JamesM

Nothing controversial in your post. I don't think they did deserve to lose though as cricket matches are very often won or turned by individuals.

Are there better batsman out there than what is picked? If so then who are they?

Oink

I've watched the Stokes last 85 runs three times now and I still rear up at the end. Magnificent last wicket stand.

dave_j

I haven't a clue who's out there... but there's that niggle that pokes me in the ribs at night when for the umpteenth time I've told myself not to have drunk that last glass of wine.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results, and it applies to selectors as much as to wine drinkers.
How do you know whether there are better players on the test match stage if you don't give them a go.
All out for 67 speaks for itself.

scrubbedexpat134

Jack leach, 1 run in 60 mins is the new Geoff Boycott, put him up the order to opener, cant be any worse than the opening pair they are picking at the moment.

Oakvillian

Reminded me more of Chris Tavaré, who played the stubborn, plodding foil to Botham's exuberance through the 1981 series. A properly old-school No 3 bat, there to build an innings and hold and end with dogged reliability rather than all the flash-bang antics of the middle order. One of the most underrated players to have had a place in the Test side, IMO.

Of course, Tavaré wouldn't get in to the side today. The growth of the limited overs game and the slogfest of T20 mean that his style of quietly determined blocking has fallen completely out of favour. Few Test matches now last to stumps on day 4 unless the weather intervenes. Call me old-fashoined, but I can't help feeling the loss of the attritional, almost chess-like, defensive battles between batsman and bowler have diminished the 5-day game.

Hawkmoon77

Whilst I sympathise with your feelings, simply put, barring perhaps Sibley of Warks (who is only 23), there simply isn't any county cricketers demanding to be picked.
We should sort out the batting order for a start, and play Roy down the order, move Denly to open & let Root bat at 4.
Stokes scoring a ton is not a surprise, his technique is up there with Root & far superior to a lot of the specialist bats. The fact he is asked to bowl forces him down the order to have a rest

BristolUK

Yes, why? You'd have more of a case if you'd mentioned the review that Australia wasted on an obvious 'not out' and then couldn't use one when it was more important.
But that really makes no sense. In football it's the attackers job to score goals and the defenders job to defend them.
Did the fact that Mane failed to score for Liverpool at the weekend while centre back Matip did mean that Liverpool's strikers are a shambles? And the same for Arsenal with shambolic forwards failing to score while a defensive player did?

And in this particular match in which the earlier batsmen failed, two of them scored 77 and 50 while for Australia, two of theirs only scored 8 each in the first innings and the first two only got 19 and 0 in the second innings. It seems that opening or specialist batsmen for both teams didn't do very well.
The informed narrative part way through this match was that there were no better batsmen to choose from because, and not for the first time, focus has been on the limited overs game for which a different style is necessitated.

dave_j

A point well made.
Surely the primary task of batsmen is to ensure that they simply don't throw the game away and that they have the secondary task of racking up runs to ensure a win if at all possible.
I think that this policy has escaped those devising strategy and simply gambling the game away in an attempt to score runs as quickly as possible surely makes an inevitability of what we witnessed early on in the last test.
I might not know much about test cricket but I recognise that test cricket is a different game than the 1 day knockabout and players should be selected on that basis.

BristolUK

Deadly Derek!!

Note the number of players crowding the batsman



Derek Underwood traps John Inverarity lbw to secure a dramatic win

dave_j

I make no pretense to knowing much about cricket but, like the local GP who can't quite pick a good diagnosis, I can recognise symptoms of a problem and it's plain in this case that a score of 67 betrays a lack of appreciation and technique. You might have thought that having lost the first 2 wickets for 10, and a 3rd for 20 then subsequent batsmen would have sought to halt the slide. Either this wasn't appreciated or the skill level's too low. In either event there are some serious issues that the leading batsmen need to tackle because they demonstrate that the ashes are lost if the strategy is to rely on Stokes to save the game every time they take the field.

BristolUK

Or the opposition bowling was actually rather good. You know, it's what they're for.

But having lost the first 2 wickets for 10, then 20, then 34, 45 etc those same players in the second innings, having lost 2 wickets cheaply again - 15 runs - then added 126 runs, 18 and 86. They did exactly what you said they failed to do.

And in the first test, having lost the fifrst wicket cheaply, they then added 132

It's not like what your describing is unique to one team either. Apparently there have been over 50 test innings scoring fewer than England.

You can't just dismiss everything on one performance. Yes, 67 is poor. But the same 11 then got 362 and they did that when the pressure was really on. In the shambolic innings of 67 there were 10 players who failed to get to double figures. 8 Australians also failed to do that.

Sometimes things just go wrong.

dave_j

I agree that I'm criticizing from the viewpoint of someone who can criticize from a level of gross ignorance.
I also agree that sometimes the bowlers perform well and batsmen badly, but is that a good enough excuse for a poor performance?
World champions perform consistently well. They arrange their lives to ensure that this will be the case. I wonder to what extent the social aspects of cricket interfere with performance.
I strongly suspect that other countries probably suffer the same malaise.
Has cricket become a too comfortable way of life? If so, beware the lean, hungry and dedicated also-rans who've been derided until now, if that is they'll be let into the club.

scrubbedexpat134

And not a helmet in sight

Oakvillian

Excellent photo. A quick Google brings up the Getty library source with a caption listing the England team celebrating Underwood's dismissal of John Inverarity at The Oval in 1968. From L to R: Illingworth, Graveney, Edrich, Dexter, Cowdrey, Underwood, Knott, Snow, Brown, Milburn and D'Oliveira.

I'm trying to work out where they were all fielding. It's a bit hard to work out because of the foreshortening from that camera angle. Inverarity, Wikipedia tells me, was a right-hand bat but left-arm-orthodox bowler. So Underwood has been bowling left-arm round the wicket into the sticky rough stuff in front of leg stump. Illingworth is standing in the gully, Graveney and Cowdrey at slip (3 and 1, I'd guess), Edrich at silly point, Dexter at short extra cover or possibly silly mid-off; the on-side field is a little more difficult to decipher. Snow as silly mid-on, Brown at short leg, Milburn at backward short leg and d'Oliveira at leg gully in for the wrong'un? I can't imagine a Test today where you'd have all 9 fielders that close around the bat, and only two in front of square. It was really a very different game back then.

scrubbedexpat134

Imagine if back then there was T20 cricket, hows this for an England top order, Boycott, Edrich, Tavare, Steel, Brearly and Taylor.