My dear old things, it's STW TMS!

Total revamp needed. Parkinson long term spinner. Alex Lees and josh bohannon in. Get some players with some guts in. Foakes keeping, play a wicket keeper! Stokes captain for me, roots too safe and uninspiring. Have someone with an x factor so to speak. Build the team round root, malan, stokes, archer and Robinson.

Archer won’t play test cricket again, and if he does it’ll screw his career. He’ll be a fabulous 1 day/20:20 player but his body can’t deal with test cricket. Plus, he’s wasted there.
Malan is 34 so you can’t build a team round him.
So that leaves Robinson.
We’re stuffed.
I suspect they saw Crawley as the next captain. Right background for the ECB, looks good, top 3 bat, sorted. The fact that he’s averaging 11 is a minor inconvenience.

All fair points. I’m clutching at straws.

Lees
Hameed
Malan
Root
Stokes
Bohannon
Foakes
Robinson
Wood
Parkinson
Mahmood

how long has test cricket got anyway ? who wants to stand around a cricket pitch for 2.5 days and the rest sitting on your arse in the pavilion only to lose your match fee for a slow over rate when you can earn a hell of a lot more for a couple of hours evening effort.

They are on Central contracts easy money 💰 although if they don’t play well the IPL ranking go south.

well now

Great start 😏

Excellent test cricket right now. Aussie quicks are so good.

Edit: bugger

Just concede and come home, save us having to go through this

That was properly nail-biting. Root is like the captain who won’t leave his sinking ship but there’s something kind of heroic about it still.

Why do I keep thinking we might actually stand a chance…..

I see our bowlers failed again today Joe…

Anderson puts a proper shift in. Wood and the rest do a good job.
It might be time to move root to 6 as it’s the new 3.

Was hoping that Covid could do us a solid and get the match called off, but no, it appears not.

Are we having a sweepstake on what time England lose the Ashes? I’m going for 3.15am

wonder what ECB nasal gazing will conclude after this debacle ? more 100 & 20 over less 4 day more pay wall more institutional racism and more “chummyism”

reasons to be cheerful

We’ve had 15 minutes of play and England haven’t lost a wicket.

then reality

one man batting line up?

Joe Root has passed 1,700 runs in 2021. England's next best has 530.

— Will Macpherson (@willis_macp) December 28, 2021

oooffff in the nuts again!!!

Yup in the plumbs only 28 runs to avoid total humiliation

4 wickets remaining 🙁

Are we having a sweepstake on what time England lose the Ashes? I’m going for 3.15am

I thought that was a good shout before play commenced. But with Stokes and Bairstow lasting only a few overs. methinks this may be all over before lunch.

On the plus side, can cancel my BT Sport subscription now, saving myself £25 for another month… 🤦🏻

68 all out!

Wow, that was an astonishing collapse even by England’s standards. Shameful.

Imagine getting a 5 for then getting dropped for the next test…

Then imagine it happening again for someone else…

Some strength in depth in the Aussie bowling lineup right now! 🤷🏻‍♂️

Next two tests at the Mcc due to covid? If so expect the same results. Boland was special but not that special

Still… At least the Wallabies are shit at Rugby right now! 🤷🏻‍♂️

Some strength in depth in the Aussie bowling lineup right now!

I think our batters make pretty ordinarily bowlers look better than they are.

My expectations were very low but England failed even to reach them.

They know they are not anywhere near competitive, and they don’t want to be there. The long-form game barely exists in England now.

At least the greed of the ECB means that barely anyone actually watches it.

World’s best team to this in less than ten years. Silverwood needs to go but I’m not sure anyone could do a huge amount with the structure and pool of players we have now.

This team have officially beaten the Wuhan street markets with the worst use of a bat in recorded history

Austraila's 267 is the lowest total to win an innings in Test cricket since 1986, joint 8th lowest ever, and 2nd lowest in Ashes history, after the 172 that won the 1888 Old Trafford Test for England. #Ashes #PleaseMakeItStop

— Andy Zaltzman (@ZaltzCricket) December 28, 2021

Well, it’s raining in Sydney. 😀 Looking changeable (according to them on 5Live anyway) for the next few days. How are you England stickballists feeling? A draw the best hope?

Oh God, are we going again?

Nah, they only need 3 playable days to lose.

Oh God, are we going again?

We are!! 😲

I enjoy opening up the BBC Sport app and seeing the different negative adjectives they use to sum up England in the headline. And sometimes, it takes an upward turn, and then rapidly downward again.

Possibility of an emerald green pitch once they uncover? What should the winning tosser do?

I enjoy opening up the BBC Sport app and seeing the different negative adjectives they use to sum up England in the headline.

A true test of sports journalism vocabulary. We should have a sweep (probably mistimed and caught at midwicket) on the most used. I’m going for ‘abject’.

I’ve seen “woeful” a bit, and, albeit, not strictly an adjective, “struggling.”

is inevitable an adjective?

As in inevitable collapse, inevitable defeat, inevitable whitewash……