Cricket Thread

[supercity88]

I think I will wait for the toss and see who bowls first. It's a big toss to win and bowl with the pink ball

I don't see how England can turn this around from the last test ? Our batting was shocking in both innings and this pink ball moves both ways. Even if England puts away the Bazball and tries to bat and score, we will be sitting ducks.
What are the Odds for most LBW wickets in England's innings, This is so going to happen if they try batting ? lack of leg and feet movement will happen because all we know is swing from the hips.

Maybe Bazball will be the way to play in this test and England could get lucky, but I will not hold my breath

Ollie Pope did an interview with Nasser earlier which is worth a listen. This England side don't go out to intentionally give their wicket away or lose test matches. There's a balance. Australia literally showed both styles in their two innings. In the first they were patient and ended up scoring very few runs before being skittled. In the second they were aggressive, took risks but won the game.

We need to find the balance between putting the Aussies under pressure. If Starc is bowling really well, leave a few more. When they change bowlers look to attack them a bit more so he has to bowl again. Force them into different field settings, different tactics to profit and score runs. We saw England play traditional test cricket under Root. It took longer to bowl us out but we scored fewer runs.

What the hierarchy have tried to do is give players confidence and freedom. Brook doesn't walk out with the intention to chuck his wicket away. He has watched what's happening and backs himself to be able to deal with the situation and score runs, to force the Aussies to change their approach. What we need to do is be a bit more savvy and adapt as the game evolves. If we've got a good platform and they've got a field tempting us into big shots, knock it for 1s and 2s and build an innings slowly. We had the opportunity to go and win the first test with a good lead. The team know what they need to do in this second test but doing it is still the challenge. I think we've got a very good bowling attack for pink ball conditions and I'm going to remain hopeful until the end of this 2nd test. Lose it and I won't be watching much cricket this Christmas!

 

[domalino]

He has watched what's happening and backs himself to be able to deal with the situation and score runs, to force the Aussies to change their approach.

This is nonsense though (what Pope is saying). Every test batsman in history will tell you you can’t drive on the up outside off stump in Australia.

Pope, Root, Stokes, Crawley, Brook go out and drive outside off stump and gets out cheaply.

If one of the Eng batsmen had hit them all over the place driving outside offstump, Australia would have carried on bowling the same line and length because 100 years of history tells you it’ll get wickets eventually.

If they actually wanted Australia to change the way they were bowling, they’d have left every ball outside off stump until the Aussies got tired or started bowling at the stumps to try and get wickets, at which point you can hit them around. It takes about 30 overs.

Head left everything you should leave until England got tired and started bowling crap bouncers so he could hit them about.

This is the problem with Brook and Stokes, a week after the game they’ll give you a nice explanation of why they were right to throw away their wicket, but it doesn't change the fact they threw away their wickets. Last test 9 wickets in a session. Last India test 7 wickets lost for 50-odd runs, Lords India test 5 wickets for 40 runs.