Looks like Claudio gave the pre-day team talk. What’s worse, an innings defeat or a 10 wicket defeat?
Looking more likely to be over today now. Need to hang on as a bit of rain is predicted for tomorrow. I was on the tube for 30 minutes with no signal lost 3 wickets...
I turned off at 23:58 last night and am delighted I did! What a **** evening firstly with Watford and then these idiots. 5-0 written all over this. Root is a sh*t captain and must be replaced and Silverwood has been a total disaster since coming in. Needs to be sacked.
They say bad things always come in three's so I now fully expect Hamilton to blow the Formula One title tomorrow to cap off a disastrous sporting week-end, then hopefully the only way will be up....
F1 fans ? Typical England . Probably were thinking about the new ball coming up and lost all focus on the job in hand against Lyon and co .
Disaster of an evening. I was on a long train journey home from Durham. Hadnt recovered from our win before the horror in the cricket started. Got home at 1am but ended up listening until the winning runs were hit
Reading about the match so far, even independent observers are saying Root has been even more horrific than normal in this innings. All the players in his ear, him not knowing what to do so trying anything anyone suggests. Little boy lost. Silverwood clueless as well. Won’t even get into the team selection. But this was ‘our test’ said the media. Another innings defeat incoming. Burn the bails again.
Yeah, some of the stuff I've seen in the media about this is embarassing. I could have saved them the trouble and predicted easily Australia would be where they are at the close now with us shelving an easy catch or two. It's like they watch England for years, and either ignore the obvious or try and pretend/hope the outcome will be different. Some of the so called cricket 'experts' are becoming as bad as football pundits.
Having Anderson, Broad, Robinson & Woakes as your 4 frontline bowlers backed up by a half-fit Stokes is absolutely bonkers....no variety at all and once someone gets in, every over is pretty much identical to any other. Especially as your spinning option is Joe 'oh, sir, do I really have to bowl' Root...and this on a drop-in pitch that may well give turn later in the match. And then we have the completely unfathomable captaincy decisions of said Root....great batsman, but complete dingbat as a captain. I can't help feeling that Archer's succession of elbow injuries can be traced back to Root insisting on using him almost as a 'stock' bowler in NZ....when you've got a 90mph bowler at your disposal you use him in 4-over bursts, maybe occasionally 5...what you don't do is ask him to bowl over 20% of all the overs you have to put down when you're in the field for 5 solid days over 2 matches. Root was like a kid with a shiny new toy, and it looks like he broke him. But as I said above, clueless as a captain.
But what choice was there? Wood, I suppose. Personally I've never been sure about him. People were moaning that Anderson and Broad were dropped from the last Test and now they are moaning that they have been picked? Leach was pummelled in Brisbane so I can see why he was left out. As I've said before, while I understand the criticisms of Root's captaincy, I am not clear who is the alternative.
Since63 has gone into it in far more depth but 4 bowlers who are essentially the same, no hard pace and then resorting to bowling short when they waited all day for the ball to start moving. Tactics horrible.
I don't think the selection was wrong. Those are our best available bowlers. The tactics may have been.
Ben Stokes is the primary alternative. Really it shouldn’t even be in question. But he’s not a sweet little yes man like Joe appears to be.
Well, of course it's in question because until a month ago it wasn't clear that Stokes was even going to tour.
Allowing Australia to bat all day, grinding your bowlers into the dirt hoping something might happen in the evening only for that to fail and hope that the new ball would do something only to bowl short. I think it’s fair to say that the tactics were a disaster. If that was remotely the plan, they should have picked a spinner and sacrificed a supposed batsman for it.
He should have been captain years ago, almost certainly after India, this isn’t a now problem. Root should fall on his sword.
The spinner who was hammered in Brisbane? I don't disagree about the tactical drift but we can't magic players into the squad who are not there (and may not even exist).
I mean - yes, he is probably the best candidate but it's not as if he has much captaincy experience. I'm not 100% convinced he would be tactically stronger, though he would show more fight (word chosen deliberately...).
The fast bowlers were hammered today! Bess or Leach should have played IF the idea was to try and get through to the evening. They’ve run the quicks into the ground for nothing. Tomorrow the heat is going to be worse as well.
Personally, I'd have chosen Broad instead of Wood for the Gabba test as he has a good record there and then swapped in Wood for Adelaide which is more likely to see some reverse swing & suits Wood's slingier action more than the Gabba. To then have Anderson, Robinson & Woakes in the same attack is just too samey...if you take 2 spinners on a tour like this, you have to play one of them otherwise why even pick them? If they thought Leach was 'shot', then play Bess. Why do we think the Aussie batsmen immediately target the spinner? Because they want them out of the attack so they can tootle along milking the remaining identikit seam bowling without having to take any risks. The assault on Leach was not risk-free, it just came off. Bess may have gone the same way, but he does turn it more than Leach...and whatever, the Aussies are 221-2 at the close, so not playing a front-line spinner cannot be said to have worked out.
It was ridiculous leaving Broad out in Brisbane, I agree. On the spinners, I would probably have risked Leach again but then I do support Somerset so know what he can do. I don't rate Bess as highly (and nor did Somerset). We do badly lack someone of the calibre of Swann.
Or even of Giles' reliability, to be fair. Remember how he used to be derided? I'd bite your arm off for him now!
