*Official* Fifth Test (The Oval, London) 27-31 July

[loterry1994]

Man nothing worse than draws

 

[GIMH]

They came back from behind brilliantly but they were also 0-2 down because of some questionable captaincy (first test declaration, not playing Woakes at Lord's) so this is an exaggeration.

Not captaincy that

 

[chris.hinton]

Joe Root player of the series is strange

 

[mackembhoy]

Never seen a side celebrate a 2-2 draw at home so fervently before


Well not since England last drew 2-2 vs India at home anyway

To quote Rob Mac from always sunny and Wrexham ownership fame.

"I'm finding out than in football some draws are good and some are bad"

Think the same can be said in both the instances you mention.

Has to be Woakes for POTM and Crawley POTS.

 

[chris.hinton]

The fact Aus retained the Ashes even after extremely mediocre performances by most of their players just shows how **** this England team is.

rain

 

[artvandalay]

Couldn't agree more - so many poor decisions, particularly with LBWs from Wilson - he looked like a dear in the headlights towards the end - he didn't have a clue what he was doing

Wilson's incompetence was on display in that 2019 Headingley test too with that Stokes lbw.

 

[loterry1994]

Oh come on Crawley deserved it more

 

[mackembhoy]

Joe Root player of the series is strange

Wtf I'm slightly behind

 

[slippy888]

Terrible batting collapse by Australia

 

[MW1304]

i don't get this. he was an asshole when he was young but people tend to hate assholes because they don't play for their side. he was not bad in ways that i dislike anyway. smith tho always tries to pull fast ones but even that doesn't make me mad because i am not sure if that is just autistic so idk

not a lot of young upcoming players that are easy to hate except riyan parag and harry brook in world cricket itbt

He's far better than he used to be for sure, but I can't ever bring myself to like the guy.

 

[subshakerz]

They came back from behind brilliantly but they were also 0-2 down because of some questionable captaincy (first test declaration, not playing Woakes at Lord's) so this is an exaggeration.

I dont think it is. Every captain makes tactical errors and he was against a very good Aussie side but taking the team from 2-0 to almost winning is an unprecedented achievement.

 

[Gob]

They were absolutely not surviving an hour and a half blocking out the ball darting around like that

Maybe. It's just the frustration of this lot stuffing up big moments all the time. They were 3 down literally an hour ago

Warner, Khawaja, Smith, Starc, Cummins, Hazlewood and Lyon you can add have been around for almost a decade now. Marnus and Cummins have been playing for about five years or more what do they have to show? Two near misses in India, last Ashes in England, SA 2018 and this one. For a collection of such fine cricketers, they stuff **** up pretty regularly

 

[OverratedSanity]

Starc? Really? Dumb **** mccullum really didn't want to give it to Khawaja because of his low strike rate did he?

 

[Spark]

The most undeserved Ashes retention off all time?

What? You go 2-0 up in England, you expect not to lose series 95% of the time.

 

[Cricket CoachDB]

The fact Aus retained the Ashes even after extremely mediocre performances by most of their players just shows how **** this England team is.

Well it's worth pointing out that in isolation, England drawing The Ashes at home is no real achievement. But coming from behind was-and in the context of how far behind we were last Ashes in Aus.

 

[Kirkut]

They came back from behind brilliantly but they were also 0-2 down because of some questionable captaincy (first test declaration, not playing Woakes at Lord's) so this is an exaggeration.

Ajinkya Rahane > Stokes the captain by that logic. Much harder to do it away from home.

But no Indian rates Rahane to be the greatest ever captain

 

[91Jmay]

To quote Rob Mac from always sunny and Wrexham ownership fame.

"I'm finding out than in football some draws are good and some are bad"

Think the same can be said in both the instances you mention.

Has to be Woakes for POTM and Crawley POTS.

Nah Woakes/Khawaja POTS split

 

[trundler]

I dont think it is. Every captain makes tactical errors and he was against a very good Aussie side but taking the team from 2-0 to almost winning is an unprecedented achievement.

But they wouldn't have been behind in the first place if not for ridiculous captaincy. So it just evened out as the series scoreline suggests.

 

[Shri]

@trundler has your opinion shifted about starc

 

[mackembhoy]

Why are the England players and coaches drinking out of tankards like this is a Yorkshire working men's club from the 1950s