Ashes 2023

Well it's your loss that you take everything so seriously, yes. No one else does.

Anyway, feel free to put me on ignore.

 

It’s because I like to not take life seriously that I find your pedantry so dull.

But yes I think I might take you up on the offer .

 

Fine, it will be mutual.

 

On Sky Butcher just described Brooks bowling style as “ Ministry of Silly Walks”

 

It's ok, I think Keighley and TUT are married hence the bickering!

 

Hopefully

 

I asked him. He said "No".

 

Perhaps we will be like Vince and Penny in 'Just Good Friends'? (One for the kidz there).

TBF, not sure what the par score for the duration of our union would 'of' been.

 

At the risk of sounding like Clive... Bairstow...

 

If he’d smashed the stumps down the fact he’d broken the stumps before taking the ball would have been irrelevant…total incompetence.

 

If you were Penny, I'd marry you here and now. I wrote to her and got an autographed photo in my teens after seeing her in Secret Army. Jealousy caused me to always hate Paul Nicholas....

 

We are in rare agreement here. Very lovely indeed.

 

Wrong decision for me. Looked pretty out notwithstanding the messy take from Bairstow. Also don’t know why the umpires couldn’t get the two angles side by side the way sky did it. Much clearer to evaluate.

 

Tickets for Sunday

 

One for you.

 

Broke the stumps before getting the ball. If you do that you have to remove a stump to complete a run out. Correct decision for me

 

The only runs I ever managed to score in my utterly incompetent post-uni cricketing career were as a consequence of a WK 'doing a Bairstow'.

 

I'm clearly wrong then

 

Oh no you're not!

 

I think it’s just that the bail has to be out of both grooves not the removal of a stump. And I think with both angles that appears to be the case.

 

Bairstow disturbed one bail before he got the ball in his gloves and then did not hit the stumps hard enough to fully dislodge the other bail before Smith got his bat in. Very close decision, and enough doubt to mean it went in the batsman’s favour.

 

I know the rule. I’m disagreeing with the decision having watched replays not available to the umpires at the time.

Incredible dive from Smith though.

 

But if there is doubt, shouldn't the batsman benefit from it? If those videos weren't available, there was doubt.

 

I think doubt is increasingly eliminated when videos are used well. We’ve also seen a number of decisions in the series not take that approach to doubt (Smith’s catch of Root is an example that comes to mind) and DRS doesn’t take that approach with LBWs. Sounds like Sky are about to have a segment breaking this down.

 

Yes, I agree with that (and personally think it has perhaps gone too far the other way) but if the decisive videos simply weren't there at the time and the decision is a tight as this, it seems to me that it is a factor which should still come into play. Vic Marks has just said the same on TMS.

 

I agree. But if the umpires were looking at what we were looking at at the time, that’s disappointing. They should have the best split screen available at the moment of the decision.

 

Yes, true.

It still trumps VAR though!

 

Looking at it again, it seems crazy the optical illusion that the bail is still on middle when the side on image shows it isn’t. The pictures appear contradictory (but would think the side on angle rules).

Think zing bails would be helpful here. I know they are a bit tacky but they would assist umpires in decision making.

Anyway, 42(?) runs later. Smith is gone. Will be interesting to see how important those 42 runs are.

 

I think they said it was out but took them 50 minutes to prove it!

 

Is the best series ever?

 

It might have been if weather hadn't prevented us winning the last game !