Jack Leach this series with the bat 6 innings 4 not outs 34 runs at an average of 17 124 balls faced 230 minutes at the crease
Really enjoyed the day at the Oval. Good crowd, pleasant weather and plenty of convict cousins around with some friendly banter, but even they thought it was a contest between two teams who had fallen a long way from their zenith. Sadly, the batting on a consistent pitch that did a little bit but not much was just more of the same. Even more infuriating that for once, there seemed to be some consideration to get in, leave better and try and give themselves a chance. Everyone up to Woakes got double figures. But the shot selection when set was beyond poor. Marsh isn't quick at all. To the naked eye you easily see the ball in flight. The quicker bowlers you rarely do, instead waiting for the batsmen reaction to pick it up again. A little bit of tail, but very slow reactions by Bairstow (more understandably for a tailender Woakes). But the rot was started by Denly. He'd looked ok to that point then jabbed at a 6th stump wide ball. Not a drive, no need to defend, and a solid start was undone. Burns again, in and then a stupid shot to a short ball. Stokes, we got the braindead version, half tracker, cross bat shot, cementing the collapse and on and on. Root got an ok ish ball, but it was just a straight one that exposed his current poor technique of how he plays straight to pitched up balls. The bat comes from 1st slip and initially at the point it gets to the position to play its slightly angled until he straightens the top hand. But to be fair, he should've been out 3 times by then and he just looked chancey and a little bit fidgety. Curran did what Curran does with the bat, and Buttler showed a bit of fight and grit to be pretty chanceless. It's just a poor batting line up and we don't seem to learn. The oval is a good batting pitch. The pace and bounce of old is nothing like it used to be. It's pretty docile, offers a little bit of swing but nothing extravagant and it might turn a bit day 3 onwards. The outer pitch was very lush, way greener than I've seen it, so the outfield didn't maybe offer as many 4 balls as the norm. But 500 on that pitch shouldn't be difficult first innings. Two decent teams would bat out a draw comfortably. In a way there is slightly more entertainment in watching two dreadful batting lines ups with 2 pretty good bowling attacks (though that didn't contribute to the wickets today) than a batting fest. But it still doesn't hide inadequacy and the groundhog day nature of this batting unit. I've tickets for day 5, but with good weather set, I'm not sure i'll be there. We'll either bowl Australia out for a similar sort of score or less, or they'll get a solid score and topple us for 200 and the end of Bayliss will be officially at an end. An addendum. 82 overs in a day is dreadful. It gets worse by the series and fans are being robbed of entertainment. The ticket was £20 more expensive than for the series v India last year too. £105 for a slightly restricted view and nearly 10% of scheduled play being lost without a change of innings or a drop of rain just isn't acceptable. at 6:30pm the weather was fine, the light good (thought floodlights were bizarrely on!) yet the players were slowtiming to ensure they got no more deliveries in. We were discussing ways to stop this. The windies of old with all pace attacks and runs ups from the boundary easily got 16 overs an hour in. I'd be inclined to allow a team to nominate the oppositions best bastmen to sit on the bench for the next innings if their bowling unit were below the required level. That would speed them up!
1. Seeing as he was playing this test as a "specialist" batsman... I judged him on that basis. Good batting pitch, average bowling. Awful shot. Usual bat punching as he trotted off for less than his poor career average. Ground hogs mutely applauded.
very hemsworthesque. of course it was all one mans fault. marsh bowled beautifully yesterday, pace, skill and swing. its a shame Anderson has been missing as it showed what a bit of quality swing bowling can do when conditions are right. the best part of Anderson is he can do it in almost any conditions. we should however have been looking at a total of at least 400. a good start on a good pitch and you would expect 1 or 2 of your top 6 could get a big score, still we've known for a while we have a fragile test batting line up, i would have picked ollie pope for this test but understand why he wasn't, its not the greatest plan to throw a young lad in for 1 test and say away you go.
I suspect Buttler and Leach didn't want to go off last night. Very enjoyable last 45 mins or so. I hope they try and get set again this morning because they both looked comfortable last night. I can see England getting 400 if these two occupy the crease. More of the same please.
Just showed how good a batting track it is and how we threw away a glorious chance to finally have some scoreboard pressure.
I was having a discussion with a few people around us, and given that reverse swing of any danger is pretty remote, we threw a few curve balls around... seeing as we can't bat well and the selectors won't drop the sacred cows of Bairstow, Stokes (even when injured) et al... what if we batted upside down and opened with Leach and a slogger? try and rough the ball up and break the field and then get the "batsmen" in. would never happen, but seeing as leach has arguably the most compact defence in the team... you could argue its less stupid than asking Stokes, Bairstow and Denly to score more than than 30 and bat properly.
Saying that we should get 400 even on a good track with our current batters is unrealistic. 300 is probably the limit of our capabilities. If we can nudge towards 320 and knock Australia over for 350 we've still got a good chance of winning.
He should be above Archer that's for sure. The art of a tailender digging in and offering support to a set batsman seems lost these days.
Do you think Buttler will go on to make his hundred today or will they be instructed by Root to have a swing because Broad and Archer want to get into the Australian top order.
I reckon we'll be out in about 10 minutes. Would love Broad to find a bit of his old self and even if streaky get 30-50 runs to nudge us around 350, but I'm not hopeful. Bowlers have had a rest overnight, new ball... I can see it being over quickly.
When will England's bowlers learn that you cannot bowl on the pads to these two. Poor start from Woakes, although Smith doesn't look quite as comfortable against the left-arm seamer
Now Labuschagne and Smith are at the crease I'll look at the score at tea, then at the close. I'll look at tea tomorrow to see if they've declared. So disheartening watching these two grind it out.
It is indeed, but we really don't help ourselves. If we bowl a consistent line and length, give nothing away and they still go on to get big runs then you hold your hands up and say well played. Smith knows he just needs to hang around for a short while as we haven't got the quality, craft or guile to keep bowling top of off stump or just outside for a decent length of time.
