Ashes 2025-26.

[sussexpob]

To think 3rd umpire should have given that one , as the quite significant , though not sharp , murmur came precisely as ball passed bat. Hard to see what else could have caused it at that exact moment - and certainly we've seen similar murmurs adjudged enough evidence in this series

I am not having a go at you Alfie, but discussions about the size or shape of the murmur shown on screen are the reason why we have so many problems. There really is no room for interpretation for anyone, its a completely binary decision. If there is a sound registered, its out. I dont care if its a barely detectable murmur, a big spike or the oscillator forms the shape on an elephant, the system is designed to detect a sound, the oscillator shows the sound... if it moves, its out. End of story.

The umpire has no right to make a judgement on the sound wave produced, because what he is seeing is not the sound of the edge; he is seeing the portion of the sound that has beaten the filter to block background noise out, the part of the sound that is unique to the edge. This could be anything, it depends on the sound. But in some cases what you might be left with is a unique frequency range at very low volume being the differentiator.... the resultant sound passing the filter barely registers, but its visible. People seem to think they need to see towering spikes or huge obvious sounds, I would guess because snicko has matured over the years and the waves you see are more heavily filtered and precise.

Think of it like a band. A bass drum and Bass Guitar tend to both be loudest around 80-100hz, with a chunky rhythm guitar also overlapping in the low to mid hz range. If you wanted to filter all the places these three instruments clash and hear the part unique to the drum, the resultant sound will be a white-noisey, barely registerable high-frequency click. It wont matter if the drummer is pounding the skin of his drum, the filter is removing all the loud parts and just returning the barely audible part of the sound that is unique.

There isn't really any reason why we even need to see the wave. Just pass the filtered sound through a noise gate that removes any sound at background levels, and hook it to a light that triggered when noise passes through. Does a red light turn on when the ball passes that bat? Yep... you gone.

I could design such a system in 3 minutes.

[Durhamfootman]

My verdict on England's players, FWIW

Agree with virtually all of this, aside from Potts. I think he played in every game in the parallel tour/warm up, and was the pick of the all the bowlers on display. He was in decent knick and had the biggest lead in as a warm up of all England's players..... I don't think he can be excused in anyway, he bowled like a drain, simple.

also agree with fluffy, but would have had Stokes higher for his bowling and for at least not dancing down the pitch and trying to hit every ball into row Z when the ashes were still on the line

[Durhamfootman]

I can't agree about Potts though, other than that he certainly bowled like a drain. He certainly didn't show the best version of himself

He couldn't even hit 80mph, he was all the way down to Ben Raine pace, but with none of the control or probing deliveries. That is not a Potts in good nick. He's better than that. He certainly struggled for form throughout the whole of the last county season and probably shouldn't have even been on the tour, in truth. Got thrown to the wolves a bit imo, but if he never plays for England again, as a Durham fan, I won't mind a bit. Constantly being called up by England, not played, but also not released to go and play for Durham last season just buggered him (and us) up really

[mikesiva]

To think 3rd umpire should have given that one , as the quite significant , though not sharp , murmur came precisely as ball passed bat. Hard to see what else could have caused it at that exact moment - and certainly we've seen similar murmurs adjudged enough evidence in this series

I am not having a go at you Alfie, but discussions about the size or shape of the murmur shown on screen are the reason why we have so many problems. There really is no room for interpretation for anyone, its a completely binary decision. If there is a sound registered, its out. I dont care if its a barely detectable murmur, a big spike or the oscillator forms the shape on an elephant, the system is designed to detect a sound, the oscillator shows the sound... if it moves, its out. End of story.

The umpire has no right to make a judgement on the sound wave produced, because what he is seeing is not the sound of the edge; he is seeing the portion of the sound that has beaten the filter to block background noise out, the part of the sound that is unique to the edge. This could be anything, it depends on the sound. But in some cases what you might be left with is a unique frequency range at very low volume being the differentiator.... the resultant sound passing the filter barely registers, but its visible. People seem to think they need to see towering spikes or huge obvious sounds, I would guess because snicko has matured over the years and the waves you see are more heavily filtered and precise.

Think of it like a band. A bass drum and Bass Guitar tend to both be loudest around 80-100hz, with a chunky rhythm guitar also overlapping in the low to mid hz range. If you wanted to filter all the places these three instruments clash and hear the part unique to the drum, the resultant sound will be a white-noisey, barely registerable high-frequency click. It wont matter if the drummer is pounding the skin of his drum, the filter is removing all the loud parts and just returning the barely audible part of the sound that is unique.

Ultra Edge > Snicko IMHO

Bin Snicko!

[Arthur Crabtree]

Meanwhile the Aussies have problems too. The batting relies heavily on Head and the legendary bowling attack may have run out of road. As a unit anyway. Carey was a big plus. Newer players didn't do so well. But, too good for England.

My team: Head/Weatherald/Labuschagne/Smith/Root/Khawaja/Carey/Starc/Neser/Tongue/Boland

[andy]

I think they will look to move on from weatherald for someone younger

[Arthur Crabtree]

BBC team of the series had six England players in it...

[bigfluffylemon]

Insane. I agree with AC, only Root and Tongue make the composite XI

[GarlicJam]

BBC team of the series had six England players in it...

The thing is batters, and especially the second opener. Crawley and Brook averaged more than Smith and Labuschagne.

Tongue I thought was deserving. It is crazy to think more people voted for Archer, with three tests, 9 wickets, than Boland's 5 tests, 20 wickets - and far better economy and S/R. Was that on the strength of one and a half tests?

[Arthur Crabtree]

But Crawley and Brook were two of the key players in England's defeat. I'd rather pick the winners given the low level across most of the board, plus the Aussies fielded better. Root did ok to get two big hundreds in a series where bowlers dominated, but was still a disappointment. I'm picking him ahead of Inglis and Green who made no impact at all.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Was that on the strength of one and a half tests?

On the strength of bias.

[GarlicJam]

I was leading towards that. I didn't want to make any outlandish claims.

[GarlicJam]

But Crawley and Brook were two of the key players in England's defeat. I'd rather pick the winners given the low level across most of the board, plus the Aussies fielded better. Root did ok to get two big hundreds in a series where bowlers dominated, but was still a disappointment. I'm picking him ahead of Inglis and Green who made no impact at all.

I'd sooner see Bethel get picked over those two. On the strength of one good innings.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I think it was chosen before his hundred. I went for a three Test minimum...

[Gingerfinch]

Insane. I agree with AC, only Root and Tongue make the composite XI

Crawley?