Australia 🇦🇺 v England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 3rd Test - Boxing Day - MCG

[Pepe]

Poms display has surprised me and many down here because Australia aren’t great. Was expecting a more even series.

Obviously batting is far and away the issue.

Don’t think they have a natural leader either. Root doesn’t seem to have great instincts as a skipper and makes some puzzling moves. You have to attack, attack, attack, attack with the ball and in the field and he sometimes appears to go for the defensive option instead. The game is about taking 20 wickets.

In any case if your batsmen play like that you have nothing to defend anyway. Root and Malan aside they’ve been frail. Obviously Stokes keeps a spot too but the rest of the top 6, who tf knows

Whilst I don’t herald Root as a Captain you have contradicted yourself there, saying batting is the issue and then calling him out for setting defensive fields. There is no Captain in Cricket who is setting attacking fields when he knows his team will be lucky to get 200.
Ultimately, the English & Wales Cricket Board is not fit for business.

 

[TheRey]

I’m being serious I’d seriously fine everyone one of them say 50% of their match fee for a performance like that

no professional certainly international team should be bowled out for least over a hundred

68 sixty fuuucking eight seriously

I'd fine the batsman. The bowlers did well to get us back in the game.

So England’s top scorers in 2021 end up being

Root 1508
Burns 510
Extras 412

Imagine dropping your second top run scorer for Zak f***ing Crawley

 

[Wayne The Punk]

Went to bed at 2, we were in a promising position. Woke up and we're fucked again.

So happy I never got up for that surrender

 

[rentaghost]

I'd fine the batsman. The bowlers did well to get us back in the game.

Imagine dropping your second top run scorer for Zak f***ing Crawley

Burns deserved to be dropped in terms of his performances and England need to look elsewhere after 30 tests. However out there he is the best if a very bad bunch and should be selected on that basis.

 

[TheRey]

Burns deserved to be dropped in terms of his performances and England need to look elsewhere after 30 tests. However out there he is the best if a very bad bunch and should be selected on that basis.

As I said at the time, he can have no qualms about being dropped.

But even without hindsight, dropping your second top run scorer for Zak f***ing Crawley is like turning down a threesome with Megan Fox and Mila Kunis to finger Susan Boyle by the bins outside a nightclub

 

[Mr Redknapp]

Root saying they need to restore pride to end the tour well, that's what the old England team used to do. Win when the pressure was off and I this team isn't good enough to do that. All this rest and rotation for a t20 World Cup that Australia won

At least they were batting on one leg in nets because they would have looked silly
1 test win out of 12 under Silverwood.

 

[hank evans]

Root saying they need to restore pride to end the tour well, that's what the old England team used to do. Win when the pressure was off and I this team isn't good enough to do that

At least they were batting on one leg in nets because they would have looked silly
1 test win out of 12 under Silverwood.

The one leg in the nets thing I can sort of understand. Would help balance and hand eye coordination. But and this is a big but,if you go out to bat on 2 feet all that practice is wasted because it’s totally different. So may I suggest this wacky idea of practicing to bat on 2 feet?

 

[Boo]

I honestly think it's to do with the class/private school system. The old boys club in England does no good at all. We need to invest in cricket in state schools to ensure we're getting the best players no matter what their background.

This is totally right. Much agonising today - and rightly so - about the devaluation of red ball cricket, management styles and so on. But cricket in this country suffers most from the class system.
At one point, the England team included only one player from a private education background (Strauss, at the time). But cricket remains an elite sport and this can only serve to reduce the pool of talent.

 

[chunkyshanhawk53]

As I said at the time, he can have no qualms about being dropped.

But even without hindsight, dropping your second top run scorer for Zak f***ing Crawley is like turning down a threesome with Megan Fox and Mila Kunis to finger Susan Boyle by the bins outside a nightclub

That’s quite the imagination you have

 

[Rokerparkpies]

That’s quite the imagination you have

My goodness...the mind boggles!!

 

[The Hesford Diet]

It's been the perfect storm this year. England ploughing through test series home and away while Australia put their feet up, County Championship reduced to an afterthought, no competitive cricket at all from September to the First Test, no warm-up due to Covid restrictions. We never stood a chance.

The bowlers never let us down. They gave everything and did have Australia in trouble every now and then.

The batters? Root, Malan, maybe Stokes were okay. The lack of match practice and confidence in the rest of them was brutally exposed by a good, but not great, Australian attack.

The fielding was horrendous at times, too. There were a couple dropped that Abu Hamza would've caught with eyes shut and hand tied up.

I even felt sorry for Zak Crawley. Not lifted a bat anywhere for 3 months, then thrown to the lions - and the selectors really thought he'd come in from the cold and do the job nobody else has been able to do?

This has been the most ill prepared touring party I've ever known. No wonder the players have underperformed so lamentably.

 

[sonson]

I honestly think it's to do with the class/private school system. The old boys club in England does no good at all. We need to invest in cricket in state schools to ensure we're getting the best players no matter what their background.

And we now know that its a race thing as well.

This has been the most ill prepared touring party I've ever known. No wonder the players have underperformed so lamentably.

Aye but better preparation wouldn't have done much to the result. Papered over the cracks a bit is all. England have made collapses so routine over the Root era they barely deserve the term. A collapse is just "one of two English innings" at this point.

 

[doodlebugs]

As I said at the time, he can have no qualms about being dropped.

But even without hindsight, dropping your second top run scorer for Zak f***ing Crawley is like turning down a threesome with Megan Fox and Mila Kunis to finger Susan Boyle by the bins outside a nightclub

,experience comes to the fore

 

[Church]

It seems to me that red ball cricket is slowly dying in this country.
If I was a talented young player I've no doubt I would be more attracted to being paid millions in the sun doing the T20 circuit than flogging myself for 5 days in between drizzle spells for peanuts.

Unless red ball can compete financially, all the talent is going to walk away.

True.
We always like to point the finger at individuals, be it the captain in cricket or manager in football, but all of the players have contributed to this and it will not make a jot of difference sacking Root as Captain.

Test cricket is now the game for the purists whereas the one day versions provide more immediate fun for the wider population, and unless county cricket gets the backing to re-establish itself as important (which means supporting it financially because it earns next to nothing) then test cricket will continue to be of less importance.

Personally speaking Im pretty much done with test cricket and would rather see more action based versions of the game, although I do appreciate test crickets nuances (having spent many of my younger years caring greatly about it).

 

[Concordsafc]

As I said at the time, he can have no qualms about being dropped.

But even without hindsight, dropping your second top run scorer for Zak f***ing Crawley is like turning down a threesome with Megan Fox and Mila Kunis to finger Susan Boyle by the bins outside a nightclub

Would have rather put JB in at two than Crawley watch him be bowled through the gate.

Fact is our bowlers haven’t been bad in reality Australia won the last test with an average score that our bowlers clawed back to then watch an amazing 68

Bowlers not as much
Malan and root can take less flack than me but JR does at time look out of his depth

All the batsmen + buttler need looking into for me

I’m just broken I knew we were poor and I thought 5-0 but least some fight would have been nice.

 

[Mr Redknapp]

True.
We always like to point the finger at individuals, be it the captain in cricket or manager in football, but all of the players have contributed to this and it will not make a jot of difference sacking Root as Captain.

Test cricket is now the game for the purists whereas the one day versions provide more immediate fun for the wider population, and unless county cricket gets the backing to re-establish itself as important (which means supporting it financially because it earns next to nothing) then test cricket will continue to be of less importance.

Personally speaking Im pretty much done with test cricket and would rather see more action based versions of the game, although I do appreciate test crickets nuances (having spent many of my younger years caring greatly about it).

Funnily enough, I've found myself getting resentful towards the short forms because of the cannibalizing of the red ball game. The big series in the height of next summer is a whopping 3 Tests long!.

 

[Twisted]

But even without hindsight, dropping your second top run scorer for Zak f***ing Crawley is like turning down a threesome with Megan Fox and Mila Kunis to finger Susan Boyle by the bins outside a nightclub

This series has been a bit like turning up for a blind date imagining you'll be finger blasting Megan fox before the dessert only to find it's actually Susan Boyle, thinking balls to it I'll take her home anyway only to find your house has been invaded by polish cage fighters who take it in turns to Roger you senseless will Susan Boyle sticks pubes in your butter and spits in your milk

 

[The Great MES]

I honestly think the series was lost in the first session of the first match. They're just so mentally weak it's unreal.

 

[HarrogateMackem]

This is totally right. Much agonising today - and rightly so - about the devaluation of red ball cricket, management styles and so on. But cricket in this country suffers most from the class system.
At one point, the England team included only one player from a private education background (Strauss, at the time). But cricket remains an elite sport and this can only serve to reduce the pool of talent.

Sussex fielded a team with 10 players from private school this season. I'd challenge anyone to argue that doesn't demonstrate massive issues. No way could a handful of schools just so happen to have the best cricketers in the county. That no state school would have players with better skills and/or mentality if they were given the correct chances, coaching and facilities

 

[Boo]

Sussex fielded a team with 10 players from private school this season. I'd challenge anyone to argue that doesn't demonstrate massive issues. No way could a handful of schools just so happen to have the best cricketers in the county. That no state school would have players with better skills and/or mentality if they were given the correct chances, coaching and facilities

We had a chat about this once on this board and found that none of us had played cricket at school. At my comprehensive, we had only one bat and and a mismatched pair of gloves. So my only experience of playing the game was down the park after school. Unsurprisingly, me and my mates were pretty much the only cricket nuts in our year.