Moen Ali

[essex boy]

The problem with your mindset is that you focus almost entirely on the things you don't like. Why not look at all the brilliant stuff that happened as well ?

It's such a common and miserable trait. I mean I'm a right negative bastard but even I can look at the series as a whole and say it was enjoyable and there were plenty of moments of brilliance.

I suppose we could go back to not even attempting to chase down 250 in a full days play as happened under Root if that's your preference

Sure fair point. I am hugely disappointed that we did not win the series as we should won fairly comfortably IMO. To my mind Australia have a very ordinary batting line up and were missing Lyon for three tests ie, even Smith is past his absolute best

Things I liked in this series were (off the top of my head) :
Joe Root having a good series against Australia which was important for his legacy. A joy to watch in full flow
Stokes showing consistency with the bat
Broad going out in style
Wood's bowling - love watching a genuine quick (Head and Khawaja were never the same players)
Woakes - Exceeding all my expectations
Crawley been the best bat on either side IMO
The long room argument
Careys dismissal of Bairstow (I thought it was great thinking cue the abuse)

To stand any chance of winning in Australia, a couple of key changes need to be made IMO:

1. The tour schedule - we need two warm up games, a practice game mid series and as few back to back tests as possible to allow our bowlers time to recuperate. We usually get spanked for 500 so they need more rest time between tests
2. The less experienced tour members need to be found club sides to play for two months or so before the first test so they are used to conditions (grade cricket is like div 2 CC so if Smith does it so should our batters)
3. We need to pick at least two genuine quicks each test and some like the WACA maybe even 3

 

[rentaghost]

Watching the likes of Duckett, Ali, Jimmy at times and some of Bairstow's keeping in this series has at times resembled watching county cricket

Our batting in the second test at Lords was like watching a club first XI

Entertaining to watch but poor quality.

Sure fair point. I am hugely disappointed that we did not win the series as we should won fairly comfortably IMO. To my mind Australia have a very ordinary batting line up and were missing Lyon for three tests ie, even Smith is past his absolute best

Things I liked in this series were (off the top of my head) :
Joe Root having a good series against Australia which was important for his legacy. A joy to watch in full flow
Stokes showing consistency with the bat
Broad going out in style
Wood's bowling - love watching a genuine quick (Head and Khawaja were never the same players)
Woakes - Exceeding all my expectations
Crawley been the best bat on either side IMO
The long room argument
Careys dismissal of Bairstow (I thought it was great thinking cue the abuse)

To stand any chance of winning in Australia, a couple of key changes need to be made IMO:

1. The tour schedule - we need two warm up games, a practice game mid series and as few back to back tests as possible to allow our bowlers time to recuperate. We usually get spanked for 500 so they need more rest time between tests
2. The less experienced tour members need to be found club sides to play for two months or so before the first test so they are used to conditions (grade cricket is like div 2 CC so if Smith does it so should our batters)
3. We need to pick at least two genuine quicks each test and some like the WACA maybe even 3

Khawaja has batted all over the world averages 47 in test cricket. He averaged above that in this series.
Smith is an all time great who would be selected in the best Australian team if all time.
Labashagne is a class player.
Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood are an attack that would do well in any era of test cricket. Lyon was injured of course is a high class performer and would have been in any area.

I reckon the vast majority of cricket fans, pundits and experts would agree with all of the above. Just because a nugget from Essex thinks differently doesn’t make it right.

At times their bowlers have looked quite poor but that isn’t down to their lack of quality which is proven but down to the pressure our batsmen put in them starting with Crawley and Duckett.

 

[essex boy]

Khawaja has batted all over the world averages 47 in test cricket. He averaged above that in this series.
Smith is an all time great who would be selected in the best Australian team if all time.
Labashagne is a class player.
Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood are an attack that would do well in any era of test cricket. Lyon was injured of course is a high class performer and would have been in any area.

I reckon the vast majority of cricket fans, pundits and experts would agree with all of the above. Just because a nugget from Essex thinks differently doesn’t make it right.

At times their bowlers have looked quite poor but that isn’t down to their lack of quality which is proven but down to the pressure our batsmen put in them starting with Crawley and Duckett.

I remain unconvinced by Khawaja and Laba. Khawaja did not look the same player once Wood played (he barely bowled at the Oval)

Agree the Australian attack is decent. The same pundits were mostly in agreement with the nugget from Essex that the overall quality was not great

 

[rentaghost]

I remain unconvinced by Khawaja and Laba. Khawaja did not look the same player once Wood played (he barely bowled at the Oval)

Agree the Australian attack is decent. The same pundits were mostly in agreement with the nugget from Essex that the overall quality was not great

Khawaja isn’t even debateable averaging 47 in 70 tests and just exceeding it in this series. So he struggled against someone bowling 95mph rockets so what? KP struggled against left arm orthodox slow bowlers. Essex very own Graham Gooch against Terry Alderman. Hayden against Hoggard. Essentially every batsmen ever has struggled against someone. Khawaja’s record is there in black and white. He’s a very good player.