The Ashes thread! (spoilers)

it’s like playing Zimbabwe

I just got home. Are we winning?

Are we ever! 🙂

274-4 leading buy 214.

Holy! 😯

I started listening to TMS at lunch to hear that we were 14-0.

It must have been raining in Nottingham, I thought.

Listened to the lunch time interview about the documentary on the state of test cricket and the ICC and then heard the news.

How I laughed and whooped! 😀

The Aussies have been clearly abject!

KYLIE MINOGUE! DAME EDNA EVERIDGE! ROLF HARRIS! MEN AT WORK! GERMANE GREER! MEL GIBSON!. Your boys took a helluva beating today!

“Pomicide” according to the Aussie press

Root on a double Australia – do you think he can make it a triple tomorrow?

Though the really funny thing is that Johnson, Starc and Hazlewood all have more runs than Australia

it’s like playing Zimbabwe

Bit harsh!

On Zimbabwe, that is.

Root on a double Australia – do you think he can make it a triple tomorrow?

He is a bit more ambitious than that surely

Just caught up with close of play and some key highlights. My immediate impression was that Australia didn’t bat that badly. I know that sounds odd, but by that I mean a number fell to good balls, playing essentially defensive shots. But sky’s third man had it covered, with a graphic showing how far they reached for the ball and why when it moved they nicked it hard. Root nicked one in the last over, but by playing it so late and with soft hands it didn’t carry. So the right shot played badly rather than bad shots.

Second – broad really did bowl bloody well. 8-15 – nah, that flatters, but well done, we’ll take it!!

And finally the catching was excellent. Some tricky catches made to look easy (low ones, high ones) – but Stokes’s one hander, was just totally out of this world. Astonishing.

What an astonishing day. I’ve watched that stokes catch over again. Still just behind Strauss catching gilchrist for me but still. What a day.

I’m not sure. Stokes’s was behind him, Lyth was running to the rope to get it. But once he got a hand to it, he does have hands like shovels so catching it became less of an issue. Strauss’s was ‘easier’ to get to, but he only has normal hands and it only went into the ends of his fingers!

Two crackers, for sure.

Have sent the Vine link to that catch to some American baseball loving friends.

“No glove. Faster, harder ball hit far harder, and far closer to the catcher. THIS is a catch.”

Responses have been overwhelmingly “WTACTUALF? How the hell did he do that?” sort of thing.

🙂

I still maintain Jordan’s earlier in the year was catch of the summer though. One of the best of all time.

https://vine.co/v/ezMdAJ3p09h

Sooooooooooo, as a relative cricket newbie, is there any chance of play lasting till Sunday? 🙄

I would say Strauss ranks higher as it was against a good team 😉

I hope England go on to score at least 500 and completely humiliate Australia. They need to sow some seeds of doubt in the heads of the Aussies before the next Ashes. That said I don’t think many of this team will still be playing when the next one comes around.

15 overs until the new ball. Another 60 odd would be handy, then I think it’ll be tough, but if we still have the likes of buttler, moeen, stokes either batting or even better still to come, then I’d be tempted to go aggressive against it, might only last a few overs but add another few quickly on top of the 275 odd lead we’d have by then……. And then make them bat again before the pitch totally flattens on day 3

That’s stokes catch is amazing. Also amazing that the highest scorer in the Aussie innings was the extras with 14!

That said I don’t think many of this team will still be playing when the next one comes around.

Really? I’d think that Cook has at least another in him as might Broad. Root, Stokes, Buttler, Ali, Finn and Wood are all likely to be around. It’s only Lyth, Bell and Bairstow I’d be thinking won’t make it.

That’ll be the Australian team. 😆

Watching the HIGHlights, and MJ at full steam. At what point does fast bowling simply become a chuck???

15 degrees.

Aye, I was talking about Dad’s Army.

teamhurtmore – Member
Watching the HIGHlights, and MJ at full steam. At what point does fast bowling simply become a chuck???
POSTED 35 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

I’ve not seen the Aussies but I’ve seen broad on a streaky spell and the windies quicks live and real fast bowling is never a chuck, it’s amazing. It looks a whole different level. That step up from80mph to 90 is vast and something tv never really captures.

I guess it’s like a modern golf swing. – a delayed action with tremendous hand speed.

Just watch the likes of Marshall, Walsh, Ambrose, Holding Aktar and McGrath to see REAL fast bowling.

Mitchell isn’t a real quick. Broad’s a clever swing bowler.

Proper quicks are scary.

Chucking is still chucking though. Who was that Sri Lankan chucker?

Cpn their arm actions seems more fluid. -these days it just looks different to me.

Great stuff. I got knocked back from a job I wanted/needed today but this softens the blow. Anybody got an email address for the Australian Cricket Board? I might forward my CV.

The snap of the wrist makes it look like a chuck – McGrath wasn’t a out and out fast bowler – Lillee and Thomo were.

EDIT: In the old days there were far fewer camera positions – the snap is only obvious from side on which was much less used than today.

EDIT 2: M Johnson is express pace over 90 mph most of the time. McGrath was in the mid 80s.

Johnson’s a proper quick. The balls that got stokes and bairstow at edgbaston were proper quick’s wickets. But where his action isn’t perfect, when it starts to go wrong, it’s harder to know why and hence how to fix it….which is why he’s now slinging it down leg and off at random and down on pace too.

McGrath was a true great, but he’d be the first to say he wasn’t a real quick. But he did have metronomic accuracy over line and length, a high action, and height itself, so as a result his steep bounce made him such a handful as soon as it nibbled about a bit. If he’d done that at express pace… well you’d have had a more accurate still version of Curtly Ambrose!

And as for the step from 80-90. On paper it looks like 10%. That’s bollocks. Because even a slow bowler bowls at mid-50’s, so anything lower in essence doesn’t exist. The scale goes from 55-95, hence the difference between 80 and 90 is a big chunk.

When I played, an opening bowler would probably bowl early to mid-70 (I played one season with a sri Lankan u19 pro all rounder who knew he was a mid 70’s bowler, and he was by comparison typical) Occasionally teams would have a proper quick, who’d be a yard faster, and scary. I also played against a guy who had a few WI odi caps and bowled mid 80’s ……. and my arse is knitting buttons at the memory of it. 5mph difference is world’s apart.

“Pomicide” according to the Aussie press

Their heads are so shrivelled by the the score they’ve lost what slight grasp of language they had….it’s not the poms that are getting killed!!

Really enjoyed TMS today…..found myself not giving a toss about a horrific car journey down the m6.

Not managed to keep up with progress today. Saw headline on the tele in the pub saying Broad was 8 for 15. Thought I was not reading it correctly. Just got home to check. Never seen bowling stats like that before. So much for missing Anderson.

I was worried I’d miss most of the test while I was flying back, how wrong you can be

Great picture. Wonder if he could make a quick 100 today 🙂

could get even worse for the Aussies today if england bat well they could be back in at tea with a 500 deficit 😀

Stolen from Rotor burns.