The Ashes: 2nd Test - December 2nd 2017 - Adelaide

[SlimPickens]

Re: The Ashes: 2nd Test - December 2nd 2017 - Adelaide

Selectors get an all rounder, so all is well for everyone since Handscomb’s looked a couple of grades below.

What’s happened to Renshaw, Khawaja & PH since last summer? Is it just oppositions have worked them out?

Khawaja isn’t far off a score for mine. Looked very good in the first innings.

[SlimPickens]

Re: The Ashes: 2nd Test - December 2nd 2017 - Adelaide

Good win by the Aussies, the jumping at shadows by the media and some on here to be honest was a little over the top. We had plenty of runs on the board and freshened up our bowling attack to take 10 wickets. The only mistake made by either captain was made at the toss and it will haunt Root for a long time.

[Twodogs]

Re: The Ashes: 2nd Test - December 2nd 2017 - Adelaide

Hopefully Eramasmus gets back on field next test with Dar. I'm not sure Gaffney can explain his horrible performance.

With the DRS now and scrutiny from TV coverage, and England & Australia having a few good umpires, I think the debate can perhaps start about the best umpires getting the best games irrespective of the teams playing. Sure it was out of hand when the ICC implemented the policy, but I'm comfortable enough with someone like Nigel Llong from the England umpiring this series. How many years did Simon Taufell go without making a single bad decision and we couldn't get him in our tests, despite having some of the highest profile tests the best umpires should be umpiring.

Gaffney had a shocker but it can't be much fun with the intense scrutiny of every decision an umpire makes. They banged on about some umpiring decisions overs after they happened showing slo mo replays and pointing out the mistake yet again. But they didn't go into Roots decision to send Australia in much at all.

Khawaja isn’t far off a score for mine. Looked very good in the first innings.

Agree. He was getting into position quickly.

[GVGjr]

Re: The Ashes: 2nd Test - December 2nd 2017 - Adelaide

So Mitch Marsh comes into the 12 at the expense of Chadd Sayers. It certainly signals that Peter Handscomb is under review as the selectors look towards easing the burden on our 4 strike bowlers

[Sedat]

Re: The Ashes: 2nd Test - December 2nd 2017 - Adelaide

The only mistake made by either captain was made at the toss and it will haunt Root for a long time.

Smith has been given a leave pass by the fact that his batsmen didn't support him in the 3rd innings. Couldn't exactly the same thing be said of the bowlers for Root in the 1st innings? They bowled like shit in very seam friendly conditions and let Australia get off the chain, which ultimately proved very decisive.

[SlimPickens]

Re: The Ashes: 2nd Test - December 2nd 2017 - Adelaide

Smith has been given a leave pass by the fact that his batsmen didn't support him in the 3rd innings. Couldn't exactly the same thing be said of the bowlers for Root in the 1st innings? They bowled like shit in very seam friendly conditions and let Australia get off the chain, which ultimately proved very decisive.

I must have watched a different first day. No doubt the English bowled too short but I dispute that the deck was seam friendly on day 1. It looked like a great deck to bat on and the Aussies took full advantage

[Sedat]

Re: The Ashes: 2nd Test - December 2nd 2017 - Adelaide

I must have watched a different first day. No doubt the English bowled too short but I dispute that the deck was seam friendly on day 1. It looked like a great deck to bat on and the Aussies took full advantage

It looked like a good deck to bat because the English bowlers were off in all facets in the first innings - they lacked energy & pace, their length in particular was all wrong and their plans were not consistently followed. Everything they did perfectly in the 2nd innings (when the horse has almost bolted) they failed to do on day 1 in the 1st innings - I reckon a strong effort with the ball on day 1 could have chopped 200 odd runs off Australia's first innings and the complexion of the game would have changed.

[Greystache]

Re: The Ashes: 2nd Test - December 2nd 2017 - Adelaide

We'll see how it goes. I definitely understand not wanting to have to bat in the evening with a small target to chase, I just though England were completely cooked after their innings and would have been really easy to knock over.

Hopefully the ball has some zip in the night session, and isn't too worn.

We might have knocked off a few in the night session and followed up the next day and not needed to bat again, but we didn't exactly tear them apart last night, and there's every chance we could've been chasing a small total in the night session and lost. IMO it wasn't the play to make and am happy with how we played it. I would've of course have preferred to bat better in the second innings, but we know how brittle our batting line up is, it's just fortunate England's is just as bad and our bowlers are better.

[Twodogs]

Re: The Ashes: 2nd Test - December 2nd 2017 - Adelaide

Us having a late fourth/fifth day run chase would have been the worst of all outcomes. I'm annoyed we didn't enforce the follow on but I can see the reasoning behind it.

[Sedat]

Re: The Ashes: 2nd Test - December 2nd 2017 - Adelaide

We might have knocked off a few in the night session and followed up the next day and not needed to bat again, but we didn't exactly tear them apart last night

The ball was 40 odd overs old last night whereas we would have had a brand new pink cherry if we enforced the follow-on the previous evening. This England team are a truly putrid batting line-up - only Root (who has a major problem not being able to go on with starts) and Stoneman have shown anything resembling backbone. They would have been lambs to the laughter against our world class bowling attack with a new ball at night.

Still, the end justifies the means - it was a very comfortable win in the end. Our bowlers are so good they can keep us in almost any game regardless of our batting foibles.

[Bornadog]

Re: The Ashes: 2nd Test - December 2nd 2017 - Adelaide

The ball was 40 odd overs old last night whereas we would have had a brand new pink cherry if we enforced the follow-on the previous evening. This England team are a truly putrid batting line-up - only Root (who has a major problem not being able to go on with starts) and Stoneman have shown anything resembling backbone. They would have been lambs to the laughter against our world class bowling attack with a new ball at night.

Still, the end justifies the means - it was a very comfortable win in the end. Our bowlers are so good they can keep us in almost any game regardless of our batting foibles.

Stokes would have been handy in the middle order.

[jeemak]

Re: The Ashes: 2nd Test - December 2nd 2017 - Adelaide

We might have knocked off a few in the night session and followed up the next day and not needed to bat again, but we didn't exactly tear them apart last night, and there's every chance we could've been chasing a small total in the night session and lost. IMO it wasn't the play to make and am happy with how we played it. I would've of course have preferred to bat better in the second innings, but we know how brittle our batting line up is, it's just fortunate England's is just as bad and our bowlers are better.

It turned out OK, and was a decent enough and understandable call. Our batting lineup is brittle when tested under extreme pressure, which on the flip-side to what we decided to do after our first dig, seemed strange given we exposed ourselves to a new ball and adverse batting conditions up front when England put a poor batting performance together.

To me it seemed extremely bullish in light of our bowling being our strength and batting a bit of a weakness. I get the bowlers may have been tired and in need of management, but if I wanted to get a quick result to demoralise England it would have been through putting them in again.

It's almost as if our batting is without purpose unless the situation is direly obvious to them. The only task was to get through Monday night and hold firm until Tuesday evening, but we put in a lazy performance.

We can argue which situation would have been better for us to work through, but 138 was bloody pathetic and put us at unnecessary risk of losing the game with a new ball and potential for it to move around wasted Tuesday night.

[Sedat]

Re: The Ashes: 2nd Test - December 2nd 2017 - Adelaide

We bowled England out for 233, and we were about 213 in front on the first innings - forget about Australia chasing 150 odd in the 4th innings, England would have been lucky to reach 100 batting under lights against the new ball.