Fifth Ashes Test: The Oval, 12-16 September 2019

[Durhamfootman]

p'raps he had a little cry after Headingley rather than Broad

w@nker!

[Arthur Crabtree]

Aussies could have brought over a reserve spinner.

Makes sense.

Not really an enthusiast of continual heckling myself. Fair enough if it's a spontaneous response to something that happens during the game though.

[westoelad]

Medical 'glue', the new sandpaper.

[Durhamfootman]

Not really an enthusiast of continual heckling myself.

me neither... it's purile, but then if you don't like it (and this is true of the media too, btw), don't dish it out during your home series

Hey..... perhaps those were old days and things is different now. Bless him... he's just an old fashioned hero, really

[westoelad]

Aussies could have brought over a reserve spinner.

Makes sense.

Not really an enthusiast of continual heckling myself. Fair enough if it's a spontaneous response to something that happens during the game though.

Not so sure I'd call it heckling, more frivolity. Each time the ball was thrown to him to bowl there was a loud cheer when he caught it..That's the way modern test crowds amuse themselves. If a player is affected in the slightest by that he shouldn't be playing test cricket.

[Durhamfootman]

an old fashioned hero who has been so underwhelming since Edgbaston, that Australia have had to break with tradition and play 4 seamers because they've discovered they can't rely on him in this series sufficiently to only play 3 quicks in a quick turnaround test

poor lamb

[Arthur Crabtree]

Fair enough. That's hardly excessive.

[The Professor]

Decent rally at end of the day but.....it's all a bit painful

[Durhamfootman]

Leach looks a better bat than Archer, yet it was the arrival of Leach that prompted Buttler to go all 'one dayer' on us. I think Buttler has been duped by the Archer can bat hype... he clearly can't... not at this level anyway

[bigfluffylemon]

Oh look, England get to a halfway decent position and cock it up. Who'd have thought?

Even at 150-3, when any decent team on this wicket should be eyeing up 450+, it just seemed inevitable that England would end the day either all out or close to it, and trying to scrape their way to 300-325. They just don't have it in them to bat long on good wickets the way Australia and subcontinental teams do. Smith is going to make another ton on this, it seems almost inevitable.

As to Lyon, isn't this the guy who said that Australia should 'headbutt the line' in the last Ashes series, and encouraged everyone to vilify Stuart Broad? Don't dish it out if you can't take it. Pr@t.

[bigfluffylemon]

(I don't buy the all rounder tags, only Stokes is an all rounder in this side)

People often see all rounders as having equal worth in their discipline averages, but actually I think its important to compare all rounders on their net production, weighted to each individual discipline. You could, for instance, say that Stokes average of 35/33 (bat/ball) is superior to Woakes at 29/30, because he's 5 minus 3 = 2 runs overall better when each discipline is offset, ergo he's a better player.

But actually, when you look at statistical worth of each of these averages, you find Stokes bats only 1.8 innings on average per game, but takes 2.4 wickets per match.... so his batting average is actually, in terms of its use per go, only 75% as useful in determining his "all rounder" rating. His bowling average is applied at far greater consistency. I dont have time to do the maths and crunch it properly, but I am guessing if you worked it all out, you'd probably find Woakes is a more efficient player.I am interested in an answer though, so I am going to work this out at some stage.

My hunch is that you would find higher bat averages would be significantly offset by better bowling averages, whenever a player takes more than a wicket per innings .... or in other words, bowling all rounder or maybe even bowlers who can bat a bit, statistically, would prove to be more efficient players.

Interesting hypothesis. I think though it might be confounded by a couple of factors - the first is that while theoretically the number of runs you can make in a game is unbounded, there are only ever 10 wickets you can take. Adding more bowlers can therefore result in diminishing returns. When you have three bowling specialists, adding a bowling allrounder probably is the most efficient. When you're getting to a fifth bowler, the relative value of their bowling and batting is likely to change. When you get to bowler number 6, their bowling is unlikely to be useful for anything more than a few overs to take the load off the specialists - there just aren't enough overs or wickets for six bowlers to all be valuable in most innings.

The equation is probably also affected by batting and bowling order. Stokes bats down the order most of the time, so doesn't necessarily bat every innings. A batting allrounder who opens, or comes in at 3-4 (Kallis, say, or Watson) is going to get closer to batting every innings, so the value of their runs, and overs batted to protect the lower order, both go up.

It would be interesting to see a full analysis.

[yuppie]

this made me smile

https://www.cricket.com.au/news/nathan- ... 2019-09-09

who knew he was such a frail fragile character.... those nasty England fans with their vile and filthy cheering of him every time he caught a ball........ disgusting really... you wouldn't catch home Aussie support doing such unspeakable things.........and to such a nice guy too...... with his ending careers interviews

derisive cheering?... aw diddums

Big *modded* ponce!

The player talks of being abused whilst training and leaving his hotel whilst also having to deal with the illness of a family member. Put simple no one should have to put up with abuse whilst just going about their daily life. Hes not asking for sympathy, but i think most decent humans would accept that a person should not be abused when ever they step out in public.

[bigfluffylemon]

this made me smile

https://www.cricket.com.au/news/nathan- ... 2019-09-09

who knew he was such a frail fragile character.... those nasty England fans with their vile and filthy cheering of him every time he caught a ball........ disgusting really... you wouldn't catch home Aussie support doing such unspeakable things.........and to such a nice guy too...... with his ending careers interviews

derisive cheering?... aw diddums

Big *modded* ponce!

The player talks of being abused whilst training and leaving his hotel whilst also having to deal with the illness of a family member. Put simple no one should have to put up with abuse whilst just going about their daily life. Hes not asking for sympathy, but i think most decent humans would accept that a person should not be abused when ever they step out in public.

Ok, must admit I missed that. I thought it was about him copping a bit of a ribbing from the fans at the ground.

No-one should have to put up with that, but it's not as if the Aussie team and press don't encourage it when England are touring.

[Durhamfootman]

No-one should have to put up with that, but it's not as if the Aussie team and press don't encourage it when England are touring.

I agree no-one should, but it's a bit rum complaining about it after all the stuff that was dished out to the England players 2 years ago.... and by Lyon too. As I said, maybe that was a different time and things are different now, but people have long memories. I find the best way to ensure that people are pleasant to me and treat me with respect is to treat them the same way.

As much as anything it was the reaction of the journo who wrote the article that tickled me the most. Got to love a myopic journo

[Durhamfootman]

and it was the same sort of stuff against SA in the build up to sandpapergate where the war of words became so great that there was practically a brawl on the players steps when somebody dared to answer back. Of course a lot of that stuff came from the mind of the benign charming Boof the poof, but the players were very enthusiastic about going along with it.

Lets hope things really are different now. I think they probably are. In the meantime, while waiting for the memories to fade, Lyon and the Aussie media corps will have to take the same approach demonstrated by Smiffy... don't complain about it, use it