Any positives from this Ashes series debacle?

[vegster]

a massive wake up call that all teams need refreshing regularly and no team, regardless of success, can ever stand still. We may have won at home last time but anyone whose not one-eyed knows the series was far closer than 3-0 and a vaguely half decent Aussie side should and would have won that series. Need to lose the players whose 'presence' has got just bit too big (Swann, KP) and those players living on the past, not the present (Prior, Bresnnan) and the team can get back to winning ways. Bell and Cook need to take the lead and bring on players like Root and Stokes.
One thing that absolutely shocked me on day 1 - last 2/3 overs and Cook positively ran away from the strike to let Anderson face it. Anderson is absolutely useless as a nightwatchman but more importantly, what message did it send to Johnson when the English captain and probably best batsman didn't fancy facing him Crickey he should have taken all of the strike and backed himself to (a) not get out and (b) hit a few good shots at end of the day to show intent to score big and have no fear!!!.....embarrassing all round that was.

Yes, nothing to be gained by putting Anderson in last night. If conditions and the pitch play well in the morning we only have one batsman to exploit it. if he goes early the Aussies will see two down for cheap and get their tails up... "only 4 more days work boys for a whitewash "

 

[big nuts]

a massive wake up call that all teams need refreshing regularly and no team, regardless of success, can ever stand still. We may have won at home last time but anyone whose not one-eyed knows the series was far closer than 3-0 and a vaguely half decent Aussie side should and would have won that series. Need to lose the players whose 'presence' has got just bit too big (Swann, KP) and those players living on the past, not the present (Prior, Bresnnan) and the team can get back to winning ways. Bell and Cook need to take the lead and bring on players like Root and Stokes.
One thing that absolutely shocked me on day 1 - last 2/3 overs and Cook positively ran away from the strike to let Anderson face it. Anderson is absolutely useless as a nightwatchman but more importantly, what message did it send to Johnson when the English captain and probably best batsman didn't fancy facing him Crickey he should have taken all of the strike and backed himself to (a) not get out and (b) hit a few good shots at end of the day to show intent to score big and have no fear!!!.....embarrassing all round that was.

The point of a night watchman is to take the strike and save the recognised batsman for the next day.

 

[The Merry Prankster]

The major highpoint is that I had resisted the temptation to go.

 

[Lenny Rider]

A catalogue of errors coupled with some good old fashioned bad luck, losing the toss 4 out of 5 tests clearly was a factor.
Even though a number of Aussies have done simular things over the years, Broad not walking last summer set the tone, he truly is a hate figure over there, and has almost whipped sections of the home support into a franzy before a ball was bowled, I lost count of the amount of t shirts worn with the slogan 'Stuart Broad is a shit bloke'.
Botham going on Aussie TV and predicting a 5 nil whitewash, but not the one we are seeing, didnt help either along with the luck factor no-one on either side could have predicted the Mitchell Johnson comeback he's clearly made a difference although I would still put Haddin as the man of the series.
As for tonight, ever the optimist, I would like to think we can post at least 300, with the likes of Bell, Pieterson and Stokes getting decent scores, then it effectively becomes a three day game, and even this England team can win one of those cant they?

 

[Sloe Joe]

Yeah, only one more to go

 

[Cheshire Cat]

The nightwatchman's job is to face as many balls as possible and protect the batsmen to tomorrow. So Cook and Anderson did good. Score still going to be 10 - 2 by 11.10.

 

[JCL - the new kid in town]

Sounds spot on to me - I am genuinely seeing no positives at all, but haven't seen the "highlights" of the first day of this test, when I guess Stokes must have been decent.

The biggest issue for me is why they found a plan for all of our batsmen and were able to bowl to it and make it work, whereas if we found any plans for theirs we certainly hid that fact well.

That's not completely fair though. We got them 4 or 5 wickets down cheaply on many occasions and then Haddin or one other came in and blew us away. Why we could get their main batsmen out but then struggle I don't know. If you look at the stats I don't think their top 5 averaged much more than ours but the bottom 6 have a higher average. I wonder if this phenomenon has been seen before

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Can't bat. can't bowl, can't field.

 

[JCL - the new kid in town]

I don't recall any dodgy DRS decisions, probably because England didn't bat long enough

 

[Harry H]

Is cricket even a game to get upset about losing?

 

[topbanana36]

Stokes and maybe Ballance. More international scouting required because we cant produce our own. What are the Romanians and Bulgarians like?

 

[vegster]

Stokes and maybe Ballance. More international scouting required because we cant produce our own. What are the Romanians and Bulgarians like?

They are certainly going to be cheaper to put on central contracts... plus their wags are hotties.

 

[maltaseagull]

I got a prediction right! Before I logged on I said that we would have been all out for less than 200 and Australia would be setting another huge target. Pathetic and embarrassing.

 

[big nuts]

I got a prediction right! Before I logged on I said that we would have been all out for less than 200 and Australia would be setting another huge target. Pathetic and embarrassing.

That was like predicting night will follow day!

 

[pauli cee]

my biggest highlight is that now I have only been to the 2nd most depressing ashes tour of Oz, (06-07). Happy DAys!

 

[Dave the OAP]

I certainly think root is there for the long term. Maybe getting him out of that dressing room was a good thing as the atmosphere must be horrible.

I still think the writing was on the wall last summer and if bell hadn't had what now looks like his swansong, the tests would have been much closer!

Mitchell Thomas has been the difference and we are shit scared of him..that is obvious.

I don't think this us the time to break this team up completely, but there are a few who will be looking at themselves in te same way as swanny did. I feel sorry( well I don't as they being paid to play the game I love) for the poor sods staying on for the one dayers...just looking at the big bash stuff shows that the Aussies are on top form in that genre too.

 

[Baaaald]

Ben Stokes. Little all else.

 

[JCL - the new kid in town]

I certainly think root is there for the long term. Maybe getting him out of that dressing room was a good thing as the atmosphere must be horrible.

I still think the writing was on the wall last summer and if bell hadn't had what now looks like his swansong, the tests would have been much closer!

Mitchell Thomas has been the difference and we are shit scared of him..that is obvious.

I don't think this us the time to break this team up completely, but there are a few who will be looking at themselves in te same way as swanny did. I feel sorry( well I don't as they being paid to play the game I love) for the poor sods staying on for the one dayers...just looking at the big bash stuff shows that the Aussies are on top form in that genre too.

Why are they scared if Mitchell Thomas? A defender who retired years ago, what has he got on them? Is there some even darker secrets going on?

 

[Bold Seagull]

I certainly think root is there for the long term. Maybe getting him out of that dressing room was a good thing as the atmosphere must be horrible.

I still think the writing was on the wall last summer and if bell hadn't had what now looks like his swansong, the tests would have been much closer!

Mitchell Thomas has been the difference and we are shit scared of him..that is obvious.

I don't think this us the time to break this team up completely, but there are a few who will be looking at themselves in te same way as swanny did. I feel sorry( well I don't as they being paid to play the game I love) for the poor sods staying on for the one dayers...just looking at the big bash stuff shows that the Aussies are on top form in that genre too.

The writing was on the wall last winter which was largely hidden from view by a test series win in India. The initial signs in NZ of a collapse in form of Cook, Trott, Prior, Jimmy, Swann were all there to see. Then come last summer, the Aussies arrived in complete disarray. They handed us a series which, had it not been for the weather, they may have fought back in. Many saw it as a 3-0 win, lets celebrate a great win, why are people moaning while we are winning? If you watched hard enough, you knew what was coming.

The positives must be that we are at rock bottom. We have no openers, our captain is destroyed, our top order in disarray, our bowling directionless and without purpose. This was evident this time last winter, it's just taken 12 months to be fully realised. Bell and Broad basically got us through the summer with a pasting over the cracks. They aren't cracks any more though, they are massive grand canyons.

Heads have to roll. There are lots of people who pay good money to see a team paid good money with a vast back up support team all paid good money. This is professional sport, not village green cricket.

Each time England have changed captain, its not long after we've changed coach. When Vaughan went, Fletcher did shortly after, and after the KP/Moores debacle, Strauss developed a relationship with Flower. We need a totally new approach through the team, new ideas, new allegiances, a new approach. We've been led into an Ashes series on nothing more than a hope and a prayer that players would come back into form.

5th test in the summer, the Ashes already won, why are we not looking at the team for the winter? Instead we have Root opening, Woakes and Kerrigan in who haven't even been looked at. Why were we not already planning ahead with Carberry, Stokes, Bairstow etc? It just seems like a failing throughout the England setup.

I think it is time to break not just the team up, but the entire management and selectors as well. Got to take decisive action now, and not pussyfoot about.

p.s. didn't Mitchell Thomas play for Spurs!!??

 

[pasty]

Mitchell Thomas has been the difference and we are shit scared of him..that is obvious.

I think there is a lot of truth in that (I'll ignore the Thomas bit, I know you meant Johnson ) I think some batsmen have been so shit scared of him, they've been playing silly shots to get off strike and getting out in the process.