England v Australia, 2nd Test, Lords, 28 June - 2 July, 2023

Still not over.

Take the new ball FFS.

2-0

Just switched back from the Tour de Dopage to see the final blow…

Series all but done but England will at least give it everything in the remaining games. Could be an extended farewell tour for a few, before the youngsters are left to spearhead Bazball phase 2.

Vaughan, McGrath and KP all saying the teams have been too friendly up until now… maybe we’ll see the all-in baseball-style brawl by the fifth Test!

If the shoe was on the other foot, I’d have to think if it was in the spirit of the game‘ - Ben Stokes 2/7/23

Pope, de Grandhomme. it’s not that long ago.

The hypocrisy is sickening.

lardbucket wrote:It’s always full of uneducated lager louts and sanctimonious tools, I doubt the tourists will notice any difference.

Yes I should expect so unless the gene pool has been radically replenished in the last 30 years - on my last Ashes UK venture I found nothing but hospitality and welcome in Manchester and Lords and unending aggro from the Headingley mob.

lardbucket wrote:If the shoe was on the other foot, I’d have to think if it was in the spirit of the game‘ - Ben Stokes 2/7/23

Pope, de Grandhomme. it’s not that long ago.

The hypocrisy is sickening.

To be fair, Pope's throw was *pending an LBW appeal process* - with the ball and play obviously live.

Not at the end of an over, with the batter scratching his mark and (yes, mistakenly) reading the umpire's body language as over completed, striding off down the pitch.

A different scenario in two respects.




Congrats to the Australian team. (I can't believe the fast yorker didn't come in sooner!)

England will have to regroup and seek to play to their actual strengths, not their dream accomplishments, if they are to mount a serious attempt to get back in this series. There's only one Stokes, not a team or squad of them.

PS:

De Grandhomme got a bit of his own back this year - if at the expense of some of his dignity.

https://wisden.com/series-stories/county-championship-2023/watch-colin-de-grandhomme-spectacular-diving-catch-loses-trousers-ollie-pope-county-championship

Really enjoyed several things -

The MCC members doing their rag. They will likely lose access to the Long Room as a condition of having Tests.

Every blow and bruise landed on Broad. Wish he had lasted longer.

BazBall’s is crickets Brexit. It choked on its own hubris.
Today English cricket like the country it represents is on its knees.

Erasmus must not have anything to do with cricket. The two Umpires must be banished from the Series and required to learn the laws of the game.

Oh and yes, the right result was reached despite Erasmus giving Duckett a second life.

horace wrote:The Australian players and supporters must be banished from the Series and required to learn the laws of the game.

Corrected

PeterCS wrote:England will have to regroup and seek to play to their actual strengths, not their dream accomplishments, if they are to mount a serious attempt to get back in this series. There's only one Stokes, not a team or squad of them.

I disagree, the only way we’re going to get back into this, or win a consolation Test, is for the team to believe there’s eleven Stokeses out there.

He hadn’t made a Test 50 for a year and then pulls that out of the bag. The other players have to say “that’s going to be me, next week” otherwise they shouldn’t be wearing the shirt.

Norfolk Ian Goode wrote:

horace wrote:The Australian players and supporters must be banished from the Series and required to learn the laws of the game.

Corrected

Lol

Norfolk Ian Goode wrote:

PeterCS wrote:England will have to regroup and seek to play to their actual strengths, not their dream accomplishments, if they are to mount a serious attempt to get back in this series. There's only one Stokes, not a team or squad of them.

I disagree, the only way we’re going to get back into this, or win a consolation Test, is for the team to believe there’s eleven Stokeses out there.

He hadn’t made a Test 50 for a year and then pulls that out of the bag. The other players have to say “that’s going to be me, next week” otherwise they shouldn’t be wearing the shirt.

Maybe, aware as I am that some of my posts get too long, I made that one too succinct.

Very few in the England team - very few in any team - have the slightly frightening "colossal" powers, eye, strength, timing and temperament of Stokes.

The concept of playing with lots of adventure and little fear (good) should not be misinterpreted as playing with lots of bull and little brain. If you're not a whacker, don't slog, as I remarked of Root in this Test.

Yes, play with imaginative belief, play with undaunted confidence, play with resourcefulness & judgment, express all the skills you have to the optimum - and to hell with the backbiters, the armchair carpers, the ex-professionals who couldn't do it themselves, or the sort of fans and old enemies alike who appear to value schadenfreude and their own strange resentments over anything like fair and proportionate judgment.

But don't give them ammo.

Don't live in fantasy and cloud cuckoo land, don't charge, thrash and flail where you could better direct, stroke, guide. ... Especially if you are not a heavyweight champion. Mix it up, be judiciously aggressive, with single-minded purpose in the moment, but above all: go for it in your own way,  - which is Stokes' and McCallum's repeated message (that's what the "clarity" is about). Be yourself, make the best of your skills - don't imagine you are Stokes.

Unless, perhaps, you are Stokes.

lardbucket wrote:If the shoe was on the other foot, I’d have to think if it was in the spirit of the game‘ - Ben Stokes 2/7/23

Pope, de Grandhomme. it’s not that long ago.

The hypocrisy is sickening.

Also Bairstow tried it on day 3 when Labuschagne was batting, but unlike Carey he couldn't hit the broadside of a barn.

Fatty Jonny really is a moron

I feel a little sorry for him, given his stupidity .

There goes BazBall and Fatty Jonny up the cremation chimney at the same time.

England should be focussing on how diverging from their strengths and home ground advantage have cost them. Stokes played brilliantly but invoking the spirit of cricket is a bit mischievous.

All this started with the underarm back in the 80s, although was alluded to during Bodyline which made a reappearance of sorts here. There is a lot of hypocrisy in making references to the so-called spirit with duplicitous behaviour to be seen on occasions.

Well well well. What a Test Match. How good is the Ashes?? Leaves all other contests in the dust (although our battles with India are up there).

Some knock by England's Captain Courageous. He had me feeling a little ill that he was going to repeat his 2019 heroics. He was hobbling like a lame donkey but kept launching them into the stands. A bit like an injured Gordon Greenidge if you will.

On a dead track Alex Carey and Hazey thought Duckett out, then came the Jonny controversy. It's all been said but BA's comment above proves England's hypocrisy on the matter. Bairstow tried to do exactly the same thing to Labuschagne, and I bet there would have been no call back if Marnus had been dismissed.

Stokes and Broad (who I see has gobbed off in the press about said controversy - more hypocrisy   ) advanced the score menacingly beyond 300 before Haze and Mariah finally removed Stokes.

A little cameo from Tongue held Aus up for a little while but when Koo finally got his yorker right it was 2-0 to Aus in the series.

Mucca said after play he didn't think England would have a beer with Aus. Sad and sore loser stuff from the always fiercely competitive McCullum (who effected at least two similar dismissals as a keeper in his international career).

Winners are grinners, losers can please themselves.

Anywho, what a Test - what a series. Long live the Ashes.

PeterCS wrote:

Norfolk Ian Goode wrote:

PeterCS wrote:England will have to regroup and seek to play to their actual strengths, not their dream accomplishments, if they are to mount a serious attempt to get back in this series. There's only one Stokes, not a team or squad of them.

I disagree, the only way we’re going to get back into this, or win a consolation Test, is for the team to believe there’s eleven Stokeses out there.

He hadn’t made a Test 50 for a year and then pulls that out of the bag. The other players have to say “that’s going to be me, next week” otherwise they shouldn’t be wearing the shirt.

Maybe, aware as I am that some of my posts get too long, I made that one too succinct.

Very few in the England team - very few in any team - have the slightly frightening "colossal" powers, eye, strength, timing and temperament of Stokes.

The concept of playing with lots of adventure and little fear (good) should not be misinterpreted as playing with lots of bull and little brain. If you're not a whacker, don't slog, as I remarked of Root in this Test.

Yes, play with imaginative belief, play with undaunted confidence, play with resourcefulness & judgment, express all the skills you have to the optimum - and to hell with the backbiters, the armchair carpers, the ex-professionals who couldn't do it themselves, or the sort of fans and old enemies alike who appear to value schadenfreude and their own strange resentments over anything like fair and proportionate judgment.

But don't give them ammo.

Don't live in fantasy and cloud cuckoo land, don't charge, thrash and flail where you could better direct, stroke, guide. ... Especially if you are not a heavyweight champion. Mix it up, be judiciously aggressive, with single-minded purpose in the moment, but above all: go for it in your own way,  - which is Stokes' and McCallum's repeated message (that's what the "clarity" is about). Be yourself, make the best of your skills - don't imagine you are Stokes.

Unless, perhaps, you are Stokes.

The problem for England is some of their players batted without the nuance described here.

Blackadder wrote:

lardbucket wrote:If the shoe was on the other foot, I’d have to think if it was in the spirit of the game‘ - Ben Stokes 2/7/23

Pope, de Grandhomme. it’s not that long ago.

The hypocrisy is sickening.

Also Bairstow tried it on day 3 when Labuschagne was batting, but unlike Carey he couldn't hit the broadside of a barn.

And that"s whilst standing INSIDE said barn....

skully wrote:Well well well. What a Test Match. How good is the Ashes?? Leaves all other contests in the dust (although our battles with India are up there).

Some knock by England's Captain Courageous. He had me feeling a little ill that he was going to repeat his 2019 heroics. He was hobbling like a lame donkey but kept launching them into the stands. A bit like an injured Gordon Greenidge if you will.

On a dead track Alex Carey and Hazey thought Duckett out, then came the Jonny controversy. It's all been said but BA's comment above proves England's hypocrisy on the matter. Bairstow tried to do exactly the same thing to Labuschagne, and I bet there would have been no call back if Marnus had been dismissed.

Stokes and Broad (who I see has gobbed off in the press about said controversy - more hypocrisy   ) advanced the score menacingly beyond 300 before Haze and Mariah finally removed Stokes.

A little cameo from Tongue held Aus up for a little while but when Koo finally got his yorker right it was 2-0 to Aus in the series.

What a Test - what a series. Long live the Ashes.

And the joy of the Ashes make one more angry that India strives to have a narrow window for test cricket so that they can showcase the meaningless pyjama bash version of the game.

Correct. It is sad to see that McCullum has fallen in thrall of the hypocrisy pervading the team and its most Merlinesque drivers and supporters. It’s so over the top it’s almost a parody.

On another front, I spent much of the match hoping that I might see Pietersen interviewing Strauss on Ruth Strauss day and/or subsequently. I’d have paid good money for that.


Leading England 2-0: excellent

Leading England 2-0 and many of their supporters still believing that they’re the better side and the margin is only due to bad luck and ‘convicts engaging in sharp practice’: priceless.

The juxtaposition of Bairstow’s earlier identical attempts to produce a stumping with the national whining about his own pratfall tells you everything you know about his game awareness, his self awareness, and the whiners.

And a little shout out to Elmer, who hobbled out on one leg and added 15 for the last wicket in I2 with Koo. That gave Aus a little breathing space in the end.

28 needed and Tongue swinging would've put my BP through the roof

From Zat (including a photo of a SocMed post containing the info)...

The 3 suspended (for abusing Ooze and GCS) MCC Members are (I kid you not):

Bartholomew Frinton-Smythe
Humphrey Wigbert-Porter
Quinten Breckenridge

Lardy expressed surprise at the absence of a Nigel.