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Comments
Australia are getting destroyed in India atm, their middle order is incredibly fragile.
@Heartfeltdawn - have they got the young batsmen coming through? They bat deep with the Overtons, but they are a bit like England. There are a couple of gaping holes in the top order. WIth Tres on the decline, they look very fragile.
Next year has to be Tres's last year. It's remarkable that he is still going. I remember being at school and seeing him win the Cricketer young player of the year competition and then playing him in an early season fixture at club level. Fielding at backward point to him on a cold day with a shite left arm seamer dropping it short was no fun and I broke my thumb
The top four for Australia in the Ashes is sorted: Renshaw, Warner, Smith, Handscomb. Five and six is still a lottery. Glenn Maxwell isn't a Test player as yet. Hilton Cartwright cam,e in alongside Maxwell for the last Test in Bangladesh. Matt Wade is simply shit on chips. The spin department is Lyon's all the way but there's no idea yet of who's going to be fit for the seam attack.
Really the Australians are in the same boat as us for the same reasons as us: all the focus is on shitty hit and giggle cricket, the first class game has been diluted and thrown at opposing ends of the season, and so the players simply aren't there.
I hope Hampshire get relegated though. The only difference between their financial position and Durham's is that they have a rich sugar daddy. This season he's stuffed the side with South African Kolpak players and they still haven't achieved anything.
And yes wtf is going on with that Ashes selection? Shouldn't we be looking at people like Dan Lawrence, Dominic Sibley and Nick Browne instead of returning to perpetual nearly-weres like Vince?
It's not just Bransgrove at Hampshire that got them there: it's the help from the taxpayer in the form of Eastleigh Council.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2011/dec/16/hampshire-rose-bowl-eastleigh-borough-council
When you see that happening and what happened at Glamorgan with the council writing off their debts, the way Durham were treated utterly stinks.
We shouldn't automatically look at young players and decide that someone like Vince is a failure forever. Go back 15 years and you'll see a lot of Australians get dumped early, go off back to their states and to their county teams in England, work hard, and come back renewed and better players. Matt Hayden would be a perfect example. Vince has been picked because we have a lack of other people and because he's got some limited international experience. We could pick a load of youngsters, get stuffed 5-0, and you end up ruining them. I know the fanciful idea is that you take youngsters and it makes them better players if they get stuffed: for most of them, it doesn't. Look at Scott Borthwick last time. Everything's changed since then, from his county to his batting slot to the amount of bowling he now doesn't do. The time to get the really young players in is after the Ashes (and Vince is still 26: hardly an old timer!).
Even though I think Australia will win the Ashes, I don't think their team is one of the strongest for a while. I agree that they are in a similar position to the England team, but a reverse of sorts where the Australian team has a settled top 4 and an unsettled middle order, with the England team's top 4 having a lot of question marks but the middle order possibly being the most effective in cricket.
Stoneman and Borthwick have already moved South, and there is the news this week about Onions and Jennings moving to Lancs. Onions is at the end of his career, but Jennings has to be someone they would have wanted to build around.
Looking at the way things are going, I don't see a great future for the game.
Did anyone see them play live? The only times I did were on the T20 tournament and the whole team just looked so short on confidence.
Maybe the likes of Lawrence and Browne aren't ready for the Ashes yet, but where is the evidence that Vince or Ballance have sorted out their problems?
I know he has been awful this season, but they would have been better going back to Ian Bell. At least he has the technique to bat at 3. If he fails, then he won't have done any worse than the others are likely to, and you don't wreck someone like Lawrence.
"Ryan Sidebottom finally gets James Vince to play an expansive shot but the England batsman only succeeds in edging the Australian seamer behind."
He's done it again!
What exactly was embarrassing for Australia in the Champions Trophy? They had two games rained out, one of which they were well on the way to winning against Bangladesh, and lost the third game to England on Duckworth Lewis. Irritating for sure but hardly them being crushed and humiliated out of sight. They haven't been great in white ball cricket overseas (the stats were up during the current India match. Not pretty reading) but neither have we. Beating the Windies away in 3 games and one consolation win in India doesn't make us light years ahead of them. When you look at ODI stats now, home advantage is a real thing. Most tours don't give players enough time to acclimatise. This is born out at Test and ODI level. This is why even Bangladesh can beat us in a Test series and draw against Australia.
The Australia team has a settled top 4 now they've finally settled on Renshaw to open with Warner and Handscomb has gotten some runs (interesting that, of all the Aussies to vie for that middle order slot, he's been the most successful and spent more time in county cricket than many of his rivals. The old county finishing school method hasn't fallen apart yet).
The England middle order is effective and one wonders why they haven't tried people in different areas. I've said this for Buttler and for Bairstow: get the ruddy gloves off them. Both have so much batting ability that I'd want them to focus entirely on that. If Bairstow is now considered good enough to open at ODI level and isn't needed with the gloves, then surely there is a case for removing the gloves from him, giving them to Foakes, and pushing Bairstow up the order? Having a man with his talent swanning around in the lower order is daft. Yes, Gilchrist batted down the order: he had a rather good top and middle order before him. YJB on the other hand has a constantly varying middle order.
Bairstow would fix number 5 but I'm not convinced he's a number 3 though. Other left field option if you play Bairstow as a batsman is Davies as your keeper. He opens the batting for Lancashire while keeping. Can't be much worse than the other batting options.
My hope is that first class cricket will branch off. If people want the shitty fireworks and loud music of T20, then develop teams for that. There will be players and teams who are prepared to do that at the expense of longer formats. But the development of a first-class scene away from that, possibly away from the counties, would be a good thing. All the talk has been of creating T20 franchises: I'd think about the reverse. Keep the county system for T20 games as local rivalries are real and can't be manufactured by two poxy franchise teams, and look to a franchise system for first-class cricket that could operate in the summer months whilst the T20 slog is going on.
I can understand Graham Onions moving and why Durham were reluctant to offer him a two year deal. With Kyle Jarvis going back to Zimbabwe, Lancashire wanted a bowler and he's a good choice. He will undoubtedly take wickets at Old Trafford if he stays fit. Jennings on the other hand is a lame move. He might be mindful of another chap who was talked about for England, namely Stephen Moore. A move from Worcestershire to Lancashire was meant to be the road to international honours: it only led to patchy form and a subsequent move to the great void known as Derbyshire.
There's naff all evidence for Vince and Ballance having sorted out their problems. Absolutely none. But both can say that they've played international cricket, Ballance can point to tons, and so there's a certain amount of mental ability already demonstrated.
One name that hasn't been mentioned here: Ian Bell. As much as he was mocked by some areas of the crowd, the squad means his international days are done. It is quite remarkable that Bell there with Rhodes and Botham in terms of Ashes series wins (five). Bell didn't make the most of his talents but he certainly featured in some splendid moments with England.
@crunchman very few people are ever number 3's. Most drop down the order: a few like Justin Langer actually go up. With YJB, he's batted at the top of the pile for Yorkshire in one-day colours, he's doing it at ODI level now, so why not try him out? He can't do any worse than some of the other applicants. Perhaps we also need to assess what a number 3 batsman should be doing. Alex Davies is a keeper I have a great deal of time for. He's improved in both departments and his batting figures are very tidy indeed. Certainly he and Foakes are the two keepers next on the block so perhaps, with ensuring longevity for both Buttler and YJB, we should consider these guys to take the gloves and let the two experienced guys go with the bat alone.
Tell the pigs to make themselves useful and go prosecute G4S.
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4927300/Cricket-star-Ben-Stokes-threw-15-punches-one-minute.html
You then have to ask the question: what was Guile from Streetfighter doing at the same time?
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/fb/c6/51/fbc651a1e3c1dae90b00c80963954bcf--guile-street-fighter-fighting-games.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/09/27/09/44C1FF8900000578-4924126-Alex_Hales_and_Ben_Stokes_photographed_together_during_the_night-m-6_1506500680886.jpg
ABH? Assault? Whichever it is, Stokes could be looking at prison - especially as he has form.
I obviously hope this doesn't happen, and with any luck the rumours of the mitigating circumstances turn out to be true and he'll end up actually being a bit of a hero....
We do love to build em up and then knock em down again.....
Success is only permissible in this country as a prelude to failure.
I bet Andrew Strauss is squirming in his seat
I vote that Strauss lets Stokes off with light warning and get him on the plane to Aus and then Strauss can be the fall guy when the ECB seniors have to take action over "Stokesgate". Strauss won't help us smash the Aussies but Stokes can.
"Ben Foakes, the reserve wicketkeeper, could also come into consideration if Bairstow - one of England's most in-form players - is chosen as a specialist batsman."
http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/20932476/stokes-withdrawn-ashes-pending-investigation
If Stokes doesn't go to Australia, then perhaps it'll end up with a silver lining after all.