England v Australia, 3rd Test, Old Trafford, 1-5 August, 2013 (II)

Dello wrote:

Henry wrote:

Dello wrote:

Red wrote:

Henry wrote:

Red wrote:It's not sooking, it is making an observation. The weather has hampered our chances and let's face it we've surprised a lot of the pundits against a much more fancied opponent.

You surprised even Australia's harshest critics at Lord's......with how bad you were. You fought well at Trent Bridge but weren't quite good enough. You've outplayed us here but the weather hasn't helped you. Overall England have still been better.

And not surprisingly given the predictions preceding the series but apart from Lord's the matches have been hard fought and we nearly got over the line at TB so it's been reasonably meritorious. I have much more confidence now for the home summer.

England are leading this series due to Australia's feeble batting in the first two Tests. That's it. Their own batting has been pretty dire, and the Aussie seamers have been a more consistently threatening unit than England's attack of Anderson and the third umpire.

Swann's been the more effective spinner, but I think Lyon's been hard done by this Test - I reckon he's bowled far better, for much less reward.

If Australia can just get their batting moderately solid, they're more than a match for England. Should be a good series in the winter.

England's batting has been only slightly less feeble. The truth is that until KP's first innings ton here, Ian Ronald Bell almost single-handedly kept the ship afloat. With a couple of useful contributions from Broad and the third ump.

I saw a stat the other day that said England have scored 400+ something like three times in their last 30 innings in tests. And I'm guessing they were all in India last Winter.

They've scored 400 in the first innings 6 times in their last 23 Tests (from the beginning of 2012).

So I was basically right.....

Still, it's not great, is it. Seeing as this is the same batting lineup that used to talk constantly about "Daddy hundreds" and being ruthless, grinding them into the dirt etc.....

I arrive back from a meeting expecting to find England at least 5 down but instead it's raining. Well done lardy for predicting the weather better than me. If it stays like this it's a pretty unsatisfactory way to retain the Ashes. Seems to remember Aus retaining in similar fashion in 94/95.

Henry wrote:

Dello wrote:

Henry wrote:

Dello wrote:

Red wrote:

Henry wrote:

Red wrote:It's not sooking, it is making an observation. The weather has hampered our chances and let's face it we've surprised a lot of the pundits against a much more fancied opponent.

You surprised even Australia's harshest critics at Lord's......with how bad you were. You fought well at Trent Bridge but weren't quite good enough. You've outplayed us here but the weather hasn't helped you. Overall England have still been better.

And not surprisingly given the predictions preceding the series but apart from Lord's the matches have been hard fought and we nearly got over the line at TB so it's been reasonably meritorious. I have much more confidence now for the home summer.

England are leading this series due to Australia's feeble batting in the first two Tests. That's it. Their own batting has been pretty dire, and the Aussie seamers have been a more consistently threatening unit than England's attack of Anderson and the third umpire.

Swann's been the more effective spinner, but I think Lyon's been hard done by this Test - I reckon he's bowled far better, for much less reward.

If Australia can just get their batting moderately solid, they're more than a match for England. Should be a good series in the winter.

England's batting has been only slightly less feeble. The truth is that until KP's first innings ton here, Ian Ronald Bell almost single-handedly kept the ship afloat. With a couple of useful contributions from Broad and the third ump.

I saw a stat the other day that said England have scored 400+ something like three times in their last 30 innings in tests. And I'm guessing they were all in India last Winter.

They've scored 400 in the first innings 6 times in their last 23 Tests (from the beginning of 2012).

So I was basically right.....

Still, it's not great, is it. Seeing as this is the same batting lineup that used to talk constantly about "Daddy hundreds" and being ruthless, grinding them into the dirt etc.....

It's worse than not great. In those 23 Tests, they've played 9 against NZ and the WI (6 at home) and and played three series on the batsman friendly (if you can play competently against spin) subcontinent - including against a Murali-less SL.

Well I know it's easy to say in hindsight, but I reckon Aus were too slow in their second innings, and Clarke declared too late. 280 should have been a decent enough carrot to dangle in front of England considering the forecast today was awful.

Realistically, they could have only expected to get through 90 overs in one and a half days, max.

Henry wrote:Well I know it's easy to say in hindsight, but I reckon Aus were too slow in their second innings, and Clarke declared too late. 280 should have been a decent enough carrot to dangle in front of England considering the forecast today was awful.

Realistically, they could have only expected to get through 90 overs in one and a half days, max.

You can't really be making declarations based upon what the weathermen are saying, though. They said we'd lose lots of time to rain on three of the five days of this match.

As it turns out, we've had four full days of cricket, pretty much. Only today's forecast has come to pass. Even then, it was looking a turkey up until lunch.

Australia was playing such good Test cricket after ages that the Rain God couldn’t believe it and came to watch.

Dello wrote: It's worse than not great. In those 23 Tests, they've played 9 against NZ and the WI (6 at home) and and played three series on the batsman friendly (if you can play competently against spin) subcontinent - including against a Murali-less SL.

I don't think that's as bad as your making out. I'm sure I could go through West Indies Tests in the 1980s and find a period where they had a similar record, or worse, in their first innings over 23 Tests. Maybe I'm too easy on them because I'm old enough to remember the 90s in its full glory when (I think) there were only two double hundreds scored by England batsmen.

I think the Aussies played the 2nd innings just about right on the information then available, and did well when bowling: the weather gods were not with them, but shit happens. Hopefully they took something good out of the match.

Well done England on retaining the Ashes.

Yesterday morning proved pivotal - those last three wickets took England past the follow on. Australia would've had between 50-60 overs to bowl them out again if they could've enforced it, as things turned out.

Ashes chances gone; just playing for pride now and a 2-2 result at the very best.

Bird in for Lyon at Durham; probably not worth changing the batting as they finally seem to have worked out how to make the best use of the players that are there and no-one else in the tour squad is likely to do better (unless they bring Faulkner or Agar in as a batsman, for Khawaja).

Dello wrote:Yesterday morning proved pivotal - those last three wickets took England past the follow on. Australia would've had between 50-60 overs to bowl them out again if they could've enforced it, as things turned out.

although I suspect England would have managed to get off for bad light earlier than Australia (reluctantly) did.

Well, I never believed the whitewash hype as this England side has too many fragile elements to it. In fact I thought the key to the outcome of the series would be Cook and Trott, as it turns out they've been pretty poor up to this point but I wasn't banking on the resilience of Bell and the degree of capitulation of the Aussie top order in the first two Tests.

So, the Ashes are in the bag but there's still something to prove, a drawn series would be a hollow victory, even a rain-aided 2-1 would to an extent. England need to regroup and focus on winning at least one of the remaining two convincingly, to lay down a marker for the winter and allow a few players to dampen down any speculation about their place.

I've just left Old Trafford. The weather has been perfect for cricket for about an hour and a half and thy could easily still be playing in this light.

Bad times.

What a shitty way to decide a series.

JGK wrote:I've just left Old Trafford. The weather has been perfect for cricket for about an hour and a half and thy could easily still be playing in this light.

Say hello to Jon.

Repost:

HEARTY CONGRATS TO THE ENGLISH TEAM & OUR ENGLISH COLLEAGUES ON RETENTION OF THE ASHES.

Well, thanks Skulls.

Today was not really much of a day for Pom celebration though - unless of course you are one of the team who got out of jail, and it's the sort of celebration associated with relief.

Today was more of a



all round ... that much more painfully if, like the two gents who were seated immediately to my left in Stand E5 you felt teeth-grittingly frustrated not to witness the needed win, but a damp(en)er on most spirits present, including mine.

Cricket is never the winner when the angry god Pluviosus takes over.

Yes, it was odd to see Cook review. He must have been suffering momentary disbelief, perhaps with a bit of semi-catatonic torpor or anaesthesia linked to the climate conditions. (Might explain his shot, too.)

Kev's review was at least more understandable, even if it might have finally cost England the match. ....


What of this ol' DRS then?

It certainly adds an extra dramatic dimension to proceedings.

More fundamentally though .... as regards reliability, I'd presently rate the gear in this (descending) order:

1. eye
2. snicko
3. multi-angled TV replays
4. hawkeye (would be at 2, bar the predictive/projective element - not sure you should ever give LBW for a hit a full stride down the pitch, for example)
5. hotspot (seemed the panacea at first, is a nightmare in fact)


All of the above need to be good uses of the gear, and intelligent interpretations, though.

Which makes the key point of all, regarding technology:

Errrm ... let's start with some reliable on-field umpires? Where have all ther reliable onfield umpires gone - gone to pot thanks to technology, every one?

JGK wrote:Was about to type that Clarke just doped the Ashes but then KP wastes a review so all good.

PeterCS has just commented that the forum may not survive the inevitable meltdown when Bell saves this test match.

OI!!! Enough of the misquotes already!!!!

I said "if", not "when". Bell has improved, but not that much .... and certainly not to be cannon fodder for a massive reverse woof like that "when"!

PeterCS wrote:Which makes the key point of all, regarding technology:

Errrm ... let's start with some reliable on-field umpires? Where have all ther reliable onfield umpires gone - gone to pot thanks to technology, every one?

Burn-out through excessive workload and travelling on Elite Panel? Retired prematurely or declined to even join for same reason?

Henry wrote:Trott simply isn't as hungry these days as he was when he started his career. Averages a distinctly modest 39 since the start of 2011. I think England should seriously consider giving him a wake up call and drop him for the next test.

It's true that Trott has gone from anchor and rock to paper and scissors, even in this series - to the extent he shouldn't be regarded as a fixture.

But again, I don't think it's about hunger as you suggest, but touch and confidence.

If you saw not the medium of TV and its human and technological intermediaries, but the direct transmission to the human eye of his body language in the field and coming into bat (and the slowest trudge-off ever afterwards today!), you'd see he's really scratching around in search of his form and confidence. It's no lack of desire, to all appearances, it's more a hint of despondency at his failures to get going.

He actually batted quite well today up to his downfall, - which was another wretched strangle as Cook's in the first innings. Yep, I know, 8 runs when England needed at least 80. But the ball was coming off the meat of the bat repeatedly, with that natural "thwock" you can hear round the ground. I really thought he was starting to get his mojo back.

Should he stay? I suppose, with the Ashes in the bag, he might as well keep going. Time in the middle at the top level is probably the best way for him. England will need him down under - he'd better try and try again to get over the bump.

beamer wrote:

PeterCS wrote:Which makes the key point of all, regarding technology:

Errrm ... let's start with some reliable on-field umpires? Where have all ther reliable onfield umpires gone - gone to pot thanks to technology, every one?

Burn-out through excessive workload and travelling on Elite Panel? Retired prematurely or declined to even join for same reason?

Well, I don't know.

Meanwhile, could we fast-track, say, Mikey Holding and Jeremy Coney?

I guess we have Merlin to thank for at least stopping the rot.

Henry wrote:Well I know it's easy to say in hindsight, but I reckon Aus were too slow in their second innings

yes, they should have got through the overs faster

Incidentally, there was a long and beautiful twilight last evening in Manchester until around 9:30 pm, with warm and dry conditions

So ... clearly, taunting and baiting duties passed from those voluble and calculatedly offensive supporters in the big temporary stand to the weather gods sometime around 1:30 pm yesterday.

It was a damp and disappointing note on which to end my 'tour'. JGK, I hope you have more luck supporting or at least watching our mob while you are here.