Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

backfootpunch wrote:Alarm set for 4am, gonna check the score when I wake and if England haven't collapsed watch the rest

Not working till 2pm so planning on two 3 and a half hour naps if the game goes deep

yuppie wrote: I would say that Australias 4 man attack is a lot more balanced than Englands 5 man attack.

Durhamfootman wrote:

yuppie wrote: I would say that Australias 4 man attack is a lot more balanced than Englands 5 man attack.

helped by the fact that the England batsmen are *modded* useless, of course

GarlicJam wrote:

yuppie wrote:Well that went much better than i expected:)

Will Australian press talk turn to Australia having 4 quicks for Perth like it does every year.

Is this also the last test for the iconic WACA?

Some positives for England from this match, but not enough. Australia will be happy that they can win without big contributions from Smith and Warner.

I think that they are starting to talk up the need for a backup bowler though.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks back, MM is not done in the green baggy yet. He has been in form with the bat, and is now starting to bowl again after his shoulder op.

Handscomb(e)?

Dr Cricket wrote:

bigfluffylemon wrote:Calls for Bairstow to move up the order are only going to get louder.

England could bring Ballance in for Vince, but will be wary of having yet another southpaw in the batting line-up given Lyon's effectiveness. I suspect Vince's 83 will give him another chance in Perth, although given England's record there, he's probably on a hiding to nothing.

It's not just Joe, it's the whole side that has trouble converting (Cook used to be an awful lot better than now as well). Looking at the stats since the start of 2014 (when the current England era arguably began, after so many retirements post 2013 Ashes), England have one of the worst ratio of 100s to matches played of any team (only West Indies and Bangladesh are lower), and one of the worst conversion rates of 50s to 100s as well (worst of all the top 8 teams, only Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are lower). But their rate of scoring 50s but not converting them is higher than any other team in the period, and their overall rate of 50+ scores (50s and 100s) per game is about equal to the other top teams - Australia, India and Pakistan, and better than South Africa.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine ... pe=batting

That's very telling, IMO. This current batting generation just doesn't seem to have the concentration to grind out the big scores on a regular basis like the players from India, Australia and Pakistan do, and like England used to when Gooch was the batting coach and the lineup featured Strauss, Trott, KP & Bell. South Africa also seem to have fallen off on that count since the loss of Kallis and Amla's drop in form.

Very intresting stats yeah most of England doesn’t convert but obviously root will get most of the critism because everyone knows he can get hundreds the rest it is usually an achievment to get a 50.
I suppose it says something about England batting when stokes, ali are in the top 5 best batsman in the country.
England depth of players is very low at the moment, they really need to see why and what they can do about it.
It is pretty shocking with the money ecb have and facilities they have and the money spent on loughbourough that they basically struggling to find batsman, spinners and fast bowlers.
TBH the only real good thing so far about the ashes is that Anderson is not finished yet and probably still got some life in him, without him I really sense England could even struggle in England at the moment.

bigfluffylemon wrote:

Dr Cricket wrote:

bigfluffylemon wrote:Calls for Bairstow to move up the order are only going to get louder.

England could bring Ballance in for Vince, but will be wary of having yet another southpaw in the batting line-up given Lyon's effectiveness. I suspect Vince's 83 will give him another chance in Perth, although given England's record there, he's probably on a hiding to nothing.

It's not just Joe, it's the whole side that has trouble converting (Cook used to be an awful lot better than now as well). Looking at the stats since the start of 2014 (when the current England era arguably began, after so many retirements post 2013 Ashes), England have one of the worst ratio of 100s to matches played of any team (only West Indies and Bangladesh are lower), and one of the worst conversion rates of 50s to 100s as well (worst of all the top 8 teams, only Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are lower). But their rate of scoring 50s but not converting them is higher than any other team in the period, and their overall rate of 50+ scores (50s and 100s) per game is about equal to the other top teams - Australia, India and Pakistan, and better than South Africa.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine ... pe=batting

That's very telling, IMO. This current batting generation just doesn't seem to have the concentration to grind out the big scores on a regular basis like the players from India, Australia and Pakistan do, and like England used to when Gooch was the batting coach and the lineup featured Strauss, Trott, KP & Bell. South Africa also seem to have fallen off on that count since the loss of Kallis and Amla's drop in form.

Very intresting stats yeah most of England doesn’t convert but obviously root will get most of the critism because everyone knows he can get hundreds the rest it is usually an achievment to get a 50.
I suppose it says something about England batting when stokes, ali are in the top 5 best batsman in the country.
England depth of players is very low at the moment, they really need to see why and what they can do about it.
It is pretty shocking with the money ecb have and facilities they have and the money spent on loughbourough that they basically struggling to find batsman, spinners and fast bowlers.
TBH the only real good thing so far about the ashes is that Anderson is not finished yet and probably still got some life in him, without him I really sense England could even struggle in England at the moment.

Yep, you're absolutely right.

Once Anderson and Cook go, England are going to be left with a very poor team, with just Root, Broad and Stokes anything like approaching world class (and Stokes has only really been in that category in 2016-17, prior to that he was pretty ordinary). Cook already seems to be past his best. The trouble is, as we have spent four years proving, there's still nobody better waiting in the wings. We are really going to miss him - although a tapering off towards the ends happens to most fine players, he has 4 hundreds in Australia, 5 in India, a double in the UAE, and at least one hundred in every country in the world, I don't think you could say that he has not performed consistently for England at home and away for most of his career.