3rd Ashes Test, Headingley, Aug 22-26

[Durhamfootman]

It would be entirely 'England' to ignore Sibley flaying county attacks all summer, only to pick him just as his form is tailing off. They seem to do this every time..... always too late

Ollie Pope has timed his run immaculately, so will, of course have no chance of making the side

[yuppie]

I think Australia will need to decide on either Wade of Paine. Labuschagne at 5 and Smith at 4 with Head at 6. The top 3 is a major problem, but trying to fix it with form batsman in my view would be a silly idea that risks damaging those form batsman. Its easy to have a knee jerk reaction after what has just happened, but the reality is that the back ups are not any better than those that are their.

Labuschagne will provide a little more bowling support. Starc or Siddle or possibly both will come into the team.

Picking themselves up from the last test will be the tough part though. I'm sure when they are assessing what happened, there will be a lot of tough questions asked. They can't change the things that are out of their control, but they can improve on the things that are in their control.

[Durhamfootman]

Well done to Jack Leach. As I'm sure Mark Nicholas has said, one of the great 0s.

I'd have dropped the bat in panic.

No 0, he got the run that tied it..Nicholas would have proclaimed leach the new sobers, and told us his 1* ranked right up there

good shouts

Almost certainly, the most important 17-ball unbeaten single in the history of the game was made at Headingley on Sunday afternoon by the unlikely lad called Leach.

Mark Nicholas

[Alviro Patterson]

I can see why Joel Wilson did not give it out LBW, ball was practically bowled yorker length and kept drifting away without looking like it would turn straight

When DRS first came in, umpires found out very quickly that those drifting spinning balls straighten a lot more than previously assumed. In fact, after the myth that batsman with a full stride down the pitch could hardly ever be given out lbw unless it was hitting well below the knee roll, the amount of straitening from spin has been one of the greatest eye openers for umpires since technology. You used to find about 1-2 years after it came in, after the initial shock, umpires started to give anything that pitched middle and leg as long as the ball wasnt clearly an arm ball, assuming the ball has straightened. Id say 95% of the time this assumption is correct.

What is clear is, as technology has moved on I dont think umpires are that concerned about learning their art as much. 5-10 years ago in its infancy, umpires seemed to be looking at tech to improve their own decisions and learn how the ball behaves more; now, I cant see this process being used.

Imo, Wilson should be well aware of the usual behaviour of these balls, and should have said to himself "middle and leg, full"..... he has to give it out. The more I see it the more it looks very out.

If you want to say its very full and wont straighten in time because it wont spin so it looks less out, you also have to say it has less distance on the angle to miss the stumps. Is a yorker length ball bowled at a normal angle that strikes middle-leg line ever going to miss the stumps? Unless you are releasing the ball from ridiculous angles, youd have to assume no.

Its just a bad decision. I dont think we can defend it.

In real time, the ball hit Stokes right on the front pad/foot. It appears Hawkeye took that as spin and then hitting the back pad.

Maybe Joel Wilson was right after all....

[backfootpunch]

I think Australia will need to decide on either Wade of Paine. Labuschagne at 5 and Smith at 4 with Head at 6. The top 3 is a major problem, but trying to fix it with form batsman in my view would be a silly idea that risks damaging those form batsman. Its easy to have a knee jerk reaction after what has just happened, but the reality is that the back ups are not any better than those that are their.

Labuschagne will provide a little more bowling support. Starc or Siddle or possibly both will come into the team.

Picking themselves up from the last test will be the tough part though. I'm sure when they are assessing what happened, there will be a lot of tough questions asked. They can't change the things that are out of their control, but they can improve on the things that are in their control.

Smith averages 67 at 3 with 8 hundreds in 29 innings

I'd think dropping khawaja and smith slotting in at 3 would be what strengthens the aussie line up the most

[alfie]

Obviously , one's view on that lbw call will be coloured to an extent by which side one is supporting...

But : as an England supporter with heart in mouth , watching live , I have to say my immediate reaction to the appeal was not "oh lord , that's the game gone !" - but rather "hey careful Stokes - that was a bit close !" . I was far from surprised Wilson turned it down...though when I saw the slow motion replay I was mightily relieved he did so . Even so I'd expected umpires call ( which of course would have been out if he had given it.) I really do not think it was such an obvious error in real time ... and had Australia kept their review up their sleeve they would have been able to remedy it in any case.

The argument I have seen advanced in some quarters (including Michael Vaughan) that Wilson should have given it out because Australia had no reviews left while England did is frankly ridiculous. What that is actually suggesting is that an umpire should make a decision that he personally thinks is incorrect - just so that a team that has burnt its review quota can be rewarded for this by being given the advantage of the umpires call margin on the potentially game changing decision. Why ?
To let that idea take root would be to encourage ever more profligate use of "hopeful" reviews in the knowledge that the friendly umpire might well throw you a lifeline later by favouring your position on close calls...batting or bowling.

The drs system isn't perfect. Umpires call is a compromise , necessary because the technology is not able to guarantee 100% accuracy in predictive path. And yes , it does mean that the initial decision plays a big part in deciding the result. But that was the case before drs anyway... Unless you want unlimited team review options - surely not? - there is no way to be certain any erroneous decision is corrected. One alternative might be to allow the on field umpire to refer close calls himself to the TV room ; and I suppose that could replace the current player initiated reviews. But then you would have the case where the on field umpire has absolutely no doubt (even though he's wrong) ...so back to square one...

Tim Paine summed it up well. "Can't complain about the umpire - I've got about nine of them wrong already so what do I know".

We should all move on.

[GarlicJam]

The drs system isn't perfect. Umpires call is a compromise , necessary because the technology is not able to guarantee 100% accuracy in predictive path. And yes , it does mean that the initial decision plays a big part in deciding the result. But that was the case before drs anyway...

This sums it up for me.

It's not perfect, but it is doing the best with what we've currently got. Until someone comes up with a better plan, I'm for sticking.

[bigfluffylemon]

Nicely put Alfie.

[sussexpob]

The drs system isn't perfect. Umpires call is a compromise , necessary because the technology is not able to guarantee 100% accuracy in predictive path

It was suggested earlier on the thread that cricket setups for hawk-eye might not be as accurate at predicting paths, as they are plotting actual paths such as in tennis, but I believe the counter is true. Hawkeye uses cameras to plot ball paths, and it is limited to the frame rate of those cameras used; the quicker something moves the larger distances the ball will have traveled in the subsequent frame, leaving the system more guesswork. The belief in tennis is, there is a margin error rating of about 2-3mms, but thats with balls travelling at 145mph speeds on occasions. The previous error ratings they released are also pretty ancient and pre-date the move away from 30fps broadcast cameras to 360fps space age cameras they now use. The bottom line is, one would assume that there would be a proportional change in accuracy with the new cameras being able to plot over 10x's the movements of the old system, and a further increase in accuracy generally from slower moving objects. Just taking a rough proportional estimate of new camera frame rates, that leaves say 0.2 millimeter error ratios. The current threshold is just over 3.5 cm's.

That 175 times greater than the actual error ratio. There is almost zero justification for using umpires call.

[alfie]

There is a bit of "assuming" in there , Sussex

But basically I think one can argue about the size of the margin for error without dismissing it out of hand. Still I doubt we will agree on this so do not intend to go on about it at great length . In any case whatever you or indeed any enthusiastic technocrats might wish , I do not expect it to be removed in the foreseeable future.

I never much cared for drs (in truth it was really adopted to save making the umpires look like mugs in the face of modern television more than anything else. Has probably had the opposite effect ) ..but I've learnt to live with it. Really don't fancy turning the whole thing over to the robots though...

[alfie]

Setting aside any drs business I should add my congratulations to Ben Stokes for playing perhaps the most remarkable Test Match innings I have ever witnessed - some feat considering what the like of Botham , Lara , Tendulkar , Richards and Sobers have done ! Honestly did not give them a snowball's chance in hell after Woakes got out , let alone Broad. Which actually made it easier to watch as there was no tension until it got down to twenty-odd to go...

I think we can now say that Stokes has achieved complete redemption for his little last over drama in the World T20

I do have some sympathy for the Australian players who had the game wrenched from their grasp in such a dramatic manner. (Especially Hazlewood and Labuschagne who really didn't deserve to be on the losing side )It will be tough for them to recover but they're a pretty tough bunch so I'm not anticipating them to melt down in Manchester. England will need to bring their A game and not expect a single individual performance to rescue them again.
Though in truth this series has featured quite a lot of individual game changing efforts : Smith pretty much won the Edgbaston Test off his own bat. His clone / concussion sub did a pretty good job of keeping Australia on top in this one too...perhaps he should have bowled at the death

Was too tired and emotional to post in the immediate aftermath of Sunday (glad I hadn't run out of scotch) Can't recall such an exciting finish since about 2009 Cardiff - at least in Ashes terms. ODI cups are a bit ho-hum by comparison . Doubt we can expect another nail biter after that (you never know !) but the fourth Test still looks a fascinating prospect , with both teams presumably contemplating changes . Do hope the weather doesn't mess this one about...

Also glad of ten days to recover - never mind how the players feel !

[Arthur Crabtree]

I was saving up Kusal Perera's 153* in my memory for the end of the year best-ofs. But it will be difficult to separate from Stokes' innings. Kusal did even more of the scoring, and away from home too. And there was a similar last wicket stand. How to choose?

[Arthur Crabtree]

Scorecard.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/186 ... sa-2018-19

[yuppie]

A bowling team that had Steyn, Philander and Rabada in it, in SA. vs Pattinson, Cummins and Hazelwood and Lyon in the UK

Stokes scored 135 out of 362 runs

whilst

Perera scored 153 runs out of 304.

Statistically it is Perera, but i never got to watch that innings, so i think I'll just assume that they are both great innings:).

But it does put pay to the once in a generation type comments

[GarlicJam]

I was saving up Kusal Perera's 153* in my memory for the end of the year best-ofs. But it will be difficult to separate from Stokes' innings. Kusal did even more of the scoring, and away from home too. And there was a similar last wicket stand. How to choose?

Being SL's first victory in South Africa, it must carry more weight.