***Official*** 3rd Test at the WACA

[S.Kennedy]

George Dobell is blaming England’s failures on the ECB’s prioritising T20 cricket ensuring lackluster medium-pacers and bland spinners dominate.

It’s a fair point as imagine the damage to Australian cricket if between now and the end of January all domestic cricketers could play was only T20...

It is to do with the pitches and rain-fall. It is a valid point he is making as your best chance to produce baked/grass free wickets in England is July - (early) August, i.e., the height of the English summer, during which a load of Twenty20 garbage is now played; commencing last year the championship were rescheduled to seasonal book ends, shoving Twenty20 crap into this slot. Australia does not have to worry about any of this because of the climate. It is a complete ECB dog's dinner as per usual and will only get worse with the arrival of a new ''Australian style'' pyjama competition to run alongside the current bish bosh bash crap.

 

[JRC67]

I understand where you're coming from with this and of course with their respective ages we need to be thinking about the next bowlers going forward. However, we don't have a plethora of quick bowlers doing their stuff in county cricket, so whoever we go with would probably not do as good a job as these guys have in Oz.

I think we have a number of bowlers that could press their claims for a debut or return to the XI in New Zealand or more likely during the home season, but no one near being ready to bowl and be effective in these conditions.

I'd agree with that there are some promising candidates but none quite knocking the door down. The best 2 young English seamers last summer weren't really quick.

 

[Daemon]

6-17 against South Africa in January 2016 is his most recent, I think.

Not sure why I typed 5, I meant 2 years.

 

[JRC67]

Don't get me wrong it would have been a huge gamble and one I never even considered that England would make, it's purely a hindsight selection and one that wouldn't necessarily have made any difference at all. I think his comparison with Malan is unfair, he's a specialist bowler for one, Malan is at best part-time, and will prove over time to be a far superior spinner.

The one thing that would have needed to be considered is the potential damage done to Crane by selecting him too early, but then if they did have big reservations over that I would question why he was ever selected in a squad with only one other specialist spinner in it.

I felt it was an odd selection. He's probably 2 years away from being a test spinner. For me he'd benefit from going somewhere like Northampton for a season and just bowling lots of overs.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Made the right decision to stay in bed, went to see Star Wars this morning so was never getting up at stupid o clock anyway.

Steve Smith is just too good and is killing us and credit to the Aussie selectors as they made 2 very unpopular decisions with the Marsh boys and they have come up trumps.

 

[vcs]

Yadav 104
MMarsh 181*
Nair 303

Been conceding a fair few runs against guys not renowned for their batting. Pretty sure Philander got a couple of 50s while Ashwin/Jadeja got runs as well.

Match winning 80 odd from Kayes too iirc.

Roland Jones is a big miss I think. They bowled well against SA in the summer. And Stokes obviously.

 

[Groundking]

Can we just have a mention for how completely utterly **** Broad has been? 5 wickets @ 55.8 is absolutely pathetic, and he's almost averaging 40 for the year, legitimately starting to think we're seeing the end of him, and I really wouldn't be surprised to see him retire after the New Zealand series once he's passed 400 wickets.

 

[oblongballs]

Can we just have a mention for how completely utterly **** Broad has been? 5 wickets @ 55.8 is absolutely pathetic, and he's almost averaging 40 for the year, legitimately starting to think we're seeing the end of him, and I really wouldn't be surprised to see him retire after the New Zealand series once he's passed 400 wickets.

I don't even see why he should be a first choice pick now. I know Jimmy and Broad have a lot of locker room clout but they need to be [phased out in the coming months.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

I don't even see why he should be a first choice pick now. I know Jimmy and Broad have a lot of locker room clout but they need to be [phased out in the coming months.

Anderson is fine, bowled superbly for the year and has bowled better than Broad in Australia. Broad has been rubbish for a while and is slipping towards a Gillespie type drop off at present. Can't see him getting it back.

 

[MW1304]

Broad's had a dreadful year, right off the back of me talking him up as better than Jimmy, but he doesn't get dropped from this team just yet.

If Woakes, Overton and Roland-Jones are all showing form in the lead up to next summer it might be a different story.

 

[theegyptian]

Can we just have a mention for how completely utterly **** Broad has been? 5 wickets @ 55.8 is absolutely pathetic, and he's almost averaging 40 for the year, legitimately starting to think we're seeing the end of him, and I really wouldn't be surprised to see him retire after the New Zealand series once he's passed 400 wickets.

New Zealand tour will be almost 10 years to the day since Wellington 08 and the watershed moment when Harmison(who played a few more tests with no great success) and Hoggard (for the last time) were dropped and Broad and Anderson played for the first time together (and played consistently together since).

Might see something similar in NZ. Broad definitely vulnerable even though he is younger. Anderson still winning tests and decent even when he doesn't take lots of wickets.

 

[Woodster]

6-17 against South Africa in January 2016 is his most recent, I think.



Is Roland-Jones going to be fit in time for the NZ tour?

He joined up with the pace programme I think after he had had half a dozen training sessions with Middlesex so he's back bowling and I think he goes away after xmas with the Pace programme to get some more outdoor bowling done, so providing he has no further setbacks he should be fit and available for New Zealand.

 

[vcs]

They will probably feast on India next summer anyway, no matter who plays.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

They will probably feast on India next summer anyway, no matter who plays.

TRJ should and hopefully Overton can too.

 

[Woodster]

Hoping Jamie Porter gets a shot at some stage.

 

[LegionOfBrad]

Roland Jones is a big miss I think. They bowled well against SA in the summer. And Stokes obviously.

I don't see how he could have made much difference (especially on this pitch)

The same thing happens to England whenever they come up against flat pitches. We don't have the pace to trouble the batsmen. The 2 tests we lost in the last English Ashes were on roads where the Aussies were able to extract something and we were not. There is not a lot that can be done about it as all our bowlers grow up in conditions where accuracy and getting the ball to nibble are more important than sheer pace. It's not rocket science and we will continue to win at home and lose a lot away.

That's without even getting to the issues with the batting lineup. Obviously Stokes leaves a big hole but there were better options at 3 than taking Vince. This particular pitch is very roady but i fully expect us to have lost the game or be very close to doing so when i wake up tomorrow. I feel like if this were a Saffa team under this pump now they wouldn't wilt. But we shall see.

 

[Tangles]

Lol at the score. 400 replied with 4/500 with a 300 run partnership. Roady mcroadface. The Aussie bowlers just handled it better by blasting out a soft tail that starts at 7.

 

[LegionOfBrad]

They will probably feast on India next summer anyway, no matter who plays.

Of course they will. We really don't lose many (series) at home anymore. We'd beat this Aussie side if we played them in 2018 at home. Wouldn't solve any of our issues.

 

[theegyptian]

Last winter was when it was obvious we were in trouble. I expected Indian spinners to outbowl our guys comfortably but their pace bowlers were much better than ours too. TBF Shami and Yadav are good bowlers - and even Sharma isn't bad at present.

Woakes was powderpuff last winter (and maybe this winter - I haven't been watching the cricket), and Broad and Anderson lack the pace and are more containing bowlers now in flat conditions.

Broad and Anderson have done a great job going on as long as they have and I was hoping someone would come through that would offer regular 85mph+ pace with good skills to help them out and then ease them out into supporting roles, but it hasn't really happened. No-one has stood out in that regard so it's not like they've been blocking anyone. But time comes when for the good of the team you've got force someone out even if the replacements aren't quite what you'd want.

 

[LegionOfBrad]

Last winter was when it was obvious we were in trouble. I expected Indian spinners to outbowl our guys comfortably but their pace bowlers were much better than ours too. TBF Shami and Yadav are good bowlers - and even Sharma isn't bad at present.

Woakes was powderpuff last winter (and maybe this winter - I haven't been watching the cricket), and Broad and Anderson lack the pace and are more containing bowlers now in flat conditions.

Broad and Anderson have done a great job going on as long as they have and I was hoping someone would come through that would offer regular 85mph+ pace with good skills to help them out and then ease them out into supporting roles, but it hasn't really happened. No-one has stood out in that regard so it's not like they've been blocking anyone. But time comes when for the good of the team you've got force someone out even if the replacements aren't quite what you'd want.

Bowlers starting out have often done well and then got injured. This has definitely been a recurring theme with some of our new quicks. TRJ, Woakes, even Wood (though i don't think he will ever be a Test Match bowler) I honestly thought this could well be Jimmy's last series but given the travails of Broad it's now up in the air. You can still imagine Jimmy picking up a hat full in late summer NZ. It doesn't do much for us long term though. Don't know what the answers are and Broad won't step aside. Not a chance. It would be a brave set of selectors to drop him.