OFFICIAL 2025/26 ASHES THREAD

[Des Parrot]

Re: OFFICIAL 2025/26 ASHES THREAD

An absolute disaster for the Melbourne ground staff.

Arguably their biggest sporting event and they produce a wicket so in favour of the bowlers its all over in 2 days.

I wonder how much the refunds will come to?

Around 12M Aus$ for days 3 & 4 apparently, coupled with Perth, the ACB will be down roughly 20M$

[The Bloop]

Re: OFFICIAL 2025/26 ASHES THREAD

Any faint hopes anyone may have had of Asa Tribe playing in the 5th Test can forget them now. Hes about to bat for the Paarl Royals in the SA20 competition. Hes in at 5 with his team 10-3. Live on Sky Sports Cricket ch504.

[bluesp]

Re: OFFICIAL 2025/26 ASHES THREAD

Any faint hopes anyone may have had of Asa Tribe playing in the 5th Test can forget them now. Hes about to bat for the Paarl Royals in the SA20 competition. Hes in at 5 with his team 10-3. Live on Sky Sports Cricket ch504.

He top scored as they were 49 all out!

[Hilts]

Re: OFFICIAL 2025/26 ASHES THREAD

Just seen the Duckett video.

What an absolute knob head that guy who filmed him is.

Complete cnut filming him like that. A feckin Englishman as well.

[poc]

Re: OFFICIAL 2025/26 ASHES THREAD

atkinson out now not that it matters :xmaswave:

[Mr Ducie]

Re: OFFICIAL 2025/26 ASHES THREAD

https://x.com/noticernews/status/2006930785002205512?s=61&t=opXYWu2ILhmySD2aRt-GNg

Uzi has announced his retirement

Great interview

[Hilts]

Re: OFFICIAL 2025/26 ASHES THREAD

In a series of dismal dismissals I think Jamie Smiths tops the lot.

Hes had a terrible series.

[poc]

Re: OFFICIAL 2025/26 ASHES THREAD

In a series of dismal dismissals I think Jamie Smiths tops the lot.

Hes had a terrible series.

it was ,but hes one of bens boys so should keep his place

[the other bob wilson]

Re: OFFICIAL 2025/26 ASHES THREAD

I remember David Gower, rightly, getting slaughtered for getting caught playing a lazy hook shot off the last ball before lunch in a test match at Adelaide I think it was, but that shot by Smith is at a whole different level.

I’ve been watching test cricket for about sixty years and, for the first fifty of them, you just did not see shots like the one Smith played. I don’t think I’m a ruddy duddy o n this because I accept that T20 especially has brought certain shots into the mainstream and that’s a good thing.

However, there’s context and Smith’s aberration came with Joe Root playing what could have become a match winning innings and still with specialist batsmen to come - the chance was there to get to 500. Worst of all though was he did it against a part time bowler who was using his second or third favourite bowling style, Labuschagne was sending down medium paced bouncers, it was joke bowling of the sort a village cricketer would have been embarrassed to have got out to.

[MacAdder]

Re: OFFICIAL 2025/26 ASHES THREAD

England's ill fortunes continuing in the 1st session of the 3rd day with Jacks dropping a routine catch (one of 4 put down in the session) on the boundary, Travis Head now making him pay, unbeaten on 162.
Head's looking very comfortable playing every shot in the book, taking Potts in particular to the cleaners.
England have used up all their reviews and Aus have plenty of batting to come with Smith looking good too.
Graeme Swan's commentary still harbouring a tinge of hope for England winning it.
Deluded or just trying to keep people up?
If there is to be a result it's more likely Aus to make a big score then bowl England out!

[the other bob wilson]

Re: OFFICIAL 2025/26 ASHES THREAD

After another day of two out of ten bowling and dropped dolly catches, I'm more convinced than ever that the general standard of play in this series has been as poor as in any Ashes series I can remember. Clearly, England are more responsible for that than Australia who can offer the excuse that they've been without three very influential bowlers for most of, and, in Hazelwood's case, all of the series.

Nathan Lyon's absence means that, sadly, spin bowling has largely been ignored with England, laughably, deciding they could not risk playing the "specialist" spinner they decided to put all of their money on, so to speak - to be fair to them, the England cupboard is probably as bare as it's ever been as far as test quality spin bowling is concerned mind.

Let's not fall into the trap of saying that this England squad is better than it's recent predecessors to tour Australia because at least they won a test over there. Stuart Broad has copped a lot of flak for his pre tour claim that this was the worst Australian team to face England at home since 2010/11, but I agree with him, so what does that make this England team? I keep on hearing that this is a talented group of players, maybe they are, but where is the gamer intelligence and the tactical flexibility which was a prerequisite in the longest form of the game before "Bazball"?

Which England players have excelled on this tour or, at least played to expectations? Archer maybe and possibly Tongue among the bowlers. As for the batsmen, Root's two centuries means he has probably performed to expectations and Crawley is almost being regarded as a success because he has played to his, very low for an opening batsman, test average! Duckett, Pope and Smith have flopped dismally, Stokes seems to have gone back as a batter in recent series, Bethell has tried to make the most of an impossible task after being handled abysmally by the England hierarchy in the past year and, Brook, in. some ways the biggest culprit of them all, still undersells his great talent by thinking that flashy 30s and 40s followed by cheap dismissals is somehow good enough The inclusion of Jacks, who has done okay as a batsman who has always had to try to put out fires, but offered nothing as a bowler id a testimony to how unreliable the England batting has been against a second string Aussie attack - three or four players apart (e.g. Head, Smith, Carey and Starc), Australia haven't been great, but they've been plenty good enough to beat a disorganised and often arrogant rabble that have been embarrassingly poor for much of the five tests.

[Mr Ducie]

Re: OFFICIAL 2025/26 ASHES THREAD

Looks like Stokes and his manager should have listened to the “ has beens “

Stokes seems muddled and out of his depth

[The Bloop]

Re: OFFICIAL 2025/26 ASHES THREAD

Earlier bazball if I recall included quirky field placements based on research into each batter, with bowlers skillful enough to adapt as needed. There doesn't seem to be any of that, and neither have the bowlers got the skills to adapt.
Greg Chapel was right in that the theory of bazball is great (score quickly to give your own bowlers more time to take 20 wickets), but the application by the current England team is woefully short of the ability to do either aspect effectively.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: OFFICIAL 2025/26 ASHES THREAD

Earlier bazball if I recall included quirky field placements based on research into each batter, with bowlers skillful enough to adapt as needed. There doesn't seem to be any of that, and neither have the bowlers got the skills to adapt.
Greg Chapel was right in that the theory of bazball is great (score quickly to give your own bowlers more time to take 20 wickets), but the application by the current England team is woefully short of the ability to do either aspect effectively.

I agree that Bazball can work and has worked in the past, but a big reason why it hasn't been lately is that the batsmen have been giving more than enough time for the bowlers to take twenty wickets, but nowhere near enough time for them to have a rest between innings'. It's little wonder that England's bowlers have been dropping like flies when they've often been given just two sessions rest - there have been too many occasions in. recent years where the opposition's first innings ends in the morning session and they're starting their second before the day is out.

Well done to Jacob Bethell today for putting the rest of the team to shame by showing his more experienced team mates how it could and should be done - he's scored his runs today at a healthy rate of 61 per 100 balls enabling the team to score at over four an over, but Bethell's 232 balls faced is more than half of the 450 balls the England innings has taken up. As for the other nine batsmen (Tongue hasn't batted yet), the next best is Duckett with a mere 55. I've not seen any of the wickets yet, but, listening to the radio, it sounds like the dismissals of Crawley, Brook, Jacks and Smith were all avoidable or careless. Batters should be got out in test cricket - this format has been going for nearly 150 years now and it's only in the last three or four years that England have changed the way it's played to at times completely brainless batting, bowling and decision making.

[FormerlyJohnnyBreadhead]

Re: OFFICIAL 2025/26 ASHES THREAD

Jamie Smith expertly completes his "dumb ways to get out" bingo card for the series. Marnus must be living in his head rent-free.