England v Australia, 1st Test, Edgbaston, 16-20 June, 2023

Marks out of 10; Australians ...

Cummins 10
Khawaja 10
Lyon 10
Carey 7
Green 6
Head 6
Warner 5
Hazlewood 4
Boland 3
Smith 3
Labuschagne 2

Green gets marks for all round efforts including that catch; Boland gets most of his marks for a crucial batting cameo, Marnus for his catch.

What a grouse Test match. The Ashes just continues to deliver as no other contest can!!

lardbucket wrote:Marks out of 10; Australians ...

Cummins 10
Khawaja 10
Lyon 10
Carey 7
Green 6
Head 6
Warner 5
Hazlewood 4
Boland 3
Smith 3
Labuschagne 2

Green gets marks for all round efforts including that catch; Boland gets most of his marks for a crucial batting cameo, Marnus for his catch.

Agree in the main with these ratings. Possibly a little harsh on ScoBo (who may make way for Koo in T2). He was on a par with Hazey. Mariah may have scraped an 8 for his flawless keeping and excellent 60-odd in I1. Nice to win a Test with the World's no. 1 and 2 batsmen not contributing much.

skully wrote:

Blackadder wrote:The joys of shift work , caught the tail end of the game and all I can say is wow.
Aus go someway to putting to bed their 4th innings collapses, with a record chase. Also the first time England have failed to bowl a team out twice , in 13 test matches.

And there appears to be the weakness in Stokes' request for flat decks. It made it very hard for their champion opening pair, not to mention their lack of a hardened Test class spinner. Mo is OK but clearly the lack of proper cricket left his spinning finger underdone.

Yeah, we’re no nearer solving the issue of producing quality spinners. Maybe climate change is the only solution, we’ll be churning them out along with the Shiraz in 30 years’ time… county FC cricket’s May and September focus certainly doesn’t help, though they’ve done their best at “Ciderabad” in recent years.

Of course, without Brexit we’d have Harmer in our ranks by now.

"Ciderabad" - which ground is that, beams?

skully wrote:"Ciderabad" - which ground is that, beams?

Taunton (Somerset), which produced Leach among others…

Some of the comments and poddies have been interesting. The best vision was on the Beeb. Cook and Maxwell were commenting when Cummins hit the winning runs. Maxwell was going off his trolley while for ale Cook was was silent and briefly held his head in his hands. Bloody funny. I had the sense Maxwell was in part , sticking it up his co commentators.

Maxwell is of course a nob .

Norfolk Ian Goode wrote:

skully wrote:"Ciderabad" - which ground is that, beams?

Taunton (Somerset), which produced Leach among others…

If I remember correctly young Henry was a long suffering Somerset supporter.

Norfolk Ian Goode wrote:

skully wrote:"Ciderabad" - which ground is that, beams?

Taunton (Somerset), which produced Leach among others…

Cheers, beams. They like a cider over in Taunton, do they?

And I see both teams had points docked and lost 40% of match payments for slow over rates. No word on whether Ollie the cooker is to be punished by the Match Referee.

Just watched the Day 5 highlights again. What a positive partnership that was between 2nd and Elmer. Hardly a false shot and the runs flowed. Patty was immense - Elmer cool as a cucumber.

Hopefully Smudge takes notice.

Just caught an immediate post match analysis featuring Ian Ward, Naz, KP and Punter.

Ward bristled at Punter for saying Bazball isn't always the answer (although he enjoys what it has brought to Test Cricket). Naz chipped in with "Aus has not beaten England in England since 2001, and there was no Bazball then".

Punter acknowledged that England would probably continue the way they played here but the flat decks would nullify their bowlers.

KP just stood listening with a smirk.

He always talks sense, our former skipper.

Check this clip out. It is taken in the Channel Nine studios as the final few balls were bowled last night.




Fink is walking in circles as he shits himself, while host Ros Kelly (Mrs Morne Morkel), SOK and the floor manager (who clearly loves his cricket) are engrossed watching the TV monitor.

Their joy at the end is mirrored by all Aussies.

skully wrote:

Norfolk Ian Goode wrote:

skully wrote:"Ciderabad" - which ground is that, beams?

Taunton (Somerset), which produced Leach among others…

Cheers, beams. They like a cider over in Taunton, do they?

Somerset is the home of cider…

they might need something stronger after watching the last hour!

as for bazball the fact is england didnt get enough runs in their first innings and then missed too many chances. at 228-8 i did briefly think england would win, that only lasted a few balls thanks to PC who did some bazball of his own which england couldnt cope with.

i dont think england will change much if anything. They genuinely believe that they are here to entertain the crowd. as stokes says they are not results driven. trouble is oz have a different mentality; they just wanna win in england and after 20+ years i think its likely, and unlike our dads army their team is fully fit.