Australia v England, 1st Test, Brisbane, 8-12 December, 2021

EVERY COMMENTATOR ON EARTH (EXCEPT ONE): 'Starc hitting the edge constantly, only a matter of time before his next scalp'

THE OTHER ONE: 'Starc has conceded more than 2/3 of the runs and all the boundaries and has already had to be taken off once...AND he broke up the Beatles!'

Excellent first hour and a bit for Aus.

Can't ask for much better than 4-30 with the ball.

Hameed isn't touching Lyon with a barge pole. Pope desperately wants to put him into Stanley St but can't pierce the field.

Should have used the X Factor on Starc after ball one

At least it isn’t 36 ao.

Could be some bad weather arriving shortly although it is probably going south of the Gabba. WideWallyWorld is about to cop a storm but we are 45km south of the Gabba.

And Snotty has a wicket! Nice catch by Haze. Pope had been looking OK so good pole, as certain commentators insist on saying...

Now all that needs to happen is for Lyon to take practically his first wicket since Snot has been in the team...

(cont previous post) ...which didn't happen and despite having five balls at no 11 didn't look that likely...but Woakes skied Cummins for another Haze catch and all out 147. Tea as the storm closes in.

Cummins marshalled the field and attack very well.

The Paine/Langer plan was invariably to chuck the ball to Starc when the tail was in. Nice to see a change up.

That's a cracking 1st day of the Ashes summer for Aus.

Couldn't have started better, with Koo turning Burns inside out with a leg stump yorker 1st ball.

Then Hazy and 2nd had the Poms 4 down at Lunch.

A 6 wicket 2nd session (including 2 great Hazy catches and a michelle for new skipper) before the rain came capped it off.

The fielding was excellent.

A great start for 2nd but not a unique record - 5 wickets on captaincy debut.

Afghanistan's Rashid Khan was the last to do it. He also made a 50. Can Pat match that??

This day shows the absolute folly of CA NOT playing the 1st Test last summer at the Gabba.

Completely took away the home advantage Aus enjoys at the ground in the early summer.

India ended up facing a tired attack in benign conditions on a juiceless wicket.

I wonder if the Bannies requested that prior to agreeing on the tour schedule.

For the first time I'm seriously worried about Lyon - at the very least he'll get heaved into cow corner by somebody at some stage for 400, but now I'll be surprised if he gets to 410.

Queensland Police on Twitter: "Queensland Police are launching an investigation into a group impersonating a Test batting order at the Gabba." / Twitter

LOL

Can we go back to playing T20? Or just have a lockdown and leave these clowns stranded in a hotel in Australia for a few months?

Shame Burns’s career will probably be defined by that moment now, especially if he has a shocker of a series overall.

Captain COARIAB choosing to bat could be up there with Nasser bowling in 2002. And leaving out Sturat could come back to bite us as well, especially if we have the Wokester bowling to the left and Tommy Robinson bowling to the right

Aye beams, I was most surprised to find (after I turned on late) that Root had won the toss and batted.

Buttler looked very comfortable until he got a good one from Starc. Pope toiled hard and rarely looked in trouble. Hameed worked hard to survive session 1.

Yeah, a few scraps of positives to cling to… it’s not going to give us a functional batting line-up before the end of this series though. Our only hope is that the Aussie one is equally bad.

Holey Moley.

Once more, I am Mystic ****ing Meg.

Or is that Cassandra - with "the curse of helpless augury"?

PeterCS wrote:Hard to see England making much impression, especially the batting. And they've not even had the amount of practice they cunningly sought to provide themselves with by bringing a back-up squad.

(..,.)

Maybe Burns will free himself of his krazy kinks -  less trigger movement, more shooting gallery on the topple - and get in line.

(....)

Maybe Root will not nick off to the first new ball deviating an inch, as he always used to do.

(....)


Maybe Buttler will get a few starts and actually realise his athletic, well-coordinated potential with more than the odd decent innings.

And maybe pigs will fly.

Well played by Postman Pat in particular. Delivered the goods.

I was in bed, listening to a hushed radio link for a while. And when I woke up, some more of it.

One giggle I had was at ChappellI.

Is he starting to go round in ever-decreasing circles?

"But England are not completely out of this yet. Scrape their way to 200, and it could still be a competitive total on this. BUT THEY'LL HAVE TO BOWL WELL ... AND CATCH WELL...."

He was summariser for the last +/- 20 mins before lunch, and summed up play to that point at the interval....  And he repeated the above, with variations of this or that word, but always exactly the same phrases I've put in capitals, AT LEAST SIX TIMES

You could use James Maxwell's voice as an angle-grinder.


They didn't half relay the commentary around a bit on the BBC Radio. Obviously between studios in England, as well as somewhere in Australia (Brisbane? Sydney?) So I got to hear Simon Mann and Dan Norcross, who are always a good listen, even if Dan is a bit of a lad. Thank goodness it was not just the usual fare.

But the standout to me is always Andy Zaltzman. Not only an outstanding, efficient and entertaining statsman (maybe not as much gravitas as Sampson, but makes up for it with more humour), also (you hear the stand-up) quick-witted, witty, good in both one-man improv and unrehearsed repartee. With ironic shades sweet as a nut, and self-deprecating in an entirely winning way.

Not commenting much on the actual play, am I?

Even if you hate the toffery and matery of it, as I know you do, TMS is often more entertaining than the cricket. Particularly in scenarios like this, Pete-ers

Oof, I don't mind good-humoured, generous-spirited sodality one bit ...

e.g. Mann, Norcross, Ebony, Isa Guha, Coney, F Mohammed, Jimmy, Nannes, Pidge, Curtly, Vic Marks for sure, Viv, Kev Howells, Ramps for sure, The Guvn'r too, Tymal and others, Carlos is ok, NOB too (though a fly guy), even Finny, tho his repertoire is very fin (!) ...

I actually like to hear any decent joshing, as well as doing the serious stuff I believe the ones I've named above are also all good at. (Like giving the score, the field positions, considered & reasonable projections as opposed to stating the bleeding obvious, playing "Jonah" & casting aspersions in quasi-regal fashion, acting like a vain weathervane, or (this one is Tuffers - King of the Commentator's Curse) unfailingly tempting fate with doltish, fatuous remarks, - in short, a bit of objective stuff & insightful, authoritative analysis is useful. to go along with the humour and good vibes).

You still seem to miss where I'm coming from, beams!


And tbh, I wouldn't mind a bit of genuine (ingenuous), i.e. unforced, uncontrived "toffery" (Brian Johnston style, for example). But that's thin on the ground.