Australia v England, 1st Test, Brisbane, 23-27 November, 2017

Remarkable turnaround from the start of Day 2. At 4-196, England had hopes of 400.

Now the Test could be over tonight - Day 4 (or early tomoz). Amazing.

I keep thinking the nob must have something as a commentator that I miss

but the more I listen the more I think I keep overestimating his ability

Looks like being a disappointing end to the test. I was hoping the last day would be a knife edge cracker but it looks like it will be over before lunch tomorrow.

Maiden 50 to Bancroft..

Jimmy's lost it

Big Dog wrote:Jimmy's lost it

Maybe sore, but looks as ineffective and grumpy as he was last tour here. Maybe like gcspoc, his passport should be handed in. Malfoy was ok, the others were a bit meh. Excuses can be made for Moeen. Bowled bravely with an injured finger and batted ok in both knocks.

The batting was a bit meh. Cook looked totally out of form. The newbies were ok. Root never looked comfortable. Are his 50s a 20 run better equivalent of IRBs 30s?

Here's Johnny looks like he will score well on this too.

Pom fans should not despair. Your team has a good chance.

embee wrote:I keep thinking the nob must have something as a commentator that I miss

but the more I listen the more I think I keep overestimating his ability

Once a dick, always a dick. Healy ain't much better.

But they all leave Crappelli for dead.

Now this is how I remember waking up to Ashes test matches in Australia...

Genuinely the only hope I have for this tour is that it's not a 5-0. That's the only thing I'll be truly gutted about as I didn't really see much chance of us winning anyway.

But ANOTHER f*cking 5-0 would be ridiculous. I'll take 4-1 every day. If Jimmy is lost for Adelaide then we might be farked.

Pop gun attack and candy ass batting equals a series drubbing.

We need to get lucky under the lights at Adelaide and hope the balls goes round corners. Might give us a little bit of confidence before it gets shattered at the WACA.

Seriously - Woakes and Bairstow's dismissals were weak as piss. Both of them nicely in - Starc coming to the end of his spell (kind of reminiscent of the 1st innings with Malan). Just duck Woakes - why were you even trying to ride that one. And Bairstow just wow.

Still, as a coach might say 'We must look for the positives' and mine is that I at least don't have to bother staying up dead late tonight.

Will be interesting to see how the Here's Johnny allegations translate to the pitch this morning. I expect the stump mikes to be turned down.

.

Belated congrats to MrsR on his maiden Test 50. He looks solid.

I found it interesting yesterday how the Nein commentators were analysing his allegedly defective defensive technique. Er, guys, Steve Smith is the most ungainly defender in world cricket and yet look at his record. Leave Bancroft alone.

Slow going this morning. I hope they aren't playing for Warner to get to 100.

Interesting conversation between (I think) Vaughan & Punter regarding Sturat & Jimmy. They have bowled 75 overs so far, have 5-146 between them, at less than 2 rpo.

They wondered if England would have been better off setting more attacking fields, leaving a few gaps to induce the drive thus creating more chances ....... having figures of 8 or 9 wickets for 220 or so. The general concensus was, probably yes it would be.

Personally, I don't think it's such a great idea. We're staring down the barrel of a 10 wicket loss despite them being so hard to score off. Since our batting has the strength of a lukewarm kit-kat, had SB and JA left gaps for Aus batsmen to hit - I think there's every chance they'd have been closer to 500 than 300 first dig, then handed us an innings defeat late last night (or at worst claimed the extra time to thrash off about 30 runs).

Well, that was pretty brutal (or hella grouse, or fkin grim, depending on your perspective).

Ball must go. Cook should go, but possibly never will. Ditto Bayliss, at this stage.

The rest have to pull their socks up. From the ground, to somewhere past their cks. Like, bigtime. ....


Congrats to Aussie, but esp Smith, who turned the match. (With a little help from Cummins.)

And that's that.

In the end a deceptively comfortable 10-wicket win.

Well done by Warner and Bancroft. The latter has locked himself in for much of the series now.

Smith was the stand-out MoM. The bowlers worked well as a team, even they were not at their best (Lyon and Cummins were the headliners).

For England, some homework to do. Anderson and Broad look to be the extent of the attack. Chef is out of form. Stoneman looked solid, Root is class. Too many of the others looked OK then got out.

England really need to hit back in Adelaide, or it could get ugly for them.

My own marks out of 10, for the Aussies:

Bancroft 8 (very good second innings, higher rating for a debutant)
Warner 7 (fielded well, very good second innings)
Khawaja 4 (missed his opportunity with the bat, no opportunity in the field)
Smith 9 (did everything possible to win the game with bat and in the field)
Handscomb 5 (serviceable start, a couple of good catches)
Marsh 6 (critical first innings, got out after doing all the hard work)
Paine 6 (one hard catch down, very good second innings keeping)
Cummins 7 (accurate, fast, and showed crucial determination with the bat)
Starc 7 (long sloppy periods interrupted by unplayable deliveries)
Heazlewood 6 (below his best but still took crucial wickets)
Lyon 8 (could have taken 15, bowled superbly, ran Vince out superbly)

and a Coverdale article reviewing the selector's calls ...

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/21566016/triple-gamble-pays-australia

Well, we made it reasonably competitive for three days. I suspect that might be as good as it gets in this series.

There are no solutions to England's multitude of shortcomings in this squad. All we can hope for is that one or two of the younger lads grows into the series and shows enough character and talent to suggest they're a decent long-term investment - much like Stokes did on the last tour/debacle.

Because it's going to be yet another miserable navel gazing, retirements, recriminations and rebuilding job once this nonsense is all done.

That de-escalated quickly.

The result flattered Oz. It is difficult to assess the host's performance, given how the visitors turned their toes up.

The pluses for Oz were Mrs R, Seasick Steve's batting, Cummins all round performance and Lyon's bowling. The latter has come back a better bowler from the subi.-con tours. The fielding was average with three chances going down, Hazlewood was poor in the first innings but was better in the second, while Starc was average by his standards. Uber K, the Sneak and Bog gave up their wickets in a soft manner. Paine was error prone in their first dig but better in the second and batted like a number 9 - both Starc and Cummins should bat ahead of him.

lardbucket wrote:My own marks out of 10, for the Aussies:

Bancroft 8 (very good second innings, higher rating for a debutant)
Warner 7 (fielded well, very good second innings)
Khawaja 4 (missed his opportunity with the bat, no opportunity in the field)
Smith 9 (did everything possible to win the game with bat and in the field)
Handscomb 5 (serviceable start, a couple of good catches)
Marsh 6 (critical first innings, got out after doing all the hard work)
Paine 6 (one hard catch down, very good second innings keeping)
Cummins 7 (accurate, fast, and showed crucial determination with the bat)
Starc 7 (long sloppy periods interrupted by unplayable deliveries)
Heazlewood 6 (below his best but still took crucial wickets)
Lyon 8 (could have taken 15, bowled superbly, ran Vince out superbly)

and a Coverdale article reviewing the selector's calls ...

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/21566016/triple-gamble-pays-australia

generous to Koaja

And probably hard on Cummins. His 42 was crucial and he was easily the best of the quicks on the slow 1st innings pitch.

embee wrote:

lardbucket wrote:My own marks out of 10, for the Aussies:

Bancroft 8 (very good second innings, higher rating for a debutant)
Warner 7 (fielded well, very good second innings)
Khawaja 4 (missed his opportunity with the bat, no opportunity in the field)
Smith 9 (did everything possible to win the game with bat and in the field)
Handscomb 5 (serviceable start, a couple of good catches)
Marsh 6 (critical first innings, got out after doing all the hard work)
Paine 6 (one hard catch down, very good second innings keeping)
Cummins 7 (accurate, fast, and showed crucial determination with the bat)
Starc 7 (long sloppy periods interrupted by unplayable deliveries)
Heazlewood 6 (below his best but still took crucial wickets)
Lyon 8 (could have taken 15, bowled superbly, ran Vince out superbly)

and a Coverdale article reviewing the selector's calls ...

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/21566016/triple-gamble-pays-australia

generous to Koaja

And Starc.

skully wrote:And probably hard on Cummins. His 42 was crucial and he was easily the best of the quicks on the slow 1st innings pitch.

Suspect Lardy rates the improvement in Bird's batting.

I thought Cummins was the pick of the quicks. I also thought he batted with intelligence and application.