*Official* First Test at the Gabba

[GotSpin]

That's just being realistic though

 

[Spark]

Not that many of Ponting's dismissals on the pull have been top-edges. He's mostly middled them, but his technique on the pull/hook means that he hits in the air very often... and when he middles it, they sail. Luck and two men back do the rest.

Of more concern was when he tried the Clarke short-arm jab. I have no idea how Clarke plays that shot, but it's not for Ponting. Luckily he shelved it for the true Ponting pull at first opportunity. Him playing that would be much more of a sign he's concerned about his ability to pull effectively.

 

[Ruckus]

Not that many of Ponting's dismissals on the pull have been top-edges. He's mostly middled them, but his technique on the pull/hook means that he hits in the air very often... and when he middles it, they sail. Luck and two men back do the rest.

Of more concern was when he tried the Clarke short-arm jab. I have no idea how Clarke plays that shot, but it's not for Ponting. Luckily he shelved it for the true Ponting pull at first opportunity.

It's beside the point... I just think to say he never lacks confidence is a bit of an exaggeration. His double against Pak is a perfect example of why I think that's wrong. He started the innings off playing the pull shot in a really terrible fashion, but as he stayed at the crease longer, he started hitting the ball in the middle. I fail to see how that abrupt change of form can be anything other than an increase in confidence.

 

[Spark]

But again that's not confidence. That's form. If he wasn't confident, he wouldn't have been trying to play the shot. You do actually see the ball better, pick up the length better, your feet move better, you're more relaxed at the crease etc. etc. with time at the crease so yes I can see how just spending time in the middle can get you from failing to middle any pulls to middling everything.

 

[Prince EWS]

But again that's not confidence. That's form. If he wasn't confident, he wouldn't have been trying to play the shot. You do actually see the ball better, pick up the length better, your feet move better, you're more relaxed at the crease etc. etc. with time at the crease so yes I can see how just spending time in the middle can get you from failing to middle any pulls to middling everything.

Form itself is largely mental and tied to confidence, though. You don't just temporarily lose the ability to bat, or temporarily gain superpowers allowing you to bat better.

 

[Spark]

Yeah true, but my point is that it wasn't a lack of confidence that led Ponting to play the pull so badly in the first part of that knock, if anything, it's overconfidence, as he thought he could play the shot fine when it looked to everyone else that he wasn't.

EDIT: Maybe form is the wrong word. "settled at the crease" is more what I meant.

 

[Ruckus]

But again that's not confidence. That's form. If he wasn't confident, he wouldn't have been trying to play the shot. You do actually see the ball better, pick up the length better, your feet move better, you're more relaxed at the crease etc. etc. with time at the crease so yes I can see how just spending time in the middle can get you from failing to middle any pulls to middling everything.

No, a lower level of confidence means he plays the shot with more hesitancy - hence more errors result. And btw, he has actually been more conservative and decided not to play the shot in recent times (sometimes ducking bouncers instead of pulling etc.), hence further proving he lacks confidence. If it was simply a matter of not being 'warmed up' , then he would go through the painful process seen in the Pak 200 every innings - but he doesn't... he usually starts playing well once he reaches 20 or so. The reason he took so long in that game to get into good form was because his confidence was at a low after the Roach incident etc.

 

[Jarquis]

Almost all is greatly exaggerating the first innings effort from England.

Strauss threw his wicket away. But he did cut a ball that moved back into him a bit. Could've left it.

Cook: fell to a ball on a length angled across him around off-stump (This has been mentioned as a weakness by all and sundry).
Trott: beaten by a good ball from Watson trying to play an off-drive.
Pietersen: Possibly didn't have to go for the drive. Bit of movement from Siddle on a good length.
Collingwood: Got out to a good ball around off-stump...like every man and his dog knows he will. Stuart Clark to testify in the affirmative. Never looked good in his brief stay.
Prior: Bowled by a good one first up.
Broad: Also got a good one, made history as the 3rd down in a hat-trick.


Out of 7 bats, maybe you could lay claim that 1 to 1.5 'threw their wickets away'.

Not really 'almost all' though is it?

Nah, Strauss was a poor shot in the context. 3rd ball of the 1st overseas Ashes Test and you slap a cut shot throat high to gulley. Poor.
Trott was the definition of a loose shot. Could've bowled a basket ball through the gate.
Considering it was Prior's first ball he should hang his head in shame as well. Whipping across the line first up FTL.

 

[Jarquis]

Have no idea how you can say England came out on top easily. Were you watching a different game for the first three days?

Australia proved they could take ten English wickets cheaply. England have not done that.

On the other side of the coin, England have proven they can dominate Australia's attack... and so too have Australia proven they can dominate the English attack.

No, you've proved you've got a fragile batting lineup that was saved by a combination of incorrect umpiring decisions and somebody pulling out the best innings of their career/last 4 years from their ass.

 

[Prince EWS]

No, you've proved you've got a fragile batting lineup that was saved by a combination of incorrect umpiring decisions and somebody pulling out the best innings of their career/last 4 years from their ass.

And Brad Haddin tbh. What a gun. Quality.

 

[Spark]

And you guys were saved by us not being able to catch a cricket ball. Whatever, the point remains that we scored 481 runs in there, which is plenty.

 

[Howe_zat]

You have to admit that, aside from Siddle's one spell after tea, England largely got themselves out in the first innings. There were no demons in the pitch and we saw on the last three days what could be done without a load of loose shots and with a bit of luck. Both sides are going to struggle to take 20 wickets this series without a collapse.

Australia will have a lot more worries in the bowling. Anderson and Siddle both came up with excellent spells in this match. But only Johnson and to a lesser extent Hilfenhaus could be described as bad. Swann was below-par but his recent record makes up for it, and Doherty was inconspicuous.

One thing we did see is that England are very tough to beat when they are on the back foot, and for them to win they are now going to have to be able to take advantage when things go wrong for Australia.

 

[Jarquis]

And Brad Haddin tbh. What a gun. Quality.

Yeah, he was the "career". Hussey was the "4 years"

 

[Jarquis]

And you guys were saved by us not being able to catch a cricket ball. Whatever, the point remains that we scored 481 runs in there, which is plenty.

How costly were the drops? I mean Trott didn't offer a chance until he was in the 80s or something.
Plus we dropped Haddin, so meh.

 

[Spark]

Cook was dropped just after he reached 100, Strauss was dropped on 60 odd, Trott was dropped on 30 odd (although you'd be hard-pressed to call it a genuine chance).

The points is these things happen in test cricket, at the end of the day, 481 is a lot of runs.

 

[Jarquis]

The vast majority of which were scored in one partnership which offered a number of chances and had an LBW incorrectly turned down.
481 is quite a lot, but ignoring your 2 high scorers, you're innings was very comparable to ours. Just we didn't get the let offs.

 

[Howe_zat]

The vast majority of which were scored in one partnership which offered a number of chances and had an LBW incorrectly turned down.
481 is quite a lot, but ignoring your 2 high scorers, you're innings was very comparable to ours. Just we didn't get the let offs.

...


517 is quite a lot, but ignoring the two highest scorers, we got barely over a hundred.

 

[Jarquis]

...


517 is quite a lot, but ignoring the two highest scorers, we got barely over a hundred.

Yeah, because 11 batsmen vs 3 (or effectively 9 vs 1) is entirely comparable.

 

[Prince EWS]

Nah Marcuss, I'll agree that England had the better of the game, but it's due entirely to the second innings, and what you're posting right now is nothing more than biased ****. Excluding the top two run-scorers makes no sense, nor does bringing dropped catches into the argument as if both teams used neutral fielders (admittedly the latter was done by someone else). Australia definitely had the better of the first innings, pretty comfortably.

 

[GIMH]

I'd say the one argument you can make is that if you wanted to look at the let-offs, Australia's were caused by umpiring error whereas ours were caused by Aussie incompetence. But I don't think it really matters. I'm not a subscriber to FCA and although I think the anti-corruption unit need to investigate Dar () I think there's a lot to be said for going on when you know you should have been out, whatever the means. And as such, when being actually serious, rather than biased or silly (which, let's be fair, I am 95% of the time) I can't take anything away from Australia's innings - they weathered our storm really well and then kicked on.

That being said, I don't think looking at who was happier on day x or y is really relevant either, it's a two-innings game and I think you have to say that overall England looked the better side, due to the sheer volume of runs for one wicket in our second dig. As well as Ponting was playing, I couldn't see us conceding that many for that few wickets, in all honesty. But it was a close game and a draw was obviously fair, as time wasn't really lost, so meh.