**Official** 4th Test at Melbourne, 26-30 Dec 2024

[stephen]

Massive wicket!

 

[Qlder]

Finally

 

[Gnske]

Finally

Probably one of the best 50s I've half watched

 

[SkyBlue]

****ing hell

 

[Spark]

Looks like he just got surprised by the change of pace there

 

[Nintendo]

Massive wicket. Bring on cummins straight away IMO. Need to knock over bumrah and siraj ASAP

 

[Spark]

Really impressive innings though, temperamentally. Shown up most of his more credentialed top order

 

[vicleggie]

Bugger.

 

[KungFu_Kallis]

Terrible innings. Didn't even try to reverse sweep. Test cricket is clearly dying.

 

[SkyBlue]

Can we get another 30 runs pretty please?

 

[morgieb]

Wow, that came from absolutely nowhere

In fairness it felt like the way Boland was bowling something was going to give. Certainly the two seemed a little bit more skittish in the last half an hour or so.

 

[slowfinger]

got one to turn. Lyon too goated vs lefties

 

[Spark]

In fairness it felt like the way Boland was bowling something was going to give. Certainly the two seemed a little bit more skittish in the last half an hour or so.

Probably a reward for bowling extremely dry after tea as well, they've definitely decided to just hold it outside off and give them nothing to score from.

 

[HouHsiaoHsien]

Langer is really insufferable to listen to

 

[vicleggie]

Nitish needs to get his 100 and then tee off. Get the lead under 100

 

[slowfinger]

Starc isn't good at Wagnerball anyway, but he is sometimes good at bowling a couple of (crap but fast) bouncers to tailenders to get them on the back foot and then knocking them over with full ones.

Starcs bouncers in the last Ashes were comical, even Moeen was hooking without a sweat

 

[Gnske]

Starcs bouncers in the last Ashes were comical, even Moeen was hooking without a sweat

Watching everyone bowl to Stokes at Lords was quite possibly the most infuriatingly dumb bowling performance that any team paid billions has ever done.

 

[SkyBlue]

Why did they run two ffs

 

[Spark]

Imagine if he gets stranded on 99* here...

 

[morgieb]

Starc is really important to the team in these kind of circumstances and when he's spent/tired/injured/just bowling trash/whatever, and it's not turning much for Lyon, it can definitely make competent lower order strokeplayers look like specialist bats, especially against the old ball.

In saying that, these two quite arguably have it in them to become specialist bats themselves.

Yeah these two are way too good to be batting 8 & 9. Maybe even 7 & 8.

I think to do well on flat and/or new ball decks you need either a great tactical captain and/or an old ball specialist with good endurance. I don't think Cummins is all that special tactically and while Starc does do well at strike bowling when fit, he doesn't have the endurance that Wagner did (granted few did).