3 hours ago, grazman said:

Looks like they've made the call on Murphy.  Green comes in with Hazlewood.   It will be our longest batting line up for a while and the pitch and forecast* for Manchester seems to favour the seamers anyway.    We just need to bat time and ensure we don't lose 20 wickets to retain the ashes. 

* 40% chance of rain today and overcast all test match by the look of it.    95% chance of rain on Saturday and 86% Sunday.  

Hazlewood and Green as inclusions are fine but I still can't believe Warner getting another go. Broad got him for a pair od ducks at the same ground 4 years ago and I greatly fear the same may happen again. For our sake I hope Warner throws egg on my face.

@grazman @dl4e

So my planned raindance not needed then going by the forecast!  Phew!!

Davey lucky but I wish him well

Actually, the last time I said that here was for Mitch Marsh ... duly went on to blast a ton

2 for 107 att lunch. Hopefully The unit and Labu can go on with it after lunch. Pretty decent batting pitch.

21 hours ago, dl4e said:

2 for 107 att lunch. Hopefully The unit and Labu can go on with it after lunch. Pretty decent batting pitch.

Looking at 400 with that start and the long batting order ... but alas, we're only up to 9/317 which doesn't feel like it's enough considering we were 3/183 at one stage

We won the first 2 sessions yesterday but England won the last session well to just shade the Aussies on the day (IMV)

 

Well we are well and truly stuffed in this match.

Our attachment to Warner may have just cost us the Ashes. Even if Starc staggers through, it may well ruin him for the vital last Test. Rain our only hope from here. And with our luck, it will rain just enough for the Poms to bowl us out a second time.

 

Disappointing. I love beating the Poms (though full credit to them, they've performed well - but by God they've had some luck in this series - and they've carried on like spoilt brats over the Bairstow business. 

I think there's a fair bit of revisionism going on in the media re the Murphy non-selection.   Some very dubious arguments to suggest that Moen 'deceived' Manus with some wicket turn on day 1.  It was a terrible shot by a mentally tired player that he would never get out to in normal circumstances.  It hardly turned at right angles.

Green and Marsh put on 65 runs and Murphy is as text book a number 11 as you can get.  England would have been batting by the end of day 1  if we'd only played the one all-rounder and I doubt Murphy would have done much better than Head (who is a very decent part-timer)  on day 2.  

 

8 hours ago, dl4e said:

Well we are well and truly stuffed in this match.

6 hours ago, Jara said:

Our attachment to Warner may have just cost us the Ashes. Even if Starc staggers through, it may well ruin him for the vital last Test. Rain our only hope from here. And with our luck, it will rain just enough for the Poms to bowl us out a second time.

 

Disappointing. I love beating the Poms (though full credit to them, they've performed well - but by God they've had some luck in this series - and they've carried on like spoilt brats over the Bairstow business. 

To be honest it looks like they've got our measure.  We'll do well to hold on to the Ashes

We don't know how to bowl or set fields to their bazball batting and when we bat, they seem to have good plans against our batting

For instance, apparently Broad worked hard in the winter to develop a decent outswinger to bowl against Marnus & Smith.  And even though he hasn't been picking up their wickets consistently, he has worried both players to a point where both players have never really looked set (apart from Smith's big 100)

They've bowled a lot of short stuff to Head and that's worked.  As for Davey, it's just been a matter of bowling around the top of off stump.  He needs a big score in the 2nd innings (at least 60 or 70)

But the defensive fields are just making it easy for their batsmen (especially the new batsmen) ... all they need to do is push the ball to point or flick it to the leg to get off strike.  We've made it far too easy for them

 

10 hours ago, Macca said:

We've made it far too easy for them

Agree, and if the captaincy is the most important job in Australia, it's also a fairly lonely place to be if things aren't working - especially considering the number of ex-captains giving their opinions in commentary.  

If there's anything more than 4 hours play left in this test then we're cooked.  If we hang on for a draw though hopefully that releases a few of our players that seem to be getting weighed down by the burden of expectation to bring home the urn.

The Australian bowling to the English tail enders has me baffled, the constant bowling of bouncers is just wasteful and so so easy for the Poms to read. 

I don't think we will get to the 274 run target. Losing by an innings to the poms would be downright shameful.

There's a decent chance that the whole weekend could be washed out ... heavy rain is predicted for Saturday and light rain (all day) on Sunday

Bring on the rain!!

But if we get play on Sunday, we might be on and off the field a bit anyway

Just need to hang on and the urn is ours

Edited July 22, 20231 yr by Macca

Rain is helping but still a tough ask. Can our batsmen last for a while if there is rain.

Rain is our friend this time.  Even if we resume the ball will get wet in the outfield which will make it hard for all bowlers, but particularly the spinners.  They had to change the ball at least once yesterday.  The weather forecast for today in Manchester is no better than yesterday.

7 hours ago, dl4e said:

Rain is helping but still a tough ask. Can our batsmen last for a while if there is rain.

 

6 hours ago, grazman said:

Rain is our friend this time.  Even if we resume the ball will get wet in the outfield which will make it hard for all bowlers, but particularly the spinners.  They had to change the ball at least once yesterday.  The weather forecast for today in Manchester is no better than yesterday.

I hope it rains like hell

Let's not forget than rain/bad light saved England in 2005 for a vital draw

Reciprical rights thank you very much!!

Just rain, that's all I ask!!

It's official

We've retained the Ashes!

The last day washed out!

We are in for a chance in this test. Lets see if the batsmen an put up a decent figure.

1 hour ago, dl4e said:

We are in for a chance in this test. Lets see if the batsmen an put up a decent figure.

I think they will.  They will want to post a good score to show that we deserved to retain the Ashes even if Bazball was the moral winner... snap!

8 hours ago, grazman said:

I think they will.  They will want to post a good score to show that we deserved to retain the Ashes even if Bazball was the moral winner... snap!

I see bazball as a threat to traditional test cricket.  And I don't like it anyway

We do not need another version of white-ball cricket played on flat decks

In the end, people will get bored with all the runs (with very little in it for the bowlers)

So are we going to see test cricket as a battle between bat and bat with the bowlers acting as cannon fodder as it is in white-ball cricket?  Leave me out of that rubbish

The tracks in England have all been roads and we've seen very little seam movement and not much spin

The Poms seem to have an obsession with runs, runs and more runs.

There's even another version of t20 in England called the '100' ... 16.4 over cricket.  Why?

India are the same with their obsession with more runs except their test match tracks are very difficult to bat on being spin friendly

I'd like to see all our wickets in Australia revert back to the way they once were ... seam & bounce in Perth & Brisbane.  Spin friendly in Adelaide and seam & spin in Sydney.  As for Melbourne ... prepare a green-top with bounce

Let's see how your bazball goes in those conditions!

Make it harder for the batsmen, not easier.  A top level batsman can still score a century in bowler friendly conditions

 

Edited July 28, 20231 yr by Macca

11 hours ago, Macca said:

We do not need another version of white-ball cricket played on flat decks

100% agree Macca,  I was being facetious - I should have put moral winner in inverted commas 😉

The game is now evenly poised similar to the first two tests - in those games the bazball tactics have cost England victory.   Day 3 will be fascinating to see if England press the pedal to the metal in a bid to get poll position or spear into the barrier.  Hopefully the English weather is as kind to us as it was to the home side on Day 2.

The other important point is that our bowlers weren't required to bowl more than about 14 overs each  in the first innings (although Starc looks a bit banged up).  Because England score their runs (and lose their wickets) so quickly - even after five and half tests in seven weeks the quicks should be relatively fresh for one last push in the second dig; which may not have been the case if they were bowling 30+ overs an innings. 

1 hour ago, grazman said:

100% agree Macca,  I was being facetious - I should have put moral winner in inverted commas 😉

The game is now evenly poised similar to the first two tests - in those games the bazball tactics have cost England victory.   Day 3 will be fascinating to see if England press the pedal to the metal in a bid to get poll position or spear into the barrier.  Hopefully the English weather is as kind to us as it was to the home side on Day 2.

The other important point is that our bowlers weren't required to bowl more than about 14 overs each  in the first innings (although Starc looks a bit banged up).  Because England score their runs (and lose their wickets) so quickly - even after five and half tests in seven weeks the quicks should be relatively fresh for one last push in the second dig; which may not have been the case if they were bowling 30+ overs an innings. 

Yeah I picked up on what you think of bazball but there are any number of people who seem to like it (for now)

But those who relish the battle between bat & ball are already questioning it's worth

T20 cricket is already effecting 50 over cricket (not that that bothers me) so what chance has 5 days of a batathon got?

It's the classic be careful what you wish for'

Having said all that we dagged around way too much in the first session last night and we should have at least been pushing for singles

But we managed to post a decent score so it's game on but advantage England as we do have to bat last

Probably need to restrict them to under 300 but if the pitch starts playing up, chasing anything above 250 could be problematical

2 hours ago, Macca said:

Probably need to restrict them to under 300 but if the pitch starts playing up, chasing anything above 250 could be problematical

Sure, but doubtful that Mooen Ali will bowl and if the weather improves enough (could do both day 3 & 4) under blue sky their quicks aren't as threatening - if it keeps going to script we should be batting again before the pitch has had a chance to deteriorate too much (there's some advantage to batting with overhead cloud cover).

15 hours ago, Macca said:

I see bazball as a threat to traditional test cricket.  And I don't like it anyway

We do not need another version of white-ball cricket played on flat decks

In the end, people will get bored with all the runs (with very little in it for the bowlers)

So are we going to see test cricket as a battle between bat and bat with the bowlers acting as cannon fodder as it is in white-ball cricket?  Leave me out of that rubbish

The tracks in England have all been roads and we've seen very little seam movement and not much spin

The Poms seem to have an obsession with runs, runs and more runs.

There's even another version of t20 in England called the '100' ... 16.4 over cricket.  Why?

India are the same with their obsession with more runs except their test match tracks are very difficult to bat on being spin friendly

I'd like to see all our wickets in Australia revert back to the way they once were ... seam & bounce in Perth & Brisbane.  Spin friendly in Adelaide and seam & spin in Sydney.  As for Melbourne ... prepare a green-top with bounce

Let's see how your bazball goes in those conditions!

Make it harder for the batsmen, not easier.  A top level batsman can still score a century in bowler friendly conditions

 

Yep I agree with you. Smash and bash. Its rubbish. They were talking about a test match being only 4 days on the commentary last night. I was shacking my head in amazement.

2 minutes ago, grazman said:

Sure, but doubtful that Mooen Ali will bowl and if the weather improves enough (could do both day 3 & 4) under blue sky their quicks aren't as threatening - if it keeps going to script we should be batting again before the pitch has had a chance to deteriorate too much (there's some advantage to batting with overhead cloud cover).

Unfortunately our batsmen only seem to like drinking half a stubby. They don't seem to be able to go on with it. The tail have done a couple of great knocks this series but you can't rely on that.