The Ashes: Test 1, The Gabba

[lemmon]

Re: The Ashes: Test 1, The Gabba

Cook goes to a wonderful catch by Starc. This is a dangerous session for England. They can't win the test tonight, but they could lose it.

[GVGjr]

Re: The Ashes: Test 1, The Gabba

Cook goes to a wonderful catch by Starc. This is a dangerous session for England. They can't win the test tonight, but they could lose it.

Yep, great catch by Starc,

[lemmon]

Re: The Ashes: Test 1, The Gabba

Now Hazlewood gets Vince. Root's gonna have to do his best Smith impression.

[bulldogtragic]

Re: The Ashes: Test 1, The Gabba

2 for -9

Still plenty of overs left. Both quicks looking good. You might be right Lem.

[Topdog]

Re: The Ashes: Test 1, The Gabba

Great start

[Topdog]

Re: The Ashes: Test 1, The Gabba

Starc smashes Root in the helmet

[lemmon]

Re: The Ashes: Test 1, The Gabba

Stoneman looks a good player with a real weakness against spin. Lyon is in the game here

[Twodogs]

Re: The Ashes: Test 1, The Gabba

Now Hazlewood gets Vince. Root's gonna have to do his best Smith impression.

And I'd said to my son the ball before "I think the slips are standing too far back" I think I will stop with the predictions already!


Or I could try saying "bringing Lyon on is a stupid thing to do. There's no way he can take a hatrick before stumps."

[Bornadog]

Re: The Ashes: Test 1, The Gabba

Now Hazlewood gets Vince. Root's gonna have to do his best Smith impression.

Big day coming up for Lyon tomorrow.

[Sedat]

Re: The Ashes: Test 1, The Gabba

Stoneman looks a good player with a real weakness against spin. Lyon is in the game here

Maybe he's playing for the lack of spin and is letting any big turners go past the bat without fishing - it's not Mumbai and he's protecting the wickets and LBW first and foremost. Wish Usman would do the same.

Been a cracking good test match so far - much better than I anticipated at the start. Even with a suspect batting line-up Australia are a much more talented and better balanced team, but it's taken almost 3 full days to slowly get on top of the Poms and even then it is still only marginal. Massive morning session tomorrow.

Stokes in the England team makes a massive difference - they drop the inconsequential 4th seamer (Ball), Moeen then drops down to 8 and Woakes at 9 which makes them a far stronger batting line-up without losing anything in the bowling. Their tail in this match wasn't able to make many runs whereas we put on 120+ for the last 3 wickets - could be critical in the final wash-up.

[Twodogs]

Re: The Ashes: Test 1, The Gabba

It's almost not fair bowling the spinners when Usman is batting.

[Greystache]

Re: The Ashes: Test 1, The Gabba

As soon as England posted 250 we were out of this match. We haven't picked one batsman who's technique can cope with a swinging ball and England's bowlers swing the ball better than any other set of bowlers in cricket history (and I mean that 100%) *!*!*!*! knows what our tactics in this match were, presumably bowl England out twice for under 250 because our batsmen making more than that is just living in lala land.

No benefit of hindsight intended, but surely you meant to exclude one Australian batsman regardless? Smith is closing in on being the best Australian batsman I've seen in my lifetime, and one who can make runs anywhere, anytime, under any conditions. His past 3 years have been indescribable.

[lemmon]

Re: The Ashes: Test 1, The Gabba

No benefit of hindsight intended, but surely you meant to exclude one Australian batsman regardless? Smith is closing in on being the best Australian batsman I've seen in my lifetime, and one who can make runs anywhere, anytime, under any conditions. His past 3 years have been indescribable.

Completely agree - he's entered the discussion as our best since Bradman. Phenomenal for a 28 year who scored his first ton four years ago.

[Twodogs]

Re: The Ashes: Test 1, The Gabba

No benefit of hindsight intended, but surely you meant to exclude one Australian batsman regardless? Smith is closing in on being the best Australian batsman I've seen in my lifetime, and one who can make runs anywhere, anytime, under any conditions. His past 3 years have been indescribable.

Completely agree - he's entered the discussion as our best since Bradman. Phenomenal for a 28 year who scored his first ton four years ago.

No hindsight needed Stache. The boy is a gun and just did again today exactly what he spends most of his time doing when he has a bat in his hand, making a moundful of runs for his country. Luckily the tradional collapse only led to us losing 3 wickets instead of 6 or 7 so there were at least a few to dig in with Smith when he got going.


Luckily for us I think Lem is right. This England attack is nowhere near as potent as it was back in the day. No quick with troubling pace and bounce, no quality spinner, the two quality seamers that can trouble our players with movement through the air are older and most of the movement was confined to them hobbling toward the dressing room holding their knee or calf or pointing at their ankle.

[westdog54]

Re: The Ashes: Test 1, The Gabba

No benefit of hindsight intended, but surely you meant to exclude one Australian batsman regardless? Smith is closing in on being the best Australian batsman I've seen in my lifetime, and one who can make runs anywhere, anytime, under any conditions. His past 3 years have been indescribable.

Completely agree - he's entered the discussion as our best since Bradman. Phenomenal for a 28 year who scored his first ton four years ago.

Channel 9 put up a couple of infographs yesterday.

One was a list of batting averages as captain (all nations). Smith was second to Bradman.

The other was a list of centuries made by Australian batsmen. Smith is 9th on the list after just 57 tests. The only other player in the top 10 with less than 60 tests is Bradman.

He potentially has another 7 or 8 years at test level.

We're seeing a once in 50 years player.