Ashes series 2017/18

By the end of today we will be able to have a crack at player ratings and a composite team. Before then I think there is one area where the Poms have outperformed Oz and that is in fielding. Oz has dropped over an innings worth of chances.

Smith dropped four, Bog, Paine and Bangers two each and one each from Purple, 2nd, Uber and Mere Marsh. Generally the Poms have been safer in the field. Of course the more highly skilled Oz bowlers have created more chances.

fwiw, my composite xi would be

Gcspoc, Chef, Uber K, Seasick Steve, Malan, Bog, Bairstow, 2nd, Koo, Elmer, Jimmeh. Both openers lacked competition. Bairstow is ahead of Paine on batting and safer keeping. Haze is unlucky but I think Jimmeh was a one man attack.

Mostly agreed and not really contentious.

Two slight points of difference:

Despite Jimmy's heroics, and his acknowledged single-handed carrying of what has passed for an English attack, his good series figures rely considerably on that peculiar 2nd innings Australian effort in Adelaide where a combination of overhead conditions that suited Anderson and foolish if not hubristic batting brought the Australians undone in short order ... so despite his heroic 'plugging away' for the rest of the series, I would choose Hazlewood above Anderson in my composite XI, as he was throughout the series more threatening, always looking more likely to take a wicket.

Secondly, and without changing your team, yes - Bairstow's batting has been better than Paine's, as expected ... but Paine's keeping has been very good, certainly vastly superior to Wade's, and probably fractionally edging Nevill's (I'll take Healy's word on this any day). I believe that England has dropped just as many catches as Australia. Cook and Root have been amongst the main offenders that I can recall.

Don't recall Jonnie dropping any. You are right about Cook and Root though. Paine contributed to two drops in the slips. I think our fielding despite the odd blinder has been lacklustre. Bangers should be at first slip and not short leg.

Very hard for keepers to field square of the wicket. The Sneak may be an exception.

I think Bancroft has done well at short leg. Nearly pulled off a couple of blinders, has stopped loads of runs, and nearly manufactured a runout.

Either he or Handscomb should be the reserve keeper in Saffieland. I can't see both of them being sent.

No doubt I’ll get called a sore loser, but I’ve found this ashes series to be the dullest I’ve ever watched. Pretty uninspiring, attritional cricket throughout between a pretty good team and a pretty bad team on flat pitches.

Teams much closer in ability IMO than you have allowed ... the only real difference has been in the area of mental toughness.

Imagine how you'd have laughed pre-series if you'd been appraised of our plans to call up Tasmania's second best keeper, a debutant opener to replace Renshaw, and (recall) the Marshes. The Good Pattinson out, but Cummins playing 5 games on the trot? It all seems so unlikely ...

I think the selectors, often maligned, have got a few things right over the last few years. The best example - choosing the ageing Rogers when they did - was a master stroke.

Henry wrote:No doubt I’ll get called a sore loser, but I’ve found this ashes series to be the dullest I’ve ever watched. Pretty uninspiring, attritional cricket throughout between a pretty good team and a pretty bad team on flat pitches.

I tend to agree.  Very few performances at which you say "wow".   Certainly a far cry from 2014 when MJ was mesmeric.  Even Warner only hit one 6 in the series FFS. And while Smith was incredible, it wasn't thrilling (actually thinking of Smith over the last few years helps me "get" the accusation against Bradman that while the run accumulation was unmatched, the workmanlike aspect of it wasn't that interesting and hence the love for the likes of McCabe).

I guess 2006/7 was a bit the same as this year (with few genuine stand out performances) but it did have peaks with Day 5 Adelaide and Gilly's ton at the WACA plus the retirement of the legends.

I'm a bit surprised at some of the comments regarding this series TBH. Yes, it was attritional, to the point of being turgid at times - but that's sometinmes the nature of Test cricket. It has to be said that we didn't really get traditional Australian pitches of old, which didn't help. The pitch at Brisbane was possibly the closest. As a day/nighter, the Adelaide pitch naturally played differently to a normal day match there. WACA has changed beyond recognition since many of us first started watching cricket. That thing at Melbourne was a disgrace, and whilst Sydney was flat, at least it did offer a bit later on.

OK, to the numbers. I've not done this very often, but I've worked on the basis of starting everyone with 5/10 for playing, and gone from there. I've factored in overall experience, Ashes experience, expectation v achievement, and a direct comparison against their counterpart.

ENGLAND

Cook - one mammoth, record-breaking innings ensured that we wouldn't be on the wrong end of 5-0 for the third time in 12 years. Other than that, he was worse than disappointing for a player of his stature. That one innings boosts his score by a point. 5/10

Stoneman - started reasonably well, but faded badly after being hit at Perth. 5/10

Vince - his cover drive is exquisite ..... until he nicks off. Doesn't seem to understand that he needs to just hang about a while & get his eye in before he starts throwing the bat. Would p'raps be better suited to number 5 coming in against an older, softer ball. 4/10

Root - came into this series considered with Steve Smith and Virat Kholi as one of the top three bats. The numbers between the skippers say everything. Too many starts, not enough making them count. Didn't have a bad series - but a disappointing one by his usually very high standards. 6/10

Malan - considering he was one of the Ashes sprogs, the best bat for us.7/10

Bairstow - kept efficiently, didn't fluff any of the few chances he had, and scored one of our few tons when moved up to number 6 at Perth. 7/10

Moeen - awful series. Just awful. Dismissed the moment Lyon had the ball in his hands. With the ball, 35 year old Jimmy Anderson conceded 100 fewer runs from 50+ more overs bowled - more than enough to justify 2/10

Woakes - another player with enough experience to have done better. Disappointing. 4/10

Broad - the third of our senior men to fail big time. He's been poor for a while now, and we can't have him as a passenger much longer. 4/10

Anderson - for a bloke who "can't bowl overseas", 17 wickets at 27 is nothing short of outstanding. I've seen people mention Adelaide helping him - and that's probably true. By the same argument, some other tracks helped the home bowlers. I'm not letting conditions on any session/day influence the marking of any bowler, English or Australian. Throughout the series overall, he was our best player, hence 8/10

Overton - a possible gem uncovered here. Showed a bit of agression with the ball, and a whole lot of guts when he got injured.7/10

Curran - hard to really judge the lad on the two matches he played. Melbourne and Sydney gave the bowlers bugger all, but none of the Australian bats feasted on him. 5/10

Ball - one game .... meh. 5/10

Crane - 20yo leggie making his debut in a lost series. Another one worth giving a run in the side. Had Mitchell Marsh in a bit of trouble when he first came in, and I think he actually bowled much better than 1/193 suggest. 6/10

Ben Stokes - stupid bastard. On other discussion boards (not so much here) - he got better and better with every defeat. We'd have retained the urn had the selectors had the stones to pick him. 10/10

AUSTRALIA

Bancroft - England soon worked him out. Average lower than Pat Cummins. Almost half his runs in one innings of 82no. 3/10

Warner - steady series, never really looked in trouble - but will be disapponted to not have a couple of bigger scores. 7/10

Khawaja - another who scored half his total runs in a single monster innings. He and Bancroft regularly had the score at 2/not many.That was as good as it got for us. 7/10

Smith - his numbers say all that's needed. Only thing stopping the perfect 10 is that he looks so bloody ugly (fidgety and uncomfortable) whilst the bowler's on his run up. 9.5/10

S Marsh - again, sheer numbers. Picked to score runs, and did it - to the extent that he and his brother scored more tons in 11 innings than our whole top 6 did in 55. 9/10

M Marsh - picked as an all-rounder, his bowling was a bit surplus, and wasn't that threatening anyway. His batting, however does justify 8/10

Handscomb - as Bancroft, struggled from the beginning. Anderson in particular made him look utterly hopeless. 3/10

Paine - generally tidy keeping and decent contributions with the bat. 8/10

Cummins, Hazlewood & Lyon - 20+ wickets for each of these fine bowlers showed there was little respite for English batsmen. Lyon had every one of our lefties at his mercy, the other two were hostile and threatening. All well worth 8/10

Starc - not quite as nasty as MJ last time, and the numbers aren't quite as good. Had the three above not been so effective - they would have been. Wonderful displays of cleaning out a tail. 9/10

Bird - showed that Anderson may have been correct in his assertion that outside the Test selections, the possible replacement Australian bowlers were not as high quality. 4/10