
Similarly, our batsmen had to score runs of English bowlers like Snow, Willis, Underwood and it was hard enough to stay in let alone score freely. A bouncer from John Snow was designed to shake the Aussie batsmen up and not just being a hum drum method of not being scored off that ball.
The English preparation for the First Test was abysmal. A camp and a bit of a hit up against another group of English cricketers.
Bit like an AFL side preparing for the AFL season by playing trial matches against SANFL, VFL or WAFL teams only.
Like their ancestors, this English team should have arrived in Australia in late October and played South Australia, Victoria, NSW and WA prior to the First Test.
All their touring players would have played 2-3 matches each against strong opposition and be match hardened. Same goes for the Australian players who would have played a similar number of first class matches as well.
There would be no excuses for failure,
After that test, they would then play QLD prior to the Second Test.
They then play TAS prior to the Third Test and then play Boxing Day and New Year Tests as per normal scheduling.
Couple of obvious problems with this plan.
The State teams would like to rest their better players from these games – but wouldn’t do it if these games formed part of the Sheffield Shield season and so the State teams would earn points like any other Shield match.
After the SCG Test is completed, I would then have England play as the 9th team in the Big Bash throughout January – there’s 8 sold out English BBL games there in a heartbeat.
Cricket authorities love money and the Barmy Army would pack out the English Shield games and BBL games in addition to the Tests.
So, this plan requires the English and Australian players to be fully devoted to first class cricket and their country from late October to early February – surely extra financial inducement would be available to them by their respective boards.

I like the left field thinking. You could also add ACT to the domestic set up to eliminate the bye. England expand on the DL academy in Adelaide and set up a permanent England Lions team to compete in Australia at First Class level, even in non-Ashes seasons. Have the Shield season done and dusted between Oct-Xmas, 7 games plus Final. BBL Xmas-Jan. One Day Cup Feb.

[Jimmy_041]

Whilst I also appreciate his efforts, especially that diving catch with frigging Marnus in the way, this kind of stuff has been going on in baseball for years, at much higher speeds and distances!

Carey travelled much further than a catcher would. Alos outfielder and infielders don't start from a crouch position and start stationary.

I'm talking about receiving the pitch, that catch was excellent, he covered about as much ground as an outfielder would.

Pitchers these days regularly exceed 100mph/160kph.

Infielders & outfielders are much the same in both sports, it's the velocity off the bat and distance the ball is hit that's the biggest discrepancy.[/quote]

I read an article about when the top MLB batters pick up the line & speed of the pitches. It is absolutely scary
The pitch is 60 feet and they pick it up around 15 - 18 feet from the plate so they have about 100 milliseconds to react
I cant remember who but there was one batter that could pick it up around 25 feet from the bat