No they've thrown out most all improvements made over time. Slip catching is a joke. Players are on top of each other again, fielding seems a hobby to most and honestly the whole test arena feels like it's an inconvenience to the sloggers from the odi and shorter forms. Little hint to silverwood, if you have to say you are the man for the job then you clearly are not.
Lol. I presume that.means more excuse to do leach who cant be blamed for the **** show on offer despite being the scape goat.
The Guardian say Leach could be in for a recall as Sydney will turn? They also reckon Crawley is in line to replace Burns or Hameed (possibly Pope) i.e. they don't know.
The Australians will figure Crawley out quick enough and hes had no time to prepare either. If they bring leach back in fine but they will just scapegoat him while the top 6 get about 150 again
Apparently Crawley is playing the pitches/conditions well in the nets and hit a massive 44 or 45 for the Lions...which makes him a sure fire bet for a ton.
Riiiiight. He is only a kid really in top order batting terms and in the end compared to people who are technically found out like burns he might hold his wicket longer but in the end if you are figured out you have to adapt.
Ah well. Let's be kind and say the coin toss decided whether this was just another defeat or and innings defeat. As england have lost that they have lost the series by and innings defeat. Australians seem to like an green pitch that holds up and like bowling and england batsmen. Just a question of how big the lead is before root leads a gallant yet hopeless resistance.
Starts again at 11:30.............may be the day Englands Ashes spine snaps. Aussies can bat for two days if they can/wish. Labuschagne and Smiths innings likely to be key.
The tail will score.more than the top order batsmen again this innings For all the talk beforehand.imo unless root scores a century now he needs to resign as captain. Hes made himself look a total tit the way.hes gone about this. Bowlers tried really.hard, again the batting section utterly let's the.ehole.thing down Silverwood should.be fired.
Who cares really. They need to play some **** teams for a while. Captain has to give bowlers field they need and not mouth off. Root should go be a batsman. Knowing e gland they will give it to stokes and he will bat, howl, field and do a kane on it.
Shocking stuff. Being fair on Root he's been carrying this team for quite a while now, constantly expected to be the one to produce and provide a big number with the bat when the others have fallen apart, as well as carry out the duties of captain. And more frequently than not he has provided with the bat. Problem is there's so much pressure on him, as captain, to bat well, to make the right calls and decisions in the field and that's made even worse because the team, mostly the batting, is just abject, non-existent and offers him almost no support so it's inevitable the pressure on him will tell. The top order would be better if they were cardboard cut-outs tbh, at least some boundaries might bounce off them. Basically on this evidence the whole thing, set-up, line-up, needs a massive rethink. And I think I agree if they'd just let Root bat he'd probably be even better. The bowling has been ok, not great but steady at least, it's mostly they've just been given nothing in terms of a score to defend or attack with and they're also heavily, worryingly, reliant on Anderson, although there are others who can produce there which is something at least. If you look at the Australia scores they have limited them in several innings, but then the England batting looks like its on some kind of fast in comparison.
Captaincy is a different job to batsman. Root is the only test level batsman in the England squad. So that's fine but it cannot mean is captaincy cannot be critiqued, it's full of conservative fielding lack of aggression and inconsistent messaging. Imo you dont want the same captain too long anyway and same can be said for odi system as that's also gone a wee bit stale. The england management need to decide what form of game they want to play/prioritize. They royally ****ed this season up from january onwards. Totally balled the india tests up and continued from there prioritizing other forms and resting players and this **** show was always the inevitable result. And I said as much way back then. England cannot decide if they are backing young talent or what. If they are then they need to select and back people properly and get them enough time in enough tests to develop. Leach is again getting savaged. Barely lobbed a ball in months and thrown into this arena which is beyond him on his best day. If you look through No openers. Not one capable of a cook/Vaughan type role. Little backing as no 3 or 4. I never thought I'd say Strauss was good as he was an lbw nightmare but **** me. Outside root its shocking. The real middle order is gutted. Stokes shouldn't be within a mile of these tests as he took himself out of the game. He should be back next year. Buttler has failed at red ball cricket. He should come in at 7 or even 8 and slog away imo, he'd do more. Most of all they need to decide who's the spin hope and who is the seam hope and back them. Broad and anderson have had their day. It's time to call that and all. England wants to be odi and t20 warriors and slog away there so fine, go do that. All existing and get the bit bloggers at that.
It's desperately disappointing. I've loved test cricket all my life. It's the purest from of the game. Getting humbled by convict scum is too much the bear.....take,