Axis of Bob

Drop Swann for Perth? Hmmm, Swann is not great there because his slightly undercut spin ends up just being a skiddy off cutter. Would I drop him? If they continue with Stokes then there's a spot for him, but if Stokes is replaced by a batsman then I'd replace Swann with Bresnan. I doubt they'll drop Swann, but rather play the 3 quicks plus an all-rounder and Swann. I'd bring in Finn or Rankin in place of Panesar. England need to change the momentum of the series and a conservative approach with Tremlett is going to be shuffling deck chairs. They need raw pace and bounce to actually challenge the opposition. Their current attack is honest, but not challenging. If they can't change the moment with their bowlers then it'll be 3-0. The interesting question for Australia will be Nathan Lyon. Do we pick an out and out quick, a spinner or go half n half with Faulkner or Henriques.

Bowling spin in Australia (and South Africa) is very different to bowling spin anywhere else. Overspin is much more important because of the bounce. And the hardness of the pitches means that a ball that has only sidespin won't get much purchase on the pitch. Most spinners across the world get wickets by threatening the stumps (either with the stock ball or its variation). But the bounce and hardness of the pitches means that the variation and the stock ball are pretty much the same. It makes it very difficult to get wickets because there is no deception. By using overspin you can create deception through flight. Then you can exploit the misjudgment in length with the extra bounce to get catches around the wicket and catches from attacking shots. Look at how effective Lyon is when people attack him, but his lack of variation makes it hard for him to bowl out defensive batsmen on wearing wickets. Conversely, there are a number of excellent spinners (predominantly finger spinners) who struggle a lot in Australia. Swann, Harbhajan, Ajmal, Panesar, Herath, Ashwin ..... All of them attack the stumps, and rely on the pitch to grip and turn a ball that would otherwise drift on. Swann struggled here last time when he was at peak form and Australia were utterly awful. He averaged 40 with the ball. I thought he'd be better in Adelaide, but his turning ball doesn't do enough to let his sliding variation be effective.

Just because seat belts haven't reduced the road toll to zero doesn't mean that they don't work. It's the same with DRS.

Porte had a phenomenal ride. He was much stronger than Froome and also did all the work for him up both climbs. Froome had a bad day, but Porte was every bit as strong as Quintana and Rodriguez, which is a great sign for him.

He probably hit it, but could you overturn the umpire's decision based on the evidence? It's not about the balance of probability, hence why Hawk-eye has an 'umpire's call' option. However, I've seen worse. It's a shame that such a great game ends like that, because it takes away from the match itself.

Could you say, conclusively, that he hit it? It's a bad way to end a great match.

37 to win. Can we dream?

I think that Vaughan is correct. Broad made a decision in the heat of the moment that he valued his wicket more than he valued a lifetime of being branded a cheat. Mind you, I suppose he already will be branded a cheat for his ball tampering exploits in South Africa and being a general tool. Not a good reputation he already has for one so young.

Nasser Hussein is incredibly enjoyable to listen to in a position of English adversity. He's such a massive whinger and sore loser and it makes you realise why England were so bad when he was captain. Such a victim.

And then some actual magic to get Trott! (I think he probably hit it, but he's out)

Ah, Starc with a little bit of Mitchell Johnson magic to get Root.

Geez, I knew he could bat, but this is something else. Incredible stuff. Incredible, sensible, and effortless.

Hmmm, maybe he should have started his career batting at 7!

Haddin gets a lot of grief, but he was OK behind the stumps. It was certainly one of the tougher days he'll have to keep as the ball was moving around and we sprayed the ball around a fair bit. I agree with the Clarke at 5 calls. He's such a good player of spin and so important to us that we need to give him the best chance to make runs for us. I'm sure that's why Cowan is at 3, so that he could blunt the attack for more than one ball. Smith batted very well when he came in. Really sensible batting and looked well organised - far more so than a few years ago. Rogers was stiff. Also, picking Agar (who could easily finish his career batting at 7) to bat at 11 means that we have no free wickets all the way through the lineup. Agar has a couple of 50s to his name in very short first class career and has batted exceptional well at time. In fact, my personal batting order for the tail could possibly be Pattinson, Agar, Siddle, Starc (and Starc has a test 99 to his credit and averages in the 30s!). Certainly a long way away for our tail of a few years ago (where we had Siddle, Harris, Hilfenhaus and Doherty/Beer/Lyon).

Yep, awful shot. Clarke got a ripper, but Cowan's was the sort of shot that shortens a test career. Rogers looks OK and Smith actually looks reasonably comfortable. I apologise in advance for the two quick wickets I have likely just created.

Agar has started very well. Tall, bouncy and a really nice trajectory. Trott doesn't look that comfortable against him. Still very, very early but like promising.

I think it's also important to note that the conditions in India are unique. These are strange pitches for Australian batsmen and bowlers, and the style of bowler India has is ideally suited to the conditions. If you look at the spinners that India has (that are successful) you will note that they are spinners that would not do well in Australia (or most pitches). Indian spinners are accurate and bowl mainly sidespin. In Australia these balls just go straight because there's no purchase in the pitch, and Indian spinners have very little success in Oz. Aussie spinners have to bowl with lots of overspin to get the bounce, which is dangerous on our pitches (like Lyon, but also mainly leggies). But the lack of speed and bounce in India means that these balls spinner slowly and predictably. Indian spinners, with their darty, accurate sidespinning deliveries, can get good variation with fairly pedestrian deliveries. They don't need many revs (as seen by Jadeja) to turn the ball. Too many revs can mean being ineffective because you know every ball will turn. What does this mean? Our batsmen have seen very little of this bowling, and have had to respect it even less. Our bowlers aren't used to being played so easily. But, most of all, I don't see this as being detrimental to our Ashes preparation at all. It's irrelevant. The game will be won and lost with pace and the ability to deal with it. India means nothing. Also, India is going to do well at home with these pitches, but it will ruin them overseas because they will have the same problems we have had in India. The difference is that there's only really one place in the world that has conditions just like India.

It seems like there's been something like this brewing for a while. Obviously there is a feeling that the culture in the team just isn't good enough and they needed to do something to show that. I don't have a problem with it. It's like Ross Lyon dropping Dal Santo and Milne in his first season for not following defensive instructions. Arthur is telling them that playing for Australia is a step up in commitment from Shield. It's also not a bad time to do it, given that the series is pretty much lost already. I agree that the team is in trouble if this action is required to correct the problem. Coaches don't pull out that card unless it's really needed.

I'm happy to pull up some old posts on Pup Clarke. Seeing the ball pretty well at the moment.

Have Geelong activated that pick for this year?

It looks like that was his dominant half of the game too!

700 cases .... is that total or those in excess of the baseline? 10 deaths ..... or 10 deaths more than would be expected? Nearly 4000 people died in the Bhopal disaster. Does this mean that we should not make pesticides? Because that's the same argument you are making. Alternatively, over 300 people die every year in Victoria through road accidents. This means that we should ban cars. The alternative to the pretty clean energy production of nuclear energy is that we produce our electricity by burning coal (since that is the only viable large scale alternative at the moment) which has far worse side effects. It's just that the issues with coal are easier to see and so people aren't as scared. It's the same as why people don't think twice about driving their car, but get irrationally fearful when they get onto a plane. It doesn't make sense to be scared, but it's because very few people understand enough about it.

There has been a massive overreaction to the Fukushima nuclear issue. It's not sexy to go into bat for nuclear power, but the fact is that most people do not understand it well enough to have an informed opinion. Most people are just scared because they can't see what's happening and their only understanding is 'radiation = death'. Have a look at the worst nuclear accident that has ever happened - Chernobyl. How many people do you think died as a result of that? How many people actually died? How many people died of Thyroid cancer as a result of it? This is now over 20 years later, so the long term effects are well known. People are only scared because they don't know enough about it.

He really paid for that early attack, Cadel. The problem is that he is a very similar type of rider to Wiggins, but he's not time trialling as well as him. Evans is a better climber, but he's not a dynamic rider. He's used to covering moves in a similar way to what Wiggins does, and then beating them on the time trial. He's not really an attacking climber that can break Wiggins on the climb with bursts of acceleration. Unfortunately he's been forced to ride in a different style because of Wiggins' superior time trialling Wiggins is being Cadel, and Cadel is trying to be Schleck ...... but not a very good Schleck. More like Dean Waugh, rather than Steve or Mark.

Did Sky miss a trick, though? Evans was really struggling when he got back to the group, but they slowed down and allowed Evans to recover in the group. If they kept the pedal down until the summit then they could easily have dropped him. Interesting that Porte was dropped today after doing the pacing yesterday.