Ah, and Cook's team are back to that 'good old England' standard that we all know and love (or something - loathe, maybe?).
Inadequate bowling and chances missed, game lost, series with New Zealand leveled at one all.
Bring on the Australians!
(I estimate, assuming no Aussie injuries, that Cook's team have about a one in six chance of not losing the series, and about a one in nine chance of actually winning it.)
Well, that was more like it.
We can do this one-day stuff...
GeraintElberion wrote: Well, that was more like it.
We can do this one-day stuff...
New Zealand certainly can do this one-day stuff.
Starting to look like Morgan's team gambled heavily in the first match and had a day where for once every piece of luck of note went their way.
Since then Morgan's team have lost one match to a rain-break and Duckworth-Lewis (though even without the rain-break breaking momentum that chase would have been a tall order) and another one to those old familiar flaws of not batting their overs out and then dropping catches left, right, and centre.
Mind you, promising bowling debut from Woods.
Okay, that one went better for Morgan and company. Series level.
One match left (rain permitting) to clarify which team plays the better 50 over cricket.
Being seriously competitive with the World Cup semi-finalists is a huge improvement from just a few months ago.
Even if New Zealand win the series, England seem to be making positive strides.
And increasingly positive strides.
Bairstow did well.
Umm. Some help there from the rain and a reduced target to chase. England might have run out of wickets if they'd been after the original target...
I would have liked a proper run chase, minus the weather interference, to have a clear result.
Andrew Flintoff ludicrously blase about the forthcoming Australians in Test Match Special in one of the rain breaks; apparently apart from Smith, all the Australian batsmen are past it, and Mitchell Johnson is not much different a bowler from Trent Boult!
I suppose that's in character for Flintoff, though...
Hmm. That worked well for Cook's team. Or perhaps not as remains to be seen.
Having ordered up what the TMS commentators described as a pudding of a pitch, Cook's team managed to recover from a near catastrophic 43 for 3 to 430 all out.
The bad news for Cook's team is that at 36 overs into the Australian first innings, Australia are 145 for only 2(!)
Could be a looooong time in the field for Cook's team.
Maybe they'll hang on for a draw.
Edit:
Or rain might strike!
???
Not sure how Australia lost that one. All they had to do was bat the two days out, and they could/should have won, or come darn close to it.
97 for one, they were looking good. Then Moeen got Warner and Broad made inroads, and the game started to slip away from Australia until the Johnson/Starc partnership for the seventh wicket. Which turned out to be not enough, in the end.
Maybe if Australia hadn't missed Root early in his innings on Day 1 we'd be looking at an Australia win instead of one for Cook.
Oh well, no doubt the Australians will bounce backand do their darnedest to win the next one.
Mr. Agnew interviewed Ed Balls (former chancellor of the exchequer) in the lunch-interval on TMS today!
And in other news, Cook's team resumed normal service with a near-record thrashing (of them) by Australia.
Still, Charlotte Edwards leads her team out against the Australians later this week, in the women's Ashes.
Charlotte Edwards and company have got their campaign to win the Women's Ashes off to a good start with a (at times slightly nail biting) win. :)
Some good run outs to apply pressure on the Australian team in the Aussie innings.
Ooh. And the Australian women fight back, to level the series. Good opening stand by England, chasing a big Australian score, but they fell away after that - in particular having a disastrous late-innings power play.
Gah! England have no answer, apparently, to Meg Lanning, or at least not in the fifty over format.
Oh well, well played to Australia. England having to hope that they get some points out of the 20/20 games from rained off/drawn matches, and can win the test. Doesn't look too good for them otherwise. Lanning simply too fast a scorer.
[Treguard voice] Oooh, nasty! [/Treguard voice]
Cook's team finally work out that it's actually rather a good idea to ask your groundsmen to prepare a pitch which is good for your best bowler.
Then Australia compound their problems by winning the toss, and apparently figuring it's another pudding of a pitch and batting first on it as if it were a pudding in their first innings, going on to then lose in consequence by eight wickets inside of three days.
A shame Cook may not get away with that again this summer, with Anderson out injured.
Still, it was fun whilst it lasted.
(And good rearguard act from Neville.)
:D
My apologies to the Australian wicketkeeper: That should have been 'Nevill', not 'Neville'. I imagined an 'e' on the end, where there wasn't one!
Possible refund needed for my day 4 + 5 trent bridge tickets
What the heck was that??????
60 all out?????!?????
By Australia, and all out before lunch?
Ah well. Cook's team (at the time of this post) still have to bat. Let's see how they do, before any conclusions get drawn.
Pretty good bowling figures for Broad. 8 wickets for 15 runs in nine and a half overs...
Not bad from Finn (1 wicket for 21 runs in six overs) or Wood (1 wicket for 13 runs in three overs) either, in that they chipped in too.
And 'Extras' was the highest scorer for Australia - at 14 runs...
And that surely must have been the first time in a while that Cook's team has had a field set for a batsman with six slips???
Cook has now scored more than Australia's top 7 batsmen.
England are 62 for 2.
Australia have quality fast-bowling but if Cook, Root, Stokes, Ali (maybe Butler too) can get two solid partnerships between them then it could be over in three days again.
thenovalord wrote: Possible refund needed for my day 4 + 5 trent bridge tickets Might go to Day 4 if Cook's team manage to bat a decent amount of time, and the Australians dig in and bat for something like two days in their second innings.
Or if it rains. A lot.
Turned out nicely.
Decent knock from Cook.
Tidy score from Bairstow.
Root continues his magnificent form.
What a difference a few months can make.
thenovalord wrote:
For the love of my sanity.....make the English pitches this summer be lively.....we bowl terrible on lifeless ones And the truth will set you free
The 8th Dwarf wrote: Arrrgh The Australian strategy is clearly to let Cook's team get out in front a little bit, so that they feel all over-confident and off-guard, and then the Australians will come speeding up from behind and *CRUSH* them. :D
Err, Clarke does know, though, that this is only a five test series, doesn't he?
He might have put himself under a bit of pressure if he was planning on winning it four tests to Australia to three to Cook's team.
Edit:
And even if the Australians fail to win the test series, they're pretty good against Cook's team in the shorter form of the game. Except I suppose it's Morgan's team in some of those matches. Still, might not make that much difference to the end result, surely???
We will do better in the Rugby.
The 8th Dwarf wrote: We will do better in the Rugby. Your warm-up is The Rugby Championship.
Wales have a few knock-abouts against Ireland...
SH sides will be much better prepared for the first two matches, at least.
And that's it...
One match to play, and Cook's team go 3-1 up in the Ashes, winning the fourth test with two days and two sessions unused, and doing it by an innings.
Cook's team regain the Ashes.
Still an opportunity for Australia to show some fight and maybe try out some new players in the last test, mind you, and to get another match back.
Edit:
This being after Cook's team were thrashed 0-5 down under in the previous Ashes series, and having only drawn a test series only a few months ago in the West Indies where many pundits were pronouncing that Cook's team would marmalize the West Indies.
At the moment Strauss and Bayliss seem to have managed a remarkable turn around of Cook's team, since they took over the management after the West Indies tour...
There is no such thing as cricket anymore..... Hello rugby and New Zealand aren't undefeatable. :-)
The 8th Dwarf wrote: There is no such thing as cricket anymore..... Hello rugby and New Zealand aren't undefeatable. :-) Cheer up! Australia are darned near invincible across the shorter forms of cricket, of late, in both the men's and the women's game, or at least versus England (although Charlotte Edwards' squads have tended to do slightly better in such formats against Australia than their male counterparts).
And yes, congratulations on the rugby.
England women currently being hammered at Canterbury.
Lost the toss, had to field, with one of their leading bowlers out injured couldn't bowl the Australians out, and are now having their batting line up blown away by the Australian attack.
Well, there go the women's Ashes.
Cook's team, who nobody was expecting to beat the Australians have done so, handily, and the England women, whom I'd have thought were at least even to retain them, are currently going down in smoke and flames, being mercilessly demolished in even the format of the game (test matches) that they're supposedly best at.
That's cricket for you!
And Cook's team do their best to prove it was pure fluke that they won this series, by being hammered by an innings by the Australians in the last test at the Oval.
The way this series has gone, day one has been decisive - whomever had the fortune to win day one, the other side lacked the capacity to seriously fight back from that. Day one of each test match has basically been a knock-out blow, that either side, when on the receiving end of, has proven incapable of coming back from.
Neither side has been able to show the resilience to turn a game around after a bad start.
Too many Ashes series' in a row.
If each side had spent two years sorting themselves out, rather than eight months, it would have been less scrappy.
GeraintElberion wrote: Too many Ashes series' in a row.
If each side had spent two years sorting themselves out, rather than eight months, it would have been less scrappy.
Okay, they've had a year less between a test series 'down under' and the subsequent one in England, but they've still had eighteen months which would be the traditional gap between a series in England and the following one in Australia.
And Cook's team, at least, have had considerable changes of personnel since the 0-5 thrashing they were handed on the 2013-2014 tour.
Too much cricket (due to the world cup over the winter) might be possible, if there weren't differences between the one-day and test squads. (Cook, for a start doesn't even play the short stuff at the moment.)
Could be partially a consequence of the multiple changes of personnel on the management/coaching side of things, I suppose, with regard to the fragility of Cook's team.
That and a shortage of international level, experienced, 'team player' test batsmen.
Bell seems to be in decline right now, Root is okay, Cook is touch and go whether he has a 'good' match with a bat in his hand at the moment.
And I have the impression of a revolving door with regard to other batsmen in Cook's team right now. In for a few matches, fail, fail, maybe score big once or twice, then out again, and someone else comes in...
Batsmen who might build a score:
Cook
Bell
Stokes
Ali
Batsmen you can rely on:
Root
Fingers crossed:
everyone else...
---
Butler is the oddest one. If he went after it like a one-dayer he'd have made a more valuable contribution.
Over the last couple of years, Compton has looked the most composed: he was dropped because people got over-excited about Root opening.
I would look again at Compton, and maybe Carberry, before trying anyone else new.
Also, Bairstow looks ropey. KP suggested Hales opening, move Moeen up to 4 and bring in Rashid. Which might be interesting.
Well. That was unexpected. The Southern Stars' undefeated 20/20 run finally comes to an end at the hands of the England women...
England women still unlikely to save the series (that would require two more wins out of two matches) but the Southern Stars showing that they're not completely invincible in the current shortest format of the international game.
And the Southern Stars complete formalities and wrap up the women's Ashes series with one match still to go. They're simply too good for Charlotte Edwards' team in the shorter forms of the game - once the England women lost the test, that was always going to be it, for the England women.
Morgan's team win their 20/20 match, and then proceed to imitate a herd of lemmings rushing off a precipice in the first fifty over game, down at Southampton. They were keeping up with the run-rate, they had wickets in hand, and then proceeded to throw away a succession of wickets and control of the game with a succession of needless shots.
There's playing 'positive' cricket, and then there's playing 'reckless' cricket.
Morgan's team nine down and heading for defeat at the time of this post, in a game that earlier it looked like they had an at least outside chance of winning.
Inexperienced players or, if that cannot be used to excuse them, utterly brainless.
Hmm. So, Australia bat first in the first two fifty over matches, and win thumping victories; Morgan's team bat first in the third match and win a thumping victory. Pattern emerging here of 'bat first and win'?
And just to mix things up, in the last two matches of the one day series neither team batting first is able to score enough runs for their bowlers to be able contain the other side.
Morgan's team win match number four.
Then Morgan's team finish their last innings of the five match series as they started batting in the series, with a lemming-like rush to give away their wickets, interspersed with Morgan himself being retired from the crease by a quite nasty ball.
Australia knock off the runs asked of them in the last match, and wallop their opponents once more to take home the trophy.
Progress report for Morgan's team on the fifty over match front... mixed, at best. Won some matches well in home conditions, lost others equally spectacularly, and lose the series 2-3 in the final match.
Unclear, as of yet, if any significant long-term improvement trend developing in Morgan's team.
News from UAE not good for Cook's team. 0-2 thrashing by Pakistan as Cook's team failed to score fast enough on the last day in the first test match to snatch an improbable win, and then their batting hit self-destruct mode in at least one innings in each of the last two test matches.
Currently looking better news for Australia in their current test series against New Zealand. Potential opportunity to force New Zealand to follow-on with half the match still to go.
Nothing like losing a test series to a side like Cook's during an English summer to put some fire into an Australian side. Looks like they might be aiming to whitewash Cook's side 5-0 next time they come calling in Australia...
Morgan's teams, after a wobbly start, won both the fifty over and twenty over series.
Don't know if Morgan's teams would have done as well against less erratic teams than Pakistan - some of the games were pretty tight - but I suppose all they can do is try to beat the side in front of them.
And in the meantime, Australia have defeated New Zealand in a day-night test-match.
UAE just proved what everyone already knew.
We have about seven average spinners to choose from and no real quality anywhere. So they pick Moeen because he can bat better than the other average spinners.
South Africa test series over, 2-1 to Cook's team.
Given the way Cook's team dropped catches all over the place at what could have been (or actually ended up as) crucial moments, and the way they simply folded on the last day in the final test, my impression is of two teams which might have been evenly matched. South Africa still hurting very much from a series loss in India, and pummeled by injuries to some of their best players (e.g. Dale Steyn).
Once South Africa fully integrate their new players, and get back players like Steyn, to full fitness, my feeling is that South Africa have a better chance of getting (for them, back) to number one test team in the world than Cook's current team.
(Men's) South Africa 50 over series over, 2-3 against Morgan's team.
Morgan's team started strongly, winning the first two matches, but South Africa came back strongly in the third match to win, and then Morgan's team blew the series with dropped catches (all too reminiscent of some of Cook's team's recent test performances?) and a missed run-out in the fourth match, and then what Geoffrey Boycott described as 'brainless batting' in the fifth match.
Question is, will Morgan's squad learn from their experiences and improve, or continue to repeat the stuff they got wrong at the end of this particular series?
Meanwhile, the England Women won their 50 over series against South Africa...
After managing to beat an under-cooked Sri Lanka team, in a series where the first couple of test matches took place on pitches tremendously favourable to Cook's team, normal service has been resumed with Cook's team being thrashed by Pakistan at Lords. Geoffrey Boycott has just said in the post-match interviews/analysis that he doesn't think Pakistan are that much better than Cook's team - a possible omen, given what happened in Australia when he said similar things, that Cook's team are about to go down without winning a single test in the series...
Meanwhile, the women's England teams are having quite a good summer...
Two bowlers took 10 wickets in the match - Woakes and Yasir. That's got to be pretty rare.
Umm. Better performances in two matches immediately after Lords by Cook's team.
Still dropping far too many catches, mind you, and being made to pay dearly by some of the batsmen that they do give 'second chances' to.
Will Cook's team snatch a series-draw from the jaws of a series-victory with a loss in the last test match, or will they somehow fumble and cling on and do enough to retain a series win?
And Cook's team do indeed snatch a series-draw from the jaws of victory, as Yasir resumes where he left off after the first test, taking five wickets relatively cheaply in the second innings of the Oval test.
Cook's team seem to have a halfway decent bowling attack at present, but 'batsmen' (for want of a more appropriate term) who seem either unwilling or unable to remain at the crease far too many times.
Well, Morgan's team did okay in the one day series, until the 'real' Pakistan decided to 'turn up'. I think up until then the one day side may have been flattered by the opposition they were playing against.
And now a Bangladesh tour is coming down the line which Morgan doesn't want to go on (personally) due to worries he has about safety.
More chaos and disruption for the one day side.
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