titan_uranus

He was fiddling at a ball well outside off. He should be better than that. S Marsh at least is in form. The only reason Voges is playing is because he made a century against the worst side in Test cricket. He has very few credits in the bank and I don't think he'll make it through the series (at his age, if he's not making runs, he shouldn't be playing). How many credits does Haddin have? He hasn't made a century since 2013, he's only made it to 50 once since the last Ashes series (18 months ago). He's also dropping catches. Like Voges and Watson, not sure he'll make it to the end of the series. Agreed. It's not as bad as the result seems. However, if we don't get a few things right at Lord's we can kiss the Ashes goodbye.

Moeen comes on for the last over before lunch, Warner and Smith cruising, and he takes Warner out. We've now lost 4/9 with our iffy middle order yet again not standing up when needed. Voges has played one outstanding innings but it was against the West Indies and he hasn't done anything of note since. Clarke doesn't look fully fluent, Smith's thrown his wicket away twice with poor shots. Watson and Haddin are both out of form with the bat, I can't see either of them making a respectable score. I'd drop Watson for Mitch Marsh and bring Siddle in to replace Starc. Voges gets another chance but Shaun Marsh is in better form and we're going to be 1-0 down in a few hours, we can't afford to lose more Tests. If Voges isn't performing that one century he made shouldn't be the only reason he's in the side.

I tend to agree with you. I don't see in Garland what everyone else appears to see. He is horrendously slow at disposing of the ball, generally makes bad decisions too. I wouldn't say he's a good kick - we have worse, but it's not like he has some silky kicks we can't afford to lose. I don't consider him good one-on-one, again we have worse but we have better. He's not tall or big enough to play as a key defender but we have Jetta to play on smalls. I really don't see it.

It's absolutely time to drop Watson. Useless with the bat, and he's only bowled 13 overs in the entire match. That's not enough to keep his spot as an all-rounder, and his batting is nowhere near it. Mitch Marsh is in form. It's time to make the switch and stick with it. As for the Test, I have no doubt England will be disappointed with having been bowled out so quickly, leaving us two full days to, theoretically, slowly work down the target (which I'd have thought is 50-100 lower than what they'd have hoped to set). However, we're not going to score 400 runs batting last on this pitch, so the Test is gone. Haddin's dropped catch on the first morning was always going to be huge. I don't think I'm being melodramatic in saying I think he dropped the Test.

Poor result in the end. Everyone got a start. Everyone gave it away. Smith, Clarke and Voges all got out to terrible shots, rather than good bowling (although Voges was feeling the run rate pressure). Rogers got out to a poorly played shot too. Should have gone on with it unfortunately. We're now in the unfortunate position of needing to rely on Shane Watson, along wit Haddin and the tail, to get us another 150 runs. Not sure how comfortable I am of that prospect.

Pretty flat bowling. Johnson's yet to translate his form from 2013 to a country with flat pitches (e.g. UAE last year v Pakistan). First attempt in England was a failure - without his bounce and being down on pace as a result, he was a lot easier to play. He's got a bit of work to do. Starc got a lot better and kept swinging it, if he's injured that's a big loss. I thought Lyon fought well too, for a Day 1-2 pitch. Meanwhile, that LBW decision against Warner was abysmal! That pitched miles outside leg and hardly hit him in line with off - with the angle that was going to miss off stump too.

Pitch is a road so 7 wickets on Day 1 is quite good, but how many times in his career have we said that a Haddin drop has defined the day? If he'd held that (easy) catch, there's a fair chance they'd have been bowled out on Day 1. Hazlewood was great. Starc got better but opened terribly. Johnson was no good.

Right, well, Harris has retired. What a pity. Loved his bowling and a staple of our recent wins has been Harris' ability to swing the ball early and often and create huge problems for opposition batsmen. Clearly now we start with Johnson, Hazlewood and Starc, and Siddle may well make a surprising appearance this tour. Cummins brought in to replace Harris, so there is depth in our reserves at least.

How has Ablett going to the Gold Coast made them 'much further away'?

I love Clarke's captaincy, it's great for the game and for the team too. That DRS decision was pretty baffling - watching it live it looked as plumb as it gets, and to not even be 'umpire's call' on the stumps was a huge surprise. I wonder if Marsh's innings was enough to hold his spot over Rogers? He's the simple option, opener for opener, but I'd prefer him batting at 6 to Watson I think. The bowling selection dilemma is getting worse it seems - both Hazlewood and Starc have done some lovely things this tour so dropping one for Harris is going to be harsh.

Neither Watson nor Marsh made runs in the first innings to cement their spot over the returning Rogers. We might not need a huge amount in the second dig - Marsh bats higher up so more likely to get one more crack.

Two selection dilemmas coming up. The first is batting - Rogers will return either for this Test or the first Ashes Test. Surely Voges can't be dropped, even if he fails in the second Test (especially given he's played a lot of English county cricket), so the pressure now turns to Marsh and Watson. I suspect Rogers will miss this next Test to be right for Cardiff, so I think the worse performer out of Marsh and Watson will find themselves on the outs in the Ashes. Watson may need to take wickets to keep his batting spot. The second is bowling - Harris will come back for the Ashes and with Johnson, that's two pacemen's spots taken. At the moment Hazlewood looks likely to get the nod for the third but it's nice knowing we have Starc keeping the pressure on and ready to come in if/when we have to rotate the bowlers through the five Tests. To be fair, Starc was destroying tailenders all summer and through the World Cup. He's grown quite good at it - he swings it, he keeps his pace up, and he bowls it full.

Overall good squads I think. With Harris missing the WI tour I think Siddle will return, alongside Johnson and either Ahmed as a second spinner, or Starc. In England I'd suggest we'll start with Johnson, Harris and Starc. Good on Nevill for bypassing Wade for the back-up gloveman job. Wade's batting and captaincy were great this season but his glovework is holding him back. Voges and Ahmed deserved their call ups (especially Ahmed over Agar). I wonder if Voges will get the number 6 spot vacated by Burns, or if one of the Marsh brothers will take it back. Personally I wouldn't play Mitch Marsh alongside Watson; IMO it's one or the other. So might be S Marsh vs Voges for the number 6 spot. Smith to 3 IMO as well. Clarke at 4, Watson down at 5. Yep, that's right. They've given Pattinson a contract despite his continued injury problems but Siddle is going on the tours as the reliable back up.

It's quite incredible how amazing Starc is at ODI cricket. At times completely unplayable, both at the top of the innings and at the death. Has to be the number 1 ODI bowler in the world right now. Yet put him in whites with a red ball and he loses his sh*t completely - can't hold a line or length, doesn't have any menace at all.

Weird call from Voges for WA to keep batting in the morning. Wasted 8 overs. Were they that worried about 280-odd? At any rate, they should have been setting us something achievable to encourage us to go for it - a loss = a draw for them. Bad tactics (IMO they should even have declared last night, set us 250 but had a go at us last night before stumps).

What a ripping game. SA got a bit thrown off by the rain, but NZ dropped four catches which I thought was going to doom them. Full credit to them for chasing it down under huge pressure. Let's hope it's the NZ v Aus game we've all been hoping for.

Good game that. I wonder how much closer they could have gone if Chandimal hadn't pulled his hamstring. Our knock-out games will be at Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne - the first two of those will likely be slower pitches on which a spinner will be useful. Doherty didn't do anything yesterday to suggest he is worthy of being selected in those games though. We're pretty much better off playing Cummins or Hazlewood as a third paceman and using Maxwell, and Smith and/or Clarke for back up. If Watson's going to hold his spot over Marsh he's most likely to do it batting at 5 or 6 rather than 3. He's a better batsman than Marsh but a worse bowler so the runs are the critical component.

Watson's back. So what was the point of dropping him?

We play Sri Lanka on Sunday (Afghanistan on Wednesday in between). Sri Lanka's win over England means they are our threat to second place in our pool. If we lose to them we'll draw South Africa in the quarters and NZ in the semis (in NZ), which IMO is game over. Must-win game this weekend, then.

Remarkable really. Both have super-aggressive openers (Finch/Warner had us 0/30 off two overs, Guptill/McCullum had them 0/40 off four overs), both have iffy middle orders which failed (Maxwell, Marsh and Clarke still getting match practice, vs Elliott, Anderson and Ronchi), both have lower order batsmen who can bat but failed (Johnson and Starc for us, Milne and Southee for them). Both also have possibly the two best ODI pace attacks in the game. McCullum's early hitting and Williamson's steady hand were the differences - we didn't have one batsman who could hold an end and score steady runs (could have been Watson but he threw it away) and McCullum lasted longer than Finch did.

Just watched the wickets video. Finch, Warner and Smith were beaten by great deliveries. Watson threw it away off a half-tracker (standard Watson), Clarke hit in the air when they had short extra cover and a short point in place (i.e. poor decision-making), Maxwell and Marsh simply didn't move their feet. Good bowling, but poor batting too.

What does 'danniherish' mean? I agree with you (I think) though - Warner and Finch usually give us a solid platform but Watson is hopeless (drop him already), Maxwell is too hot and cold, M Marsh is still learning and Clarke is out of form. NZ has the best bowling line up in the world and we got found out. We're also now pretty much certain to finish below NZ which means if we draw them for a semi-final we have to go back to NZ. Only way we might beat them is in the final here at the MCG where NZ pretty much never plays (100,000 would be a massive difference for them). Also, is McCullum the most aggressive captain there's ever been (both with bat in hand and when fielding)?

8/26. Wow. I still don't rate Maxwell as a batsman. I know he has shots but they only seem to appear when we're in front. I'd personally have a lot more faith in seeing Bailey walk out at 6. He's holding that spot because he can bowl spin I guess. Being 9 down puts us pretty much out of the game but they've used up Boult and Vettori and Southee only has one over left. They've gone for the kill but if Haddin and Cummins can just hold in, they have to use Milne (their third-string paceman), and then Anderson (iffy bowler) and maybe Elliott to do some overs (worse than Anderson). With that kind of bowling the chance is there to score some runs and push the score to 200. NZ had trouble chasing Scotland's 170-odd so there's no guarantee they're going to breeze their way to 200 if we can get there. Edit: of course, Haddin gets out to Anderson's second ball. 151. Terrible performance really. Have to knock McCullum and Williamson off early, but even then I don't think we're any chance at all.

Unlucky for James Taylor, how the umpires could not have known it is dead ball after the finger is raised is beyond me, really. Nonetheless, we looked really good. We bat deeper than any other side and our fast bowlers to me rival any other sides'. Getting Clarke and Faulkner back into the side is going to be interesting. IMO Watson has to go. Can't drop Warner, Finch or Smith, whilst Maxwell is running into form (and provides spin if we don't play Doherty) and Marsh just took a 5-for. How does Watson keep his spot over either of those two? I assume Bailey is the other one to go, but IMO Watson goes first. It won't happen though, it never happens. Fantastic piece. Slater and Taylor have made their way into the WC coverage but it's mixed with Fox and Sky commentators and, yesterday at least, focused more on the game and less on banter.

I'd also say 2, but the first was when McGrath rolled his ankle in England in the 2005 Ashes.