Dropped Catch Ashes Decider

I have been disappointed with the recent Ashes series and as far as I am concerned ( and millions of others ) the series will always be remembered as one where Australia forfeited the ashes with ONE dropped catch. ( Haddin dropping Root )

Get the sookometer revved up. Looks like it's in for plenty of action.

2005 was also decided by a dropped catch (Warne dropping KP).

The series wasn't just remembered for that though.

This series will be remembered for two teams showing absolutely no fighting character or backbone when behind in a match. Pathetic from both sides.

The one consolation being that the good guys won.

You just know we are going to have to listen to this crap for 2 & a half years.

The problem is, Australia can't move on from things like that, like pitches that aren't served up to them on a plate 'y-y-y-yessir, here's a Gabba replica', in foreign climes.

It's much easier and MUCH less sooky to blame your own team's deficiencies.

Alls I've heard thus far since the Oval victory is 'waaaaaah pitches'.... 'ooooh Haddin's dropped catch'...

How's about feeble middle and lower middle order?

How's about bowling like scatterguns or bowling without any imagination or guile whilst on helpful pitches?

As I mentioned yesterday, Root was still on 0 after the Haddin drop, and didn't get to 134 until a couple of wheelbarrow-loads of crap had been bowled at him over the next couple of hours. If the Ashes were lost then, it wasn't because Haddin dropped the ball, but because Australia dropped their bundle.

As the rest of the series showed, it took a spectacular kind of incompetence to allow either of these teams off the hook from 3-40.

Bennyfishel wrote:I have been disappointed with the recent Ashes series and as far as I am concerned ( and millions of others ) the series will always be remembered as one where Australia forfeited the ashes with ONE dropped catch.  ( Haddin dropping Root  )  

Goodbye to you; please take your offensive avatar and your WUM rubbish with you.

vilkrang wrote:2005 was also decided by a dropped catch (Warne dropping KP).

The series wasn't just remembered for that though.

This series will be remembered for two teams showing absolutely no fighting character or backbone when behind in a match. Pathetic from both sides.

The one consolation being that the good guys won.

New Zealand deserve to be favourite for the Ashes

I can see Marty sucking his teeth at that Pomcollaring of the Good Guys tag.

Fred Nerk wrote:As I mentioned yesterday, Root was still on 0 after the Haddin drop, and didn't get to 134 until a couple of wheelbarrow-loads of crap had been bowled at him over the next couple of hours. If the Ashes were lost then, it wasn't because Haddin dropped the ball, but because Australia dropped their bundle.

As the rest of the series showed, it took a spectacular kind of incompetence to allow either of these teams off the hook from 3-40.

But not even we were incompetent enough to let them off the hook from 4-40.

But the Kiwis ARE good guys, it's only the truth.

They deliver a highly proactive brand of cricket, as some rep would say at the ECB.

Bennyfishel wrote:I have been disappointed with the recent Ashes series and as far as I am concerned ( and millions of others ) the series will always be remembered as one where Australia forfeited the ashes with ONE dropped catch.  ( Haddin dropping Root  )  

That's ok then, so nothing to do with the steaming pile of shoite the Aussie bowlers served up afterwards.

On the "Root not-c Haddin = Ashes dropped":

I like some of what has become known as "counterfactual history". "What if ...". Even the dramatic ones: what if Germany had won the Battle of Britain, etc. What might have followed, in the years and (perhaps) decades after that?

What if the news of the clandestine meeting at the Piccadilly Hotel, early August 1932 had leaked out (and Plum Warner was not just a sanctimonious old Pilate). ... What might have followed ....? That "might have" is always pretty important.

But to be more than idle chatter, it presupposes looking at and trying to grasp what actually happened, for a start - part of why counterfactual stuff can be stimulating: a way into the actual historical developments. And then to allow for possible different cause-and-effect concatenations ... as long as the research is properly done, with the qualification that it is at best possible, not definite, and above all no glib jumping to conclusions based mainly on your own burning prejudices, it can be good stuff.


Plus I've no objection to Linus hugging a personal comfort blanket, or a WUM/Dogbert waving a red rag around in public ... once, but please not again (and again).


But a single-switch, single-outcome "toggle" is not counterfactual history. It's just (false) consolation.

If Haddin had caught Root, it's not to say England wouldn't have bowled harder after that. If Australia had duly won the match, it is not to say that England, not Australia, might not have come back hard in the Second Test, and (just as in 2005, after Australia had won by a resounding 239 runs) turned a first-up deficit into a win by the end of the series.

As it happens, England won the First Test by more than Root's 134 runs. Of course, live cricket is never just maths (runs scored): it's match positions, fluctuations, psychology, momentum. But exactly for that reason, to categorically build up a reversed series result on just one dropped catch is so flamin' wonky, it's shonky.

Lazy solace. (Or a lazy wind-up.)

vilkrang wrote:2005 was also decided by a dropped catch (Warne dropping KP).

The series wasn't just remembered for that though.

This series will be remembered for two teams showing absolutely no fighting character or backbone when behind in a match. Pathetic from both sides.

The one consolation being that the good guys won.

Aye vilks. 2005 and 2015 where diametrically opposed as series. 2005 was a classic, 2015 was a win for England but quite an awful series. Fancy no Test getting into the 5th day FFS??

of course the better team won....the Oz middle order was carp, too many dubbers played, our bowling was scattergun with Haze not providing the line and length to hold up an end and of course we played Haddit and schoolgirl in T1...haddit of course was decisive in T1

What if Dave Warner hadn't played a "get out" shot to Ali at Lords?

I cursed his stupidity at the time but it led to a great, match winning partnership from Buck and subfielder

The GCS would have produced a get out shot soon...prolly to the next ball from Ali.

poor selection, batting on day of T3, failure to respect the moving ball...lack of interest in drying up English scoring all contributed

that our ageing journey-man opener was by far our best player says volumes.

in my view - irrespective of the result - this was the worst Ashes series I can remember in terms of standard of play.

skully wrote:

vilkrang wrote:2005 was also decided by a dropped catch (Warne dropping KP).

The series wasn't just remembered for that though.

This series will be remembered for two teams showing absolutely no fighting character or backbone when behind in a match. Pathetic from both sides.

The one consolation being that the good guys won.

Aye vilks. 2005 and 2015 where diametrically opposed as series. 2005 was a classic, 2015 was a win for England but quite an awful series. Fancy no Test getting into the 5th day FFS??

2015 vs 2005:

- same winning series margin
- 2015 'more exciting because there were no draws' (moron's view)
- in reality; good cricket from both sides in 2005, pretty ordinary cricket from both sides in 2015; and the two draws in 2005 were both exciting almost to the last ball, with the 3rd Test draw arguably the most exciting match of the series.

I've been trying to think- Was Stokes's brain fade at Lord's the only run out in the whole series? Can't remember another one.

think so ... and there was no stumping

What about no-balls? Personally I think you could argue that if the delivery hadn't been illegal it probably wouldn't have produced a wicket. But either way may as well add that to the pitches, crap batting, pedestrian bowling, selection what ifs.....etc, etc.

End of the day someone lost and someone won. 13/14 might have been different if our tail hadn't wagged.

the umpiring of no balls -or more accurately, its absence was a disgrace.

Yeah who cares about the xtra run and delivery when any wicket will be automatically referred. Shouldn't be too long before they're only needed to count the deliveries and decide on the weather......Oh wait!

I think I posted about three years ago that every delivery should be reviewed by the 3rd umpire. At least it would tell the bowler if he was overstepping on a regular basis.

They should double the infringement penalty. Once their everages are going to crap they may stop practicing how to bowl the bloody things in the nets.