MrDuck

16 hours ago, Xela said:

As harsh as it seems I'd gladly see England lose the Ashes 5-0 if it kicked the ECB into some radical thinking about how to save the red ball game in the UK 

You wouldn't be saying that if you were an Englishman living in Australia!

England to bat first. Fingers crossed we're no more than 1 or 2 down by lunch....

I thought we did quite well overall - if Trezeguet had put away his very score-able chances we could have gone in 3 up at halftime. We won't get many harder tests than that one this season. Disappointed, but plenty of positives for me, especially Heaton, Mings and Engels.

On 21/07/2019 at 01:44, mjmooney said:

 I have most of his albums, and I mostly like the long electric guitar jams with Crazy Horse. 

This. One of the best things I have ever experienced in this life was the Greendale tour in 2003. After they'd finished playing the Greendale album with accompanying stage show featuring about 20 actors, they came back out for an encore. Jacked the volume up to 11, and played 5 more songs. Those 5 songs went for 90 minutes. Absolute Crazy Horse heaven!

El Ghazi

16 hours ago, villalad21 said:

You love to hear it

 

As high as possible is first.

Still, I would probably accept a CL place to be honest.

On 06/08/2019 at 04:26, Xela said:

 Lyon is a decent spinner but he looks like Shane Warne when bowling to our players.

 

Lyon was a "decent" off spinner for the first half of his test career.

Since his debut in 2011 he's taken 352 wickets - more than any other bowler in the world in that same period. Only two off-spinners have ever taken more test wickets than Lyon - Muralitharan and Harbhajan Singh.

In the last few years he has become one of the all time great off-spinners. "Decent" doesn't even begin to describe him!

I don't think there's any point in wholesale changes, there are no obvious batsmen to bring in and improve the team. We lost badly, but most of that is down to Jimmy's injury and Moeen looking totally broken as a bowler now, as well as a batsman. Not forgetting the freak of nature that is Steve Smith. Australia's batting is not in much better shape than ours, and a fit Anderson would have made for a very different game.

But I think there's a stat that world cup winners always lose the first test series following the cup!

I'd bring in Archer for Anderson, and either Leach or Curran for Moeen, depending on the wicket. Denly perhaps another chance as his bowling is handy.

We're desperately short of top order batsmen - Stokes, Buttler, Bairstow and arguably Woakes and Denly are all natural number 6 players really.

Tim Paine's keeping also shows us what we're missing, Buttler (in the WC) and Bairstow in the 1st test both lack the technique of a really top class keeper and seem to cost us a wicket every innings.

2 hours ago, Rodders said:

He cheated, was punished, I wish we'd move on. i **** hate the booing. The panto stuff when he comes out to bat, fair enough, and take the piss sure that's all fair game, but booing when he reaches his 50, 100 etc is pathetic. Smith's innings was a phenomenal innings. He's a great player. 

Perhaps it's the underlying sense of holier-than-thou that's implied with the booing suggesting England would never do such an egregious thing. Which is bollocks, England have pushed the lines before, and just because one side steps over it, doesn't make them scum for ever. They got very hefty punishments, now time to move on. It won't happen, obviously, as people love to be outraged and feel self-righteous all the time nowadays, which is a shame. 

 

I understand the booing entirely - and remember, this was Smith's first Test match since the ban. No doubt it will die down in time. And I think the crowd clearly appreciated his incredible innings yesterday.

I think it's the cumulative effect of everything - firstly for a long time, Australian cricket has been arrogant to the point of offensiveness. Secondly, they've been word removes on the pitch for some time too. Three, the treatment Australia dished out to Broad a few years back for his perceived unsporting behaviour, very much publicly encouraged by Smith. Four, Smith, like Warner, is not really a very likeable guy. Five, it wasn't just the cheating itself - it was the fact that as captain he knew about it, chose to turn a blind eye, then lied about it to the press. And then later profited from it with a string of cringe-worthy tv ads here in Oz.

Anderson should have been made to play a full game before classing him as fit for the first test. Predictable breakdown, and now he'll probably miss the series. Should have gone with Stone or Curran and brought Jimmy in for test 2 or 3.

9 hours ago, Zatman said:

Smith will be Aussie captain again by 2nd Test

He won't. He's banned from taking a leadership role for another year.

Which is a good thing for the Aussies - he's a phenomenal batsman, but a distinctly average captain.

Bancroft has never looked a test cricketer when I've seen him.

We're sanding down the Aussie batting order quite nicely here.

On 27/07/2019 at 20:33, Rodders said:

3-2 Aussies I'll say at the moment. Warner Bancroft Smith and Labuschane is a more reliable opening set of batters. Bowling is strong for both sides but we're putting too much on Stokes and Buttler atm. 

I can't see a 3-2, surely rain will wash out at least one test!

I think the Aussies have the edge with the batting on paper, but they're pretty fragile too. I've seen this side collapse an awful lot in the last few years. Only Warner, Smith and Khawaja have any sort of decent international record over a period of time, and Mitchell Marsh as an all-rounder isn't fit to lace Stokes's boots.

Whatever happens I think it will be a very close series.

On 27/07/2019 at 17:48, Zatman said:

England have a huge elephant in the room when it comes to batting. I think Root has been poor for a few years now 

Root's test averages:

2016 - 49.2

2017 - 50.8

2018 - 41.2

I wish we had a few other batsmen who were that poor!

1 hour ago, snowychap said:

Will prob never play for England again.

 

Will drop him for James Vince

Jack Leach with one of the best innings from an England opener in years

9 hours ago, blandy said:

So, in summary, that word removed Theresa May has been replaced as leader of the words removed by word removed Boris Johnson, who easily beat fellow word removed, Jeremy word removed to the position of biggest word removed.

And now the words removed are going to carry on fighting like the shower of words remove they are.

words removed.

Let's not forget that this is all the fault of that word removed Cameron.

On 13/07/2019 at 17:56, Zatman said:

Think its hard to look past Roger Federer he is such an immense athlete and still going at 37. For example he is 8 months older than John Terry and Tennis is a more physically demanding sport than Football.

Is Tennis really more physically demanding than football? I know it's high intensity and really tough on the body, but the fact that you're not getting clattered by another player every few minutes must be a real plus for fitness and longevity.

On 20/07/2019 at 09:17, StewieGriffin said:

Also, surely they could have found 2 bigger heroes than Ginola and Warren Barton for their poster??

Cant be that many bigger Newcastle heroes than Ginola, surely? He was one of the best wingers in the world when he was with them, in what was by far the best Newcastle side of the modern era.

18 hours ago, Rodders said:

 Let's hope that Moeen can quietly find some confidence again with the bat.

I really hope he can. I like Moeen - he's a very likeable bloke, and on his day he's a wonderfully graceful batsman that I love to watch.

But I worry that he's never recovered from that last Ashes tour, I think that pretty much broke him. He's not looked the same player since - his bowling has improved and I think he's now a very decent spinner, but he doesn't seem to have much self-belief with the bat anymore. Another poor Ashes series might just destroy him completely.

3 hours ago, villalad21 said:

Incredible he went from doing a decent job at Villa to being totally irrelevant for a decade after.

Ruined by the curse of managing Villa!

6 hours ago, Xela said:

Back to proper cricket now 

Thoughts on the test squad? Batting looks weak to me. 

Out batting always looks weak! This is just a last chance to claim a spot alongside Root, Bairstow, Stokes, Buttler. I think they need to tell Roy he's got a spot for the whole Ashes series, take the immediate pressure off him. He's good enough to deserve a proper chance. So there's really only one or two spots up for grabs, and Burns and Denly are in pole position, do we have many decent contenders in county cricket behind those guys?

2 hours ago, Rob182 said:

I thought those two things (Berger leaving and the Barry to Liverpool rumours) were pretty far apart. I might be wrong but wasn’t the Barry to Liverpool stuff a whole season after Berger had gone? Maybe two?

No, Berger's last season with us was the one when Liverpool were all over Barry. MON refused the deal and stripped Barry of captaincy, and he left to City a year later.

3 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

Yeah was going to post it. The lengths they're going for this joke

 

They played in it last night. Presumably they can get away with wearing it in a pre-season friendly?