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

[Gob]

No real point of batting for too long with the possible showers. Put England in 30 mins prior to lunch

 

[oblongballs]

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.

Jimmy isnt fine. Yeah he had a good home summer but we ALL know he can swing the ball in friendly conditions. His away performances just have not been good enough. He was mediocre in SA and I'm probably being generous, abysmal in India and only did really well against the Windies. His current Aus performance are inflated by one good game, at the end of the series, I'm not sure if we'll be looking back at it fondly.

I think the last time he had a good series in tough conditions away was against Pak but that too he was consistent rather than blowing teams away.

I hate to be this down on him as I'm a big fan and think he is the best bowler England has ever had but it is about time the selectors think of him and Broad as automatic selections. They are not. Especially Broad.

 

[oblongballs]

Also, in terms of Australia, I'd like Smith to be a bit selfish and go for a triple and who knows, he might even go beyond.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Jimmy isnt fine. Yeah he had a good home summer but we ALL know he can swing the ball in friendly conditions. His away performances just have not been good enough. He was mediocre in SA and I'm probably being generous, abysmal in India and only did really well against the Windies. His current Aus performance are inflated by one good game, at the end of the series, I'm not sure if we'll be looking back at it fondly.

I think the last time he had a good series in tough conditions away was against Pak but that too he was consistent rather than blowing teams away.

I hate to be this down on him as I'm a big fan and think he is the best bowler England has ever had but it is about time the selectors think of him and Broad as automatic selections. They are not. Especially Broad.

Ok wiseguy, name me a better option to open the bowling than Anderson?

I can accept that Broad is skating on thin ice as he has been poor for longer but not Anderson.

 

[Gob]

Anderson keeps the runs down at very least. Despise the guy with passion but he is the last bloke i'd question the place of

 

[LegionOfBrad]

Also, in terms of Australia, I'd like Smith to be a bit selfish and go for a triple and who knows, he might even go beyond.

As pea hearted as we have been I think Smith will want a lot of overs to bowl at us. Pitch is a runway. There is also rain around.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

If only Smith coukd have picked up a five-for early on in his career. ...that always looks good....

Michael Clarke, Kraigg Brathwaite. ..

 

[S.Kennedy]

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.

It is weird how the writing was on the wall with the Indian series a year ago and absolutely nothing was done (but Cook retiring for Root)! In fact the spinner problem is even worse as Rashid fell out of favour for some odd reason with the set-up (selectors? Root? who knows?). That is the difference between this series and 2013-14. This Ashes disappointment was so completely predictable. The spinner problem has been there since Swann flaked out after Perth 2013!

 

[JRC67]

It is weird how the writing was on the wall with the Indian series a year ago and absolutely nothing was done (but Cook retiring for Root)! In fact the spinner problem is even worse as Rashid fell out of favour for some odd reason with the set-up (selectors? Root? who knows?). That is the difference between this series and 2013-14. This Ashes disappointment was so completely predictable. The spinner problem has been there since Swann flaked out after Perth 2013!

The seamer, spinner and batting problems have been there for a while. The problem remains there is a lack of quality pushing for a place. There are 2 or 3 players you'd think could bowl some decent seam up in English conditions, but not really with excess pace.

 

[OverratedSanity]

TRJ should and hopefully Overton can too.

Chris ****ing Jordan got wickets against us last time so yeah

 

[marc71178]

Put in to perspective Crane has a higher strike rate, economy rate and average last year and over his career than Malan. Would have been very much a punt which could have damaged what chance Crane has of becoming a regular international.

I can’t for the life of me see why they’ve brought Crane on tour. Far too green at this stage and wasn’t even a first choice pick for his county.

 

[marc71178]

It is weird how the writing was on the wall with the Indian series a year ago and absolutely nothing was done (but Cook retiring for Root)! In fact the spinner problem is even worse as Rashid fell out of favour for some odd reason with the set-up (selectors? Root? who knows?). That is the difference between this series and 2013-14. This Ashes disappointment was so completely predictable. The spinner problem has been there since Swann flaked out after Perth 2013!

Rashid fell out of favour because he simply wasn’t good enough, nothing more sinister then that.

 

[andruid]

I think the main lesson England can learn from today is that it’s probably time to move on from having Broad/Anderson as their default leaders of the bowling attack. Sure, they can still be viable in home conditions (esp Anderson) but continuing with them next home summer just will lead to stagnation in the long term. Maybe even make some changes for the NZ tour.

Unceremoniously dump them mid seriew like you did with Harmison and Hoggard.

 

[wpdavid]

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's a very fair point, even if it does smack of a broken clock being right twice a day. I've long argued that the decline in the standard of English players making the test team can be traced back to when the T20 group matches started being played home and away, instead of home or away. The resultant mess of a CC where most of the matches are played in spring or autumn does nothing whatsoever to produce decent test players. The other problem is having a 4-day competition where the standard suffers from the better players being spread too thinly, especially for youngsters learning their trade at D2 counties.

 

[marc71178]

All well and good blaming T20 but without it the county game would be dead.

 

[wpdavid]

Rashid fell out of favour because he simply wasn’t good enough, nothing more sinister then that.

Maybe, and I certainly can't argue that his figures last winter added up to much. However, the idea that Crane is an upgrade is just silly, so you do wonder if Root's shares some of the general Yorkshire antipathy towards Rashid after the denouement to the 2016 CC.

 

[wpdavid]

All well and good blaming T20 but without it the county game would be dead.

Without the doubling of the number of group stage matches? I dunno about that. Nobody's saying we should completely do away withe T20 though.

 

[Groundking]

It is weird how the writing was on the wall with the Indian series a year ago and absolutely nothing was done (but Cook retiring for Root)! In fact the spinner problem is even worse as Rashid fell out of favour for some odd reason with the set-up (selectors? Root? who knows?). That is the difference between this series and 2013-14. This Ashes disappointment was so completely predictable. The spinner problem has been there since Swann flaked out after Perth 2013!

The writing was on the wall in the Pakistan series in the UAE IMO, where Pakistan showed that all you had to do was survive Anderson and then you can feast on the rest of the bowlers to your hearts content.

It really is damning that there are only 3 spots that we've managed to fill since the team (minus Broad, Anderson and Cook) that got to no.1 started to disintegrate, with Root, Stokes and Bairstow, and now there's real signs that the end is coming for Broad and Cook, and how long can we really expect Jimmy to keep going now that he's 35? I don't think it's unreasonable to expect Anderson to finish another summer, but beyond that? And to make things worse all the bowlers we've tried that have looked promising keep getting injured (I certainly don't think Woakes is anywhere near what he was for those 6 months or so he had before he got injured).

 

[S.Kennedy]

County cricket should have its two games returned to it that the ECB stole two years ago. It should also run across June-August to prioritise the good weather (as should test cricket). Strauss should keep his hands of England internationals who want to play first-class for their counties rather than be kept aside for bish bash bosh cricket. The Twenty20 Blast should be played two weeks max - bring in groups to shorten it - and get it over and done with as it currently lasts forever and is hard to follow. The new proposed Australian style Twenty20 shouldn't happen (good to see the counties recently protesting against it incidentally, basically saying they were conned into voting for it).

Sorted.

 

[Larwood's_boots]

Think there definitely needs to be a long discussion about Stuart broad, felt like people have been really focusing on cook a lot in terms of if he's coming to the end but broad is actually probably in worse form going back to India. Had a poor summer, looks lost right now and I'm sure what he really offers at this point that Overton and trj don't have.