The Ashes: Australia in England 16th Jun - 31 July

[Arthur Crabtree]

Suspect the Aussies will be quite pleased.

[Durhamfootman]

Well done to Stuart Broad for his 600th Test wicket.

I didn't realise.... well done to the tall, blonde, medium pacer

[Durhamfootman]

I see Young Jonny Blameless took a couple of catches today

a good one too to get rid of Mitch3.... blimey you know you're in trouble when even the keeper himself looks surprised that he'd held onto one

I watched Sandpaper Dave nick off and walk immediately, almost before the catch was taken, without looking behind..... crikey Wee Davey.... surely it was at least worth a look, the way the England keeper and 1st slip have performed this series

[Arthur Crabtree]

Maybe Jonny's turned a corner...

[Arthur Crabtree]

I see Young Jonny Blameless took a couple of catches today :o

a good one too to get rid of Mitch3.... blimey you know you're in trouble when even the keeper himself looks surprised that he'd held onto one

Yes great take.

Not obvious he was looking at the ball.

[bigfluffylemon]

Hmmm. Well, if this were match 1, day 1, I'd say honours even, but given England chose to bowl, must win, and there's the weather around, I suspect Australia will be the happier side. Already looks tough to see how England could force a win inside three days. Let's hope Stokes doesn't do something daft like declare behind tomorrow afternoon, to be honest I'm half expecting that at this point.

[bigfluffylemon]

Well done to Stuart Broad for his 600th Test wicket.

I didn't realise.... well done to the tall, blonde, medium pacer

Quite the Ashes player - only McGrath and Warne have more Ashes wickets than Broad, and he could go past McGrath by the end of the series.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Let's hope Stokes doesn't do something daft like declare behind tomorrow afternoon, to be honest I'm half expecting that at this point.

I think he'll be planning to declare today, but hoping to be ahead.

[sussexpob]

Match again finely poised. Australia may pay dearly for not picking a spin option here, because Moeen had the ball turning a little already on day 1.... score feels competitive, and its England who will be trying to force a result with a bit of risk.

[sussexpob]

One thing a little worrying from yesterday's play was, I thought Hawkeye came up with a few questionable suggestions on the ball path. I dont know if some venues is harder for it to pick up the ball, but the plotting of the impact point on a few replays looked visually wrong. It plotted the ball hitting Smith far more offside than it actually did, and if you are telling me that Moeen ball to Marnus went 8 meters off the pitch having turned about the distance between 4th and off stump, but was ending up scraping leg stump after impacting on the very cusp of umpires call hitting in line, then I would assume the ball had some kind of magical boomerang abilities to suddenly accelarate its sideways movement in the air.

It didn't change either decision in this instance, but I wonder if we might get an lbw call that is seriously questionable at some stage this game

[alfie]

Not like you to argue with the technology , Sussex ? I agree the hawkeye sometimes surprises a bit but to be honest I was pretty sure of all the lbw review results in advance yesterday , especially after seeing the slo mo.

I'd agree the game is balanced - bearing in mind Australia only need a draw and the rain for the weekend is predicted to be plentiful ; but I think England might be reasonably happy to have taken 8 wickets on what looks a pretty good batting surface. Might have wished for a few less runs scored but can't have everything. Still have to nip out the last two and then bat rather well ; but they generally score at a good rate so unless they have a collapse (always possible !) you'd think they ought to be able to at least set up day three with a chance to put pressure on Australia.

All that is getting too far ahead though ... this series has surely taught us that nothing can be taken for granted . Except that almost every day has produced thoroughly fascinating cricket. More please...

[sussexpob]

Not like you to argue with the technology , Sussex ? I agree the hawkeye sometimes surprises a bit but to be honest I was pretty sure of all the lbw review results in advance yesterday , especially after seeing the slo mo

The odd rare test match, it seems occasionally off. I would think its something to do with conditions or the exact position of the cameras, but certainly in the past, I have noticed matches where hawkeye has consistently come out with some bizarre decisions. Back in the day when it was just being adopted by DRS, the owner Paul used to invite active criticism and respond to requests for all the data to support certain decisions - which I took him up on, the last time being a Pakistan v Australia test in 2010, before he stopped doing it.

The data he provided was quite enlightening, because it showed that on similar length balls, when the ball missed the batsman's body or bat, it bounced lower. And when he intercepted it and hawkeye had to guess, they all missed the stumps as hawkeye predicted higher bounce. The data to me quite clearly showed a trend between the technology merely plotting actuality and where it had to compute the predicted path - and with consistently opposing results. Of course, you could say that in all 4 innings the batsman just missed all the balls that bounced lower, but that would be quite an assumption to make, even if assuming natural variation was the cause... because you have to think there is a range of various lengths of deliveries, and in this case you had all the balls that hit the wickets being much shorter than those DRS decisions given not out on length.

Two balls in short succession stick in memory. Michael Clarke got one back of a length and was bowled. A over or two later, a ball pitched up a fraction more hit North on the pad and he was given out.... Hawkeye had that ball not only missing on height, but by an incredible distance. I remember Ian Chappell being left speechless (as was I , hence I emailed the guy)......

So yeah, I would say the guy at Hawkeye basically sent me proof that it doesnt always work - although he was trying to argue the opposite on not much more than "but that's what hawkeye said"

[Arthur Crabtree]

Early wicket for Anderson off the first ball of the day.

And Haze caught of a Woakes no ball. How many times.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Close one apparently.

As Vic Marx says, this is costing ENgland time.

[sussexpob]

Woakes bowling average for players with 100 home wickets for England.... 3rd place now.

Only Trueman and Bedser ahead.