The Ashes 2013

[Tyga]

The way the summer weather has been so far down here hot weatrher may be a stretch. Hopefully no rain at least. Wouldn't surprise me if England won one of the Melbourne or Sydney tests on the slower pitches but can't see them winning in Perth.

 

[Perth Bambi]

I don't think they were as much scared of Johnson in the second test as in the first. In the first i think it took them by surprise and they didn't have a clue what to do. In the second i feel they tried to beat him at his own game and failed at it. It was like watching Tin Cup trying to get the ball over the water. It was as if they thought if we hook him and get a 6 or a 4 a few times he will stop bowling the bouncer. Only problem was they never got those 4s

 

[Beefy]

Anyone want tickets for Boxing Day?

 

[GrumpyBlue]

Have not read all the thread so this may have been covered.

People (particularily the media) forget that although we won the ashes in the summer - we got out of jail so many times mostly due to Ian Bell and the fact that the Aussies played worse than us.

The Aussies have raised their game and we are bumbling along without the help of good scores from the batsmen

A bit simplistic I admit but not so far from the truth :'(

 

[Beefy]

I always fancied Australia to win but that doesn't excuse the embarrassing performances in all but maybe two sessions of this series. Losing the toss hasn't helped either.

 

[Ricey]

Ian Botham seemed to think we would win 5-0 I'm sure it was a slip up and meant they would win 5-0.

 

[Perth Bambi]

To be fair we didn't exactly coast through against a poor New Zealand test side. This I feel may be the end of an era for a very successful English cricket team. Cook is a good batsman but clearly a poor captain, problem being we do not have any stand put candidates either. Anderson has been boing likely and we clearly don't have much in the form if replacements for our bowlers. Swan and Anderson do not have conditions that suit them and are struggling at the mo. At least broad was putting in a bit of aggression and effort.

 

[Shrimper in India]

Cook out first ball in our second innings, this could be all over by the end of today. Don't know whether to laugh or cry. Where is the fight? I know the summer result flattered us but this is just awful.

 

[yogi bear up the cagire]

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust..............................if this was a boxing contest, they'd have stopped it some while back.

 

[Grayson]

Never mind. Sometimes in sport you lose. This will just make the next home series even better.

Will be interesting to see where England go from here. I assume Flower will resign, as he's seemed at the end of his tether anyway. I wonder if any players will call it a day too. Certainly the Test side need a good 3-4 months off.

 

[Uncle Leo]

Never mind. Sometimes in sport you lose. This will just make the next home series even better.

I was trying to comfort myself with that thought while listening to TMS this morning. Big summer against the Lankans and India coming up too.

Defeats I can cope with - following England during the late 1980s and all the 1990s got me very accustomed to that! - but the utterly abject nature of these defeats has been hard to stomach. At least Stokes has put up a bit of a fight today, but we're feeding off scraps here.

 

[Beefy]

I hope we can put up some sort of fight the rest of the series. This has been embarrassing from 11,000 miles away but two more Tests like this will be a thousand times worse when surrounded by gloating convicts.

 

[Perth Bambi]

Try working with them everyday. KP selfish again today and we are at the stage now where him being in the team is actually becoming detrimental

 

[superblue24]

Try working with them everyday. KP selfish again today and we are at the stage now where him being in the team is actually becoming detrimental

It's not even like it's the first time this series. Practically every innings has presented a battle, and every time he has come up short through his ego. If ever there was a time for him to go out and think "right, I'm going to play the most sensible innings of my life here and save this match", it was last night.....What did he do? Try to take on the spinner and launch him for 6....Idiot!

 

[Clinton Baptiste]

Flower and Gooch must surely depart. Our batting has been hopeless for a while and our bowlers are coached by an Aussie!

 

[C C Csiders]

Flower and Gooch must surely depart. Our batting has been hopeless for a while and our bowlers are coached by an Aussie!

It started in New Zealand last winter. We had been so positive against India earlier that winter and then a change came where we decided caution was teh way forward. I would like to see what ourrun rate has been since then - I would think less than 2.5 when previously we were scoring at in excess of 3 an over for a good 5-6 years. It seemed to coincide with the Cook/Compton opening combo where both players scoring rates are Boycott-esque.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

It started in New Zealand last winter. We had been so positive against India earlier that winter and then a change came where we decided caution was teh way forward. I would like to see what ourrun rate has been since then - I would think less than 2.5 when previously we were scoring at in excess of 3 an over for a good 5-6 years. It seemed to coincide with the Cook/Compton opening combo where both players scoring rates are Boycott-esque.

It started in the UAE the winter before, where we were whitewashed. Same thing happened: decent effort from bowlers but we struggled to score 200 runs.

We then drew with Sri Lanka and lost at home to South Africa.

 

[Shrimpers are Magic]

I've been in a state of shock since the second day at Brisbane. This is a nightmare but one sadly I saw coming a while ago.

 

[Grayson]

The slow run rate goes back to when Strauss lost form and soon after retired. No opener has been able to help lay a solid foundation with Cook since then. That pair were perfect together because bowlers struggled to get consistency against them - Strauss loved anything wide and Cook loved anything on the pads.

 

[Shrimper in India]

Just when it seems all over they go and give you something to hope for. It's the hope that kills you! Well done Ben Stokes on a superb century...can we hang on in the rest of the day...?!!