On Wednesday, June 21, 2023 at 6:48:46 AM UTC+10, Richard Dixon wrote:
> What a match. Brilliant. And for those bleating about "the declaration" - a complete red herring.

Yeah, such a small issue. But some criticism is valid I think.

We had bigger issues with;

1. catching
2. 2nd inning batting
3. bowling to the tail
4. Not having a backup spinner and asking Ali to come back (I'm not blaming him at all, I think he did as well as we could hope)
5. taking wickets off no-balls

so I think in the end making a docile pitch came back to haunt England on the last day

Both sides lost 18 wickets with Australia scoring just one more run ( or was it 2 ) so not much between the 2 sides BUT England did gain an advantage with winning the toss. I dont think Anderson ( 1 wicket ) would be a great fan of the wicket. Maybe the way to stop "doctored wickets" is to give the visiting side the choice to bat or bowl ie. no coin toss

I didn't think Australia could beat England with the "2 crazies" scoring less then 40 runs. Still in the end the main difference was Lyons with 8 wickets v Ali with 3 wickets.

I can't recall Australia beating England in a tight match for a long time, still recall Thommo getting caught and losing the match in Melb, the last Ashes in England and those 2 matches we should have won which were made worse by England winning one of them.

All in all, England made this an exciting Test match with Oz just the other side that was playing BUT that "docile" wicket......nah

Will

On Wednesday, June 21, 2023 at 11:55:32 AM UTC+10, wlsut...@gmail.com wrote:
> so I think in the end making a docile pitch came back to haunt England on the last day

Yeah, good point.

Chasing on Day 5 was relatively easy.

On Wednesday, June 21, 2023 at 11:55:32 AM UTC+10, wlsut...@gmail.com wrote:
>Maybe the way to stop "doctored wickets" is to give the visiting side the choice to bat or bowl ie. no coin toss

I prefer my toss method;
1. if home team is ahead on the toss count... away team is awarded the next toss
2. otherwise, toss coin as normal

This allows SOME luck, as per tradition, but stops home teams winning tosses 5-0.

On Wednesday, June 21, 2023 at 11:49:32 AM UTC+10, jack fredricks wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 21, 2023 at 6:48:46 AM UTC+10, Richard Dixon wrote:
> > What a match. Brilliant. And for those bleating about "the declaration" - a complete red herring.
>
> Yeah, such a small issue. But some criticism is valid I think.
>
> We had bigger issues with;
>
> 1. catching
& stumping
> 2. 2nd inning batting
> 3. bowling to the tail
> 4. Not having a backup spinner and asking Ali to come back (I'm not blaming him at all, I think he did as well as we could hope)
and see the modified 1)
> 5. taking wickets off no-balls
I think there was only 1, we committed to that against India and didn't let it stop us.

In message <93d11c98-da27-450d-bdbc-28ff05f64a0bn@googlegroups.com>,
mike <dmike204@yahoo.co.uk> writes
>On Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at 8:01:540 >> In message <67e1febe-5536-4444...@googlegroups.com>,
>> mike <dmik...@yahoo.co.uk> writes
>> >they said 67 overs for today, and 21 have been bowled so far, with
>> >ozman doing his best, but surely they should try round the wkt to him.
>> Apparently he averages 72 when the bowling is round the wicket, 17 when
>> it's over the wicket. In spite of that they bowled round the wicket to
>> him quite a lot.
>> --
>
>yes i got that wrong i should have said over the wkt ;)
>no wonder he scored 206 runs and was deservedly MoM
>
>revenge for 2005 they say, but although i've been pessimistic since the
>declaration,
>at 228-8 i thought england would win it, but captain courageous and the
>goat saw
>them through. PC def led by example, Stokes would like to do so but his body
>wont let him.

Cummins was terrific. It's not often that a player makes an important
contribution in all four innings of the match. And Lyon did so in three
innings out of four.

>
>Some may love how entertaining this test was, but i dont remember Oz
>ever saying how wonderful the entertainment was when they lost in 2005.
>Personally i prefer test victories to glorious defeats however entertaining,
>and it will be v difficult to win 3 from 4. how often have we won the ashes
>from 1-0 down after the first?

Not often. 1954-5, 1981 and 2005 come to mind.

It doesn't bode well that, though Labuschagne and Smith failed in both
innings, England still lost. Those two surely won't be as obliging
again.
--
John Hall "[It was] so steep that at intervals the street broke into steps,
like a person breaking into giggles or hiccups, and then resumed
its sober climb, until it had another fit of steps."
Ursula K Le Guin "The Beginning Place"

In message <lg649id57cho4086fct68dsslefotso70v@4ax.com>, Mike Holmans
<spam@jackalope.uk> writes
<snip>
>I'm admiring how well they generally played, and I see no reason why
>they can't win any of the other Tests. But they showed the
>long-standing problem of having no idea how to bowl to a free-swinging
>tail-end. It has nothing to do with the philosophy governing their game
>plans: it is poor execution and some teams are ineffective when bowling
>at tails, England being very prone to it for at least a decade.

Whilst I agree with you, Lyon played and missed at three or four balls
from Broad that he might easily have edged behind. And of course if
Stokes had managed to hold on to that catch the result would almost
certainly have been different. (Not a criticism of Stokes; most of the
England team probably wouldn't even have got a hand to it.)
--
John Hall "[It was] so steep that at intervals the street broke into steps,
like a person breaking into giggles or hiccups, and then resumed
its sober climb, until it had another fit of steps."
Ursula K Le Guin "The Beginning Place"

In message <63e76d90-4e78-4c5a-a66d-2b8a488dfcbfn@googlegroups.com>,
jack fredricks <jzfredricks@gmail.com> writes
>On Wednesday, June 21, 2023 at 6:48:460 >> What a match. Brilliant. And for those bleating about "the
>>declaration" - a complete red herring.
>
>Yeah, such a small issue. But some criticism is valid I think.
>
>We had bigger issues with;
>
>1. catching
>2. 2nd inning batting
>3. bowling to the tail
>4. Not having a backup spinner and asking Ali to come back (I'm not
>blaming him at all, I think he did as well as we could hope)
>5. taking wickets off no-balls
>

For once, I'm in total agreement with you.
--
John Hall "[It was] so steep that at intervals the street broke into steps,
like a person breaking into giggles or hiccups, and then resumed
its sober climb, until it had another fit of steps."
Ursula K Le Guin "The Beginning Place"

In message <13331ff8-daf3-4f9e-be34-190e967cd8cen@googlegroups.com>,
"wlsut...@gmail.com" <wlsutton54@gmail.com> writes
>
>
>
>so I think in the end making a docile pitch came back to haunt England
>on the last day

I don't think the pitch was what England wanted, if you're suggesting it
was a deliberate tactic. Bazball would have been better suited by one
with more pace than this had. The nature of the pitch was shown by not a
single slip catch being taken off the pace bowlers, IIRC. Played on and
caught behind seemed the commonest forms of dismissal. Of course things
might have been different if more play had been under overhead
conditions like those that England batted in for about 20 minutes on the
second (or was it the third?) evening, which was the only time when the
ball did quite a lot.

>
>Both sides lost 18 wickets with Australia scoring just one more run (
>or was it 2 ) so not much between the 2 sides BUT England did gain an
>advantage with winning the toss. I dont think Anderson ( 1 wicket )
>would be a great fan of the wicket. Maybe the way to stop "doctored
>wickets" is to give the visiting side the choice to bat or bowl ie. no
>coin toss

I'm not sure that the toss had a major impact. There was a bit more spin
as the match progressed, but otherwise the pitch didn't seem to change
much. It's true that England opted to bat first when normally they
prefer to chase, but I think they expected the pitch to have more pace
and also to deteriorate more than proved to be the case.

>
>I didn't think Australia could beat England with the "2 crazies"
>scoring less then 40 runs. Still in the end the main difference was
>Lyons with 8 wickets v Ali with 3 wickets.

I feel the disparity would have been much less marked but for the
blister that Ali developed on his spinning finger. Without that, I think
he would probably have taken at least 3 wickets on the final day and
England would have won.

>
>I can't recall Australia beating England in a tight match for a long
>time, still recall Thommo getting caught and losing the match in Melb,
>the last Ashes in England and those 2 matches we should have won which
>were made worse by England winning one of them.

No, England have always seemed to win the tight matches for as far back
as I can remember.

>
>All in all, England made this an exciting Test match with Oz just the
>other side that was playing BUT that "docile" wicket......nah

Hopefully the one at Lord's will be different.
--
John Hall "[It was] so steep that at intervals the street broke into steps,
like a person breaking into giggles or hiccups, and then resumed
its sober climb, until it had another fit of steps."
Ursula K Le Guin "The Beginning Place"

On Wednesday, June 21, 2023 at 9:43:13 AM UTC+1, John Hall wrote:
> In message <93d11c98-da27-450d...@googlegroups.com>,
> mike <dmik...@yahoo.co.uk> writes
> >Personally i prefer test victories to glorious defeats however entertaining,
> >and it will be v difficult to win 3 from 4. how often have we won the ashes
> >from 1-0 down after the first?
>
> Not often. 1954-5, 1981 and 2005 come to mind.

true, so either we need an inspirational all rounder to turn hero, or
a really fast bowler. now which of these do we have?

>
> It doesn't bode well that, though Labuschagne and Smith failed in both
> innings, England still lost. Those two surely won't be as obliging
> again.

when i heard anderson he was on message with 'we can take so many positives
from this game' etc and stokes, 'we're very proud of what we've achieved here'
etc, but actually this is a positive: they managed to dismiss SS & marnus
cheaply in both innings. i dunno how many tests oz have won recently without
either of them scoring at least a 50, but 1 of them usually do well. now if only they
can work out how to do that again and KWJ at lords, well they might have
something to crow about. But they bat all the way down and theres no disgrace
to losing to this oz team becos they clearly are very good. I just hope its not
going to be every match, becos england had a great chance here.

mike

On 21/06/2023 02:55, wlsut...@gmail.com wrote:
> Both sides lost 18 wickets with Australia scoring just one more run (

[Of course, it is rather common for teams winning while batting
last to score just one more run; occasionally up to -- ooh! -- six!]

> or was it 2 ) so not much between the 2 sides BUT England did gain an
> advantage with winning the toss.

Just to point out that this match conforms to the "Hitting
Against The Spin" point that, statistically, it's a /disadvantage/
to win the toss [absurd as that is from the PoV of Game Theory] and
[separately] to bat first. If we had bowled first and the game had
gone essentially the same way, it is almost inconceivable that we
would have lost.

--
Andy Walker, Nottingham.
Andy's music pages: www.cuboid.me.uk/andy/Music
Composer of the day: www.cuboid.me.uk/andy/Music/Composers/Lange

On Wed, 21 Jun 2023 01:55:24 +0100, Mike Holmans <spam@jackalope.uk>
wrote:

>On Wed, 21 Jun 2023 00:29:52 -0000 (UTC), alvey
><Paddy.O.Furniture@Coast.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Has anyone said, "Cricket's the winner..."?
>
>I haven't seen/heard Mark Nicholas's opinion and shall be on the alert
>so I don't, but he's an extremely likely suspect.

Unfortunately it was only halfway through a piece on Cricinfo that I
realised he'd written it, but he did not use the exact phrase.
However, my morning paper used it as it's second lede on the FP.

Cheers,

Mike

On Wednesday, 21 June 2023 at 02:49:32 UTC+1, jack fredricks wrote:

> 3. bowling to the tail

'twas always thus. And it made me chuckle as I'd read somewhere that this was a weaker Aus tail than usual. And the no-ball stuff is absolute village !

When it comes down to it - 2005 Edgbaston, 2013 Trent Bridge and 2019 Headingley squeaky bum finishes all went England's way. Can't win 'em all.

Richard