Second Ashes Test

Was just thinking about Carey …. I agree he is much a better batsman than Paine and assume he’s a capable stumper as he’s their regular 50 over keeper.

 

Dunno why you always want to get personal when you disagree with someone. His first class average is 34...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Carey_(cricketer)

Hardly Adam Gilchrist.

 

Lets be fair the Aussies are not one of their worst sides ever, in fact they are very good balanced unit , the gulf between the sides is quite clear & just to prove that point I have asked myself " How many of the current England side would get in the current Australian side ? " , my answer is I can only think of Root & Stokes with possibly Mallan but he still has a lot of improving to do to convince me , the worrying thing is that I have not picked one bowler .

 

Looking like Aussies will get around 450.
Wonder how many wickets down we'll be at stumps.....?

 

It all feels pretty irrelevant really. Its largely the same people doing the same things they've been doing for some time now. Why should we expect some miraculous turnaround?

It's maybe in our best interests to get hammered 5-0 without any fight or idea. It would be very hard to resist the calls for large scale regime change at every level.

 

That’s not personal.

If you’re comparing everyone to Adam Gilchrist then you’ll never rate any other keeper batter.

 

I agree. I think we turned our attention to the one day game too early when we were ranked number 1 in the world. We've gone downhill ever since. It will take an Ashes hammering and another winless home test summer to embarrass the ECB enough to turn it's attention back to test Cricket.

 

I'm not so sure.

The county game is now so much of an afterthought that it will surely take more than a few drubbings to change everything. The 4 day game is played in March, April, September and October. It is completely against the development of spinners or genuine pace bowlers - which also then affects batters who aren't used to facing anything quicker than 75 click dobbers.

The counties are so focused on the financial side of things (and you can't really blame them to be honest) that they'll push T20 and The Hundred as it brings in the brass.

If you're a 16 year old batter now, are you practicing your forward defensive or learning to leave the ball close to off stump. Are you balls. Your honing your switch hit, paddle sweep and range hitting. The real money is in the white ball stuff. Similarly so, if you're a quick bowler you aren't working on line and length - that gets you smashed all over. You practice slower balls, yorkers and cross seam stuff.

There either needs to be a grim realisation that the ECB doesn't view Test Cricket as a priority anymore unfortunately.

 

I reckon we’d get one or two bowlers in if it was played in England ( Anderson at Old Trafford ?)

 

This with bells, whistles and sirens.

 

Our fielding has been so poor this series it’s completely letting the bowlers down.

 

What happens when you're not mentally prepared. Anyone can concentrate for 100 balls, 20 and 50 overs.

 

We drop catches early in the day too

 

And that should be the one good thing to come out of concentrating on White ball cricket.

 

We do strive for consistency in red ball cricket. We've found it!

 

Red or pink ball we’re equally crap with.

 

I think if you have the class it should be instinct to know where your off stump is regardless of the format.

 

India seem to be coping with the pull of the T20 game.

 

They don't do a lot of fielding in white ball cricket. Normally it's the fans chucking it back onto the pitch for them.

 

Right guys, what we thinking, I reckon 4 or 5 down by the close.