The Ashes - 2019

[Spud 288]

5 minutes ago, Macca said:

Bring it on?

We are gone ... they may as well jump on the plane home now 

An absolute disgrace

Chokers

For us oldies (I was only 7) but this now smells of 1981 when we had it won before Botham pulled the test out his backside ( Lillee and Marsh won a small fortune on the punt). If we won that test we retained the ashes and after losing we just imploded, can see it happening here as they are on paper pretty even.

[Macca 16,900]

6 minutes ago, Wadda We Sing said:

Yes but Pain threw the review away, that was crazy. It was miles outside the leg stump. You may as well say well we dont want that review. I just cant understand it.

I do

Paine panicked

[Macca 16,900]

3 minutes ago, Spud said:

Seriously professional umpire should be able to see the bleeding obvious. Yes we choked, we stuffed up royal, but still,  so did the umpire as that was just plum even on the tv. Just awful all round.

The umpiring has nothing to do with it.  Nothing

We blew it and there are no excuses

[Spud 288]

Stokes luckiest bloke around. Could easily still be sitting in a prison cell, got lucky with the court system. Absolutely fluked the world cup final, anything that was needed that has never happened before in such circumstances occurred and now today so much luck despite the fact it was a good innings. Still very much luck got him over the line again. He shouldn't bother with lotto, surely he has used it all up by now.

[Wadda We Sing 10,685]

3 minutes ago, Macca said:

It's bad enough watching our football team continually choke in front of goal and now the cricket team follow suit.  Lose from an unloseable position.

We won't recover from this ... Archer will tear us a new one.  3-1 to the Poms. 

70+ for the last wicket.  We bowled poorly and we bowled pies.  And Paine looked like little boy lost out there.  Clueless.

 

He didnt do a lot when the pitches were normal. I thought his bowling was pretty bad a lot of the time and hes very inexperienced. Anderson is the one id be worried about.

Yes i couldnt understand our bowling today? Brilliant yesterday gone today. 

We get Smith back.

[Macca 16,900]

Just now, Wadda We Sing said:

He didnt do a lot when the pitches were normal. I thought his bowling was pretty bad a lot of the time and hes very inexperienced. Anderson is the one id be worried about.

Yes i couldnt understand our bowling today? Brilliant yesterday gone today. 

We get Smith back.

We are cooked Wadda

That was a choke of monumental proportions and we won't recover.

Hope I'm wrong but the Poms will take advantage now. 

3-1 to them. 

[Macca 16,900]

8 minutes ago, Spud said:

For us oldies (I was only 7) but this now smells of 1981 when we had it won before Botham pulled the test out his backside ( Lillee and Marsh won a small fortune on the punt). If we won that test we retained the ashes and after losing we just imploded, can see it happening here as they are on paper pretty even.

I reckon we're gone.

I was thinking they were going to win the last 2 tests anyway

We needed to win this one and we choked and we blew it.

[Macca 16,900]

15 minutes ago, Wadda We Sing said:

Yep, stupid stupid thing to do. Gave his resolve away.

Stokes was incredible and determined. Had the luck and the crowd on his side. Leach had no clue, but tried hard as he could. Lyon could have run him out but took his eye off the ball. We definitely lost it.

Greatest successful run chase in the history of the game.

I thought Leach batted quite well.  At least he didn't panic like our sorry lot

In fact,  Leach looked quite calm whilst Paine looked clueless,  our bowlers were delivering pies and our fielding and field placements went to the pack. Bowling half volleys to Stokes is never going to work.  His tempo batting destroyed our bowlers.

The post mortems won't be kind.

I won't be calming down in a hurry either.  1981 is still a bitter memory. 

If we can somehow retain the Ashes I'll have to eat my words but I reckon we're gone 

[Macca 16,900]

16 minutes ago, Spud said:

Stokes luckiest bloke around. Could easily still be sitting in a prison cell, got lucky with the court system. Absolutely fluked the world cup final, anything that was needed that has never happened before in such circumstances occurred and now today so much luck despite the fact it was a good innings. Still very much luck got him over the line again. He shouldn't bother with lotto, surely he has used it all up by now.

Stokes kicked our butts.  There was no luck involved as he played a controlled,  brilliant innings.  And we had no answers.

Credit to him.  Kudos.  All things considered,  his innings was one of the best I've seen.

As for the Australians,  we had our chances and we blew it.  Bowled and fielded poorly.  The LBW review by Paine & Cummins will haunt the team.  An insane decision. 

You might think of doing it if you had another review up your sleeve.  Amateur hour.

The Lyon fumble ... these things happen but we lost the match in other areas.  None of it umpire related.  We choked.

[dl4e 5,851]

I can't believe what happened last night. As @Macca said we choked and big time. Now I realise why I follow the cricket and the MFC.

[Macca 16,900]

As for the last LBW umpiring decision.  Murphy's Law.  Because of the review system and the same presence of howlers because of the review system,  human error is a factor.

And the only way to get rid of the howler is to fix the system.  Blaming and/or sacking an umpire only presents an opportunity for the next umpire to make the same type of error

You want error free umpiring in cricket,  you won't get it.  Unless the system is fixed.

Anyway,  we lost the game because of numerous errors of judgement that fell on our own shoulders.

 

 

[loges 6,767]

13 hours ago, Macca said:

Stokes kicked our butts.  There was no luck involved as he played a controlled,  brilliant innings.  And we had no answers.

Credit to him.  Kudos.  All things considered,  his innings was one of the best I've seen.

As for the Australians,  we had our chances and we blew it.  Bowled and fielded poorly.  The LBW review by Paine & Cummins will haunt the team.  An insane decision. 

You might think of doing it if you had another review up your sleeve.  Amateur hour.

The Lyon fumble ... these things happen but we lost the match in other areas.  None of it umpire related.  We choked.

Reckon the caretaker captain is MR. Bland. Might be a good keeper but that's about all. About time he made some runs.

[Jara 1,153]

It would help if we had a wicketkeeper who could bat and a captain who could captain. Paine's only there because of Smith's suspension - which I reckon is BS. They should have stuck with the ICC's original penalty. It's crazy that we gave Smith such a long period out of the game when others who've committed similar misdemeanors have been suspended for a match or two. If nothing else, it's unfair; all of us have the right to expect consistency from our governing bodies.  Say I'm one of three who get pinged for the same traffic offense; guy before me gets a fine, guy after me, the same - and I get a year in the slammer, I'd quite rightly think I'd been hard done by. Cricket Australia only imposed a harsher sentence because of faux-outrage from the yellow press looking for a controversy to sell more papers.  

[TRIGON 4,783]

Greatest finish to a test match that I've ever seen. Talk about mental pressure, everyone cracked: Paine, Lyon, Stokes and the Umpire as well. Kudos to Ben Stokes and crowd too; the atmosphere they created was amazing.

My colleagues have noticed that I seem a little tired today...

 

[Jara 1,153]

49 minutes ago, TRIGON said:

Greatest finish to a test match that I've ever seen. Talk about mental pressure, everyone cracked: Paine, Lyon, Stokes and the Umpire as well. Kudos to Ben Stokes and crowd too; the atmosphere they created was amazing.

My colleagues have noticed that I seem a little tired today...

 

You must be a very objective person. I thought it was the worst finish to a Test match I've ever seen. Just about finished me. 

[Macca 16,900]

3 hours ago, loges said:

Reckon the caretaker captain is MR. Bland. Might be a good keeper but that's about all. About time he made some runs.

He'll stay on ... not many other choices anyway. His bowlers bowled the wrong lines and lengths whilst the fielding was below par too.

Everything that could go wrong,  went wrong.  And we'll either bounce back well or maybe not

England on the other hand will come at us looking for the kill.  The momentum is with them on their home soil.  I'm not confident at Old Trafford but we might do well at the Oval. 

It's my belief that whoever wins the next test wins the Ashes.  Us by default and if they go 2-1 up the track at the Oval might end producing a draw ?

[Macca 16,900]

2 hours ago, Jara said:

You must be a very objective person. I thought it was the worst finish to a Test match I've ever seen. Just about finished me. 

To me it's like the Demons losing a GF by a point to Collingwood after leading by 6 goals at 3/4 time.

But I'm a test cricket tragic ... only the retention of the Ashes will ease the pain.  And I'm not confident now. 

Stokes,  Root,  Archer,  Broad and Anderson (if available) need to be curtailed.  And their team will be brim full of confidence now. 

On the other hand we will be licking our wounds.  The 10 day break before the 4th Test might help though. 

And I reckon Starc needs to play if only for variation.  There was a sameness to our pace attack in this last test. 

[Wadda We Sing 10,685]

We witnessed history basically. The greatest run chase ever in the history of the game, so it was a bit more than we just lost it. It took history to beat us. It really was the greatest finish to a game ive ever seen.

If anything though its really highlighted the flaws in the current review system which is under increasing pressure to change. We shouldnt have players that are umpires trying to figure out if a decision is wrong. They are players and should just play. The only person in the whole stadium that didnt know that LBW was out was the one person who needed to know! The umpire. The technology is there, so just hand it over to the 3rd umpire. Review every decision and if its clearly out, then overule the central umpire, simple. Bought in in 2008/9 this system based on the tennis model, where players have a few reviews per match if they disagree with the central umpire.

Its just not cricket.

[Jara 1,153]

Just heard another amazing stat on the radio  (John Anderson on 3aw ) - said Paine has requested 12 reviews - and got em all wrong -

Could that be right?  If so - jeez.... Let Smith or Warner do it 

[Macca 16,900]

10 hours ago, Wadda We Sing said:

We witnessed history basically. The greatest run chase ever in the history of the game, so it was a bit more than we just lost it. It took history to beat us. It really was the greatest finish to a game ive ever seen.

If anything though its really highlighted the flaws in the current review system which is under increasing pressure to change. We shouldnt have players that are umpires trying to figure out if a decision is wrong. They are players and should just play. The only person in the whole stadium that didnt know that LBW was out was the one person who needed to know! The umpire. The technology is there, so just hand it over to the 3rd umpire. Review every decision and if its clearly out, then overule the central umpire, simple. Bought in in 2008/9 this system based on the tennis model, where players have a few reviews per match if they disagree with the central umpire.

Its just not cricket.

I wasn't sure that it was out as I thought it might have been sliding down leg.  Might have just clipped the front pad too which could have straightened the ball up.

Not sure that ball tracking picked that up or whether ball tracking is accurate anyway.  Pretty images but I'm not sold.

Anyway,  you take the good with the bad and we threw the game away beforehand with poor bowling,  average fielding and questionable captaincy.  The last umpiring decision was less than 5% of it but will become the focus.  To me it is negligible and it all evens itself out anyway Wadda.

Given how the rulings are dealt with you have to expect a couple of poor umpiring adjudications anyway.  Umpires are going to make errors.  We can replace umpires but the next person in line will be no better.  It will be more of the same.  I see what everyone else sees.

But as previously stated,  the howlers still exist because we've now turned it into a game of reviews.  There should at least be an over ruling party that can review decisions.  So if a batsman is out (or not out) we should be able to arrive at the correct decision

The whole thing really is quite amateurish.  We don't actually need umpires in cricket anymore so the quicker we move to the technological age the better.  Or go back to just umpires making the decisions.  At the moment we're stuck in the middle and the controversy rages on.

But most people just hate umpires if we're being honest so the above won't make any sense to them.  Besides which,  the decisions often are in your favour which most fail to acknowledge.  They just see red and that's it.

[Macca 16,900]

1 hour ago, Jara said:

Just heard another amazing stat on the radio  (John Anderson on 3aw ) - said Paine has requested 12 reviews - and got em all wrong -

Could that be right?  If so - jeez.... Let Smith or Warner do it 

Arriving at the correct decisions shouldn't have anything to do with the captains and the majorly flawed review system

Instead of arriving at the correct decision in a sensible way we now have a situation where a 'probable' howler happens coupled with a stuffed up review by Paine

So 2 problems exist when no problem should exist.  It really is quite ridiculous. 

[Jara 1,153]

The whole thing's probably doubly disappointing for those of us on this website because we're all hopelessly devoted to the worst-performing football team in the league. I kind of turn to the cricket for a bit of relief. Not finding much of that right now.

[Dame Gaga 2,453]

Yes, mistakes were made by the Aussies, and the last review was a panic move when there was still time in hand and runs needed. But the umpire also made a big mistake with the Stokes lbw appeal. If he was a good umpire who could think quickly in pressure situations, all he had to do was this- give Stokes out lbw because it was there. When Stokes asked for the review, it would have shown he was out anyway and the umpire was correct in his decision. The way he fell to his knees to protect his wicket was lbw, plain and simple. 

The umpire would have proven his worth with no loss of face, no matter how much grief he would have got from the English crowd. The umpire is there to make the decisions and make sure the game is played in the right spirit. Unfortunately with this review system they are losing their responsibilities to technology, like everything else in sport. Now they are too scared to make the unpopular decision.

If the batsman is out he is out. If you are not sure, the batsman gets the benefit of the doubt. At least that is how cricket used to be. To me the Stokes lbw was clear cut. Out.

[Diamond_Jim 12,511]

Not impossible for every ball to be reviewed automatically in the bunker. Cricket is not a fast game so you would only be one or two balls behind. Effectively that is how VAR works in soccer but admittedly there are far less VAR possibilities.

It will never happen as India who control world cricket are massively against DRS.

[Macca 16,900]

4 hours ago, Dame Gaga said:

Yes, mistakes were made by the Aussies, and the last review was a panic move when there was still time in hand and runs needed. But the umpire also made a big mistake with the Stokes lbw appeal. If he was a good umpire who could think quickly in pressure situations, all he had to do was this- give Stokes out lbw because it was there. When Stokes asked for the review, it would have shown he was out anyway and the umpire was correct in his decision. The way he fell to his knees to protect his wicket was lbw, plain and simple. 

The umpire would have proven his worth with no loss of face, no matter how much grief he would have got from the English crowd. The umpire is there to make the decisions and make sure the game is played in the right spirit. Unfortunately with this review system they are losing their responsibilities to technology, like everything else in sport. Now they are too scared to make the unpopular decision.

If the batsman is out he is out. If you are not sure, the batsman gets the benefit of the doubt. At least that is how cricket used to be. To me the Stokes lbw was clear cut. Out.

Excellent Summation DG. 

And like anything else in sport (or life for that matter) there are nearly always unintended consequences when change occurs (or when change is thrust upon us)

But I'm in 2 minds on how DRS has effected the umpires and umpiring

It could be that they have always made a number of errors and DRS is now showing them up and/or they are 2nd guessing themselves as a result of the 'accepted' technology.  I reckon it's both.

Baseball is experimenting with 'Total Technology' in AAA baseball (one rung lower than the majors) and I know a couple of real baseball fans who reckon that the umpires in baseball will eventually become a thing of the past.  That's for every pitch and all the rest of it.

Of course,  no such thing is even possible in footy so the disillusionment with umpiring will rage on forever!  Footy will never get close to getting all the myriad of decisions correct. 

But cricket can go very close to getting it near perfect.  Total technology will give us that near-perfect solution but otherwise we have to put up with human error.  Ongoing.

The other thing we should remember is that we are often the recipients of the good fortune.  It's just that our minds can neither acknowledge or even remember when that happens.  But it does happen.  It has to.

Edited August 27, 2019 by Macca