There are no warm up games, straight into WTC Final then 5 Ashes games
Lol that Australia vs India in the WTC Final is considered the only "warm-up" game for the Ashes ?
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Official - Road to Ashes 2023
- Thread starter Gob
- Start date
Lol that Australia vs India in the WTC Final is considered the only "warm-up" game for the Ashes ?
Red_Ink_Squid
Global Moderator
To be fair, Joe Root has only played one (brief) IPL knock in that time, so only escapes this list via technicality.
ashley bach
Cricketer Of The Year
WTC final is the real warm up match.
Nintendo
Cricketer Of The Year
So any intrasquad stuff + the WTC. The fact we dont have any warm-ups is a bit of a joke but that's just the reality now with modern scheduling.
As does Hazlewood with 3 IPL matches with 3 overs per match. Hasnt't played any other games since January 4th
Molehill
Cricketer Of The Year
The biggest concern there is Robinson. Stone was a last resort, Archer already written off whilst the issues around Anderson don't seem very high. Scan results today on Robinson will be important.
Burgey
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Been saying there would be a rain-affected draw for ages which will save the whitewash.
andruid
Cricketer Of The Year
Which is why a proper WTC final would be a multiple match all conditions series kicking off at Lords, carbon footprint be damned.
Burgey
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All the England blokes who are playing keep getting injured. Early season is a bastard of a time - you have to get your bowlers in particular some miles in their legs and when you do there's always a risk that coming off a break they'll tweak something.
But Aussie bowler line up of Cummins, Starc, Boland, Lyon will have zero miles in their legs come WTC final
Molehill
Cricketer Of The Year
So does that mean Cummins breaks down in the First or Second Test?
Red_Ink_Squid
Global Moderator
Agree with you on all of Robinson/Stone/Archer/Anderson. Stokes likely not being fit to bowl is a loss though, especially if we do get any flat pitches.
Nah, Cummins will have some global climate warming event or sponsorship clash rule him out before then. Smith will then captain and win the Ashes
Aren't you allowed some random/free coice predictions in the prediction thread ?
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Molehill
Cricketer Of The Year
Was going to question Cummins on the other thread too, no way Mr Eco-Dick wins that scrap with Jimmy from Burnley!!
It's glorious weather here at the moment and it's set to continue - we won't need the rain but you'd better start practicing your rain dance
First test is nearly 4 weeks away. How will the rain be in late June and all of July. I remember it was very rainy when I lived in Preston
It's always pissing down in Preston mate. ?
The forecast for the next couple of weeks is good - after that it's anyone's guess but theres no reason why the pitches this summer shouldn't be decent.
Burgey
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Aus seems to basically have a policy these days of not putting the first choice test blokes into match situations until they have to. Even at home it's rare to see the likes of Cummins play many or even any Shield games ahead of the test summer. it seems a bit counter intuitive to me, but tbf when he was younger Cummins played a bit of early season stuff got injured and was essentially otherwise always out for about 7 years.
I think they essentially work them in the nets and build up their work load of X balls at 50%, y at 75% and Z at 100% and sort of build it up. The idea being I suppose if they aren't feeling it they can pull the pin on a session which you can't really do in a State game. It seems as though the counties have a bit more sway over there than the States do here. CA routinely just pulls blokes out of Shield/ domestic LO games and rests them in the build up to a test or LO international series even if they're fringe players and ultimately aren't picked for the Aus side - Sabba for example has missed a fair bit for NSW like that last couple of years.
Edit: it worked against them in India when Cummins bowled arguably his only bad spell ever in the first innings of the first test, but tbh he was ok after that before going home and there were some pretty extraordinary private circumstances involved there. Otherwise they seem not to miss a beat for the most part, which is a credit to the sports science guys I suppose. I'd always like to have them blow the cob webs out, personally.
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Molehill
Cricketer Of The Year
Let's be honest, trying to predict the fitness of any fast bowler is somewhat of a lottery. Anderson barely missed a Test for a decade and then of course went after 4 overs in 2019. Who knows what will happen this year but it's a fairly safe bet that the 6 which start the First Test will not be the same 6 who play in the 5th.
I don't think the Counties have any more say here. Robinson was pulled from the Sussex game, same as Anderson was at Lancs. England had pretty much decided which games they would play in as warm ups.