My dear old things, it's STW TMS!

Is this what the ashes might have looked like if England bad been able to play some warmup games? Still expecting a collapse mind!

squeaky bum time

(yeh, to avoid going 4-0 down, how squeaky can it possibly be)

edit – not very…..that’s one hell of a yorker though

Ha! Take that Glenn McGrath.

😁

What a match, at long last. Test cricket ❤️

Yep, a draw because it rained 🙂

One main thought for the series is that I really like Cummins as Aussie skipper. He does his talking with the ball, plays hard but fair. Very different to the team of a few years ago.

There is no doubt England are still far short in Australian conditions. Every time I watch Malan, he looks like getting out. From a technical point of view ( I coach at lower levels) he hangs on the back foot and plays with an angled bat. This leaves him very susceptible to variable bounce.

Yup he comes across very well. No one could accuse him of being soft but there’s also none of the arrogant machismo of past Aussie teams/captains.

I’m even almost warming to David Warner, despite his ridiculous Tik Tok shenanigans 😳

Steve Smith and Labuschagne can still get in the sea with their weird mannerisms and ugly batting style though!

Even Steve Smith thinks Labuschagne is annoying, which is some benchmark.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/cricket/59926934

Just read a Guardian opinion piece on our Ashes campaign. They gave no stats to back up the point, but apparently in the last 5 years, of all the batsmen who have opened more than once, the most successful is Jack Leach!!!

Well, not a bad morning.
And I’m loving Billings constant chat as well, just what you need from a keeper.

Shame Anderson isn’t playing. Good job we weren’t batting first, we’d have been all out by now

So we get the Aussies out for 300 first innings and what do our openers do? Yep, you got it… they last no more than 8 overs with the score 29-2. FFS.

opening’s the toughest job in the batting game*

New ball, fresh bowlers, particularly on a helpful pitch – you can get a good one at any time but going in first up it’s inevitable that sometimes you fail. I’m not going to be critical when we had Aus 18-3 as well.

That’s not a total excuse – you expect to fail sometimes, and we seem to always fail at the moment. Secondly; one of those two to fall was run out, and that’s crap given how hard it is right now, to be giving Aus free wickets. Although it was a good bit of fielding and direct hit.

* maybe #3 – you could be in in the first over, you could be in after 50 overs….. although as England’s #3 I wouldn’t bother making a hot drink at the changeover, it’ll almost inevitably be too hot to drink before you’re in.

4 down, still more than 200 behind. Root gone. 🤦

Edit: make that 5

as I was typing the message above, at 80-2, I specifically avoided saying that we’ve recovered well.

Seems like just thinking it is enough nowadays to hex it.

yay saved the follow on!

… groundhog Day…🙄🙄

just when you start to have hope…….smack to the chops “wake up wake up”

yay saved the follow on!

That just makes the torture slower.

zip it glenn

Woakes top scorer and now out. Ffs.

Another stellar performance

A pair for Warner!

On that alone this is a successful tour!

England still in the game here (for now), which is a success in the context of the series! 6fer for Mark Wood also – well deserved.

It’s the hope…

You know we’re **** when folk are hoping a new hairstyle will change things for us

I’ve seen this one before. 90-2 will rapidly become 114-7.

I realised Sam Billings does the annoying Labuschagne-style mannerisms so we deserve further humiliation anyway.

No matter the final result, but it’s nice to have a game on in the final innings.

It is, but I can’t help but feel any expectation of victory is rapidly slipping away with that second wicket. I know ‘expectation’ is a crazy word to use, but our middle order really has the chance to see out this victory if they show some balls.

And Crawley goes immediately after.

shortbread more accurate than winviz

Game definitely over now

That collapse, from a position of relative authority, was worse than any other on this tour. Absolutely shambolic.

I almost stayed in to watch England bat after the promising start. Glad I went for a ride.

We were 70-1 when I went out on my bike this morning. Even by England’s standards, this was abject. I expect to hear the usual platitudes and see no real change.

Looks like the T20 squad have taken a leaf out of the test squads book

Oh ffs

What can England even hope for as a good total here?

Their lowest T20 score is 80, so anything better than that?