[Cricket] Ashes 3rd Test: farewell to the WACA?

[Gazz15]

This thread should be retitled : Ashes 3rd Test: farewell to England?

 

[silverwizard]

Good point made about SA but generally speaking England do well at home where our seamers can create havoc against batsmen who lack experience of facing it. Overseas it's usually hard going for our seamers except on rare occasions when conditions suit as they did on the evening of day 3 when the pink ball was employed. Otherwise it's pace and/or spin that prevails and England lack both.

 

[Gwylan]

Good point made about SA but generally speaking England do well at home where our seamers can create havoc against batsmen who lack experience of facing it. Overseas it's usually hard going for our seamers except on rare occasions when conditions suit as they did on the evening of day 3 when the pink ball was employed. Otherwise it's pace and/or spin that prevails and England lack both.

And it's precisely because our seamers create havoc that we struggle to bring on pace and spin. Why find 90mph bowlers when an 80mph wobbler can get wickets?

 

[BensGrandad]

South Africa won in Australia just last winter

Australia are nothing special at home these days

But still much too good for us. I asked on another thread but nobody answered has Tim Curran been considered for a place as he semed to do well in the tour match last week. Is he competition for Woakes spot as the allrounder.in the absence of Stokes who incidentally isnt doing that well in N.Z.

 

[Eeyore]

But still much too good for us. I asked on another thread but nobody answered has Tim Curran been considered for a place as he semed to do well in the tour match last week. Is he competition for Woakes spot as the allrounder.in the absence of Stokes who incidentally isnt doing that well in N.Z.

Woakes well ahead of both the Curran boys in the longer format. Neither would be selected for their bowling alone.

 

[BensGrandad]

Woakes well ahead of both the Curran boys in the longer format. Neither would be selected for their bowling alone.

As I said I do not follow the County scene that close and was just asking as obviously we need to do something to stop them.

 

[HAILSHAM SEAGULL]

South Africa won in Australia just last winter

EDIT: I should add that they were missing De Villiers, their best batsman, and their opening bowler, Steyn, went off injured in the 1st test.

Australia are nothing special at home these days

Totaly agree, the Aussies are very average......just the fact that England are two levels below average.
Nathan Lyons is very mediocre, but selecting 6 left handers makes him look special...he aint, what did he do a Worcester last year...f/all.

 

[Gwylan]

Nathan Lyons is very mediocre, but selecting 6 left handers makes him look special...he aint, what did he do a Worcester last year...f/all.

Where does this idea come from that Lyon is mediocre? He has a test average of 31- that's not mediocre at all. Since the introduction of covered wickets there have been only about a dozen spinners, worldwide, with a better average (and nearly of those are Asian playing most of their cricket on some raging bunsens). He'll probably take 300 wickets in the next few months - no-one who takes that many is 'mediocre'

 

[OzMike]

Don't know which will be higher, the runs scored against Australia in Perth or the goals scored by Spurs tonight.
Going to pop into the club at 5ish to do 'Chase the Joker' and the bloke who runs it supports Tottingham, bound to kop a bit.

 

[Gwylan]

He'll probably take 300 wickets in the next few months - no-one who takes that many is 'mediocre'

Can't edit it now, but I meant reach, not take. Obviously,

 

[Garry Nelson's teacher]

I did some pre-match preparation today. I practiced turning over in bed and switching on the live coverage of the match on my bedside radio. I then practiced saying "f*ck it' very loudly ten times (at approx. 30 minute intervals) if England are batting and switching the thing off. If, on the other hand, the Aussies are batting I think I only need to roll-out this procedure once to ascertain this and then and sleep safe in the knowledge that we won't take a wicket until I wake up in the morning.

 

[HAILSHAM SEAGULL]

Where does this idea come from that Lyon is mediocre? He has a test average of 31- that's not mediocre at all. Since the introduction of covered wickets there have been only about a dozen spinners, worldwide, with a better average (and nearly of those are Asian playing most of their cricket on some raging bunsens). He'll probably take 300 wickets in the next few months - no-one who takes that many is 'mediocre'

Perhaps mediocre is unfair. Yes he has a good haul of wickets, mostly in Oz and the Asia. He hasnt set the world alight in England, New Zealand or South Africa.
He is hardly a Shane Warne or Murili that could bowl out a team anywhere in the world.
Picking six lefties is bread and butter to him on their wickets.

 

[Audax]

very unlikely and the pitch will be like concrete so Starc can get our lads wetting themselves again.

Apparently it's not as hard as we'd like, which means we are now waiting until the morning before choosing whether to play Mitch Marsh or Handscomb. It the pitch is softer than normal, we'll need the extra bowling option. (Not to mention, at this point Marsh can't be any worse a batting choice than Handscomb, who looks to have had his technique 'found out' by Anderson/Broad.

South Africa won in Australia just last winter

EDIT: I should add that they were missing De Villiers, their best batsman, and their opening bowler, Steyn, went off injured in the 1st test.

Australia are nothing special at home these days

South Africa came to Aus and played unbelievably well, alongside catching the Aussies at their lowest ebb in a long, long time. The key for SA is that their bowlers could get the Kookaburra ball swinging in all of the games we played, and they exploited weaknesses to swing in our batting ruthlessly.

We're a stronger squad now, though I will accept we've still got significant weaknesses in the squad. That was proven in our second innings at Adelaide, where your bowlers got the pink ball moving. Unless they can get the red ball moving at the WACA, though, I don't see that collapse being repeated the same way that SA dismantled us repeatedly.

Good point made about SA but generally speaking England do well at home where our seamers can create havoc against batsmen who lack experience of facing it. Overseas it's usually hard going for our seamers except on rare occasions when conditions suit as they did on the evening of day 3 when the pink ball was employed. Otherwise it's pace and/or spin that prevails and England lack both.

This. Your bowlers are struggling to use the red Kookaburra in Aussie conditions the same way the Aussie bats struggle against a red Duke in English conditions.

Ultimately I think Australia's current away-from-home batting struggles are due to increasing homogenisation of the Australian pitches. The WACA is still the quickest, bounciest pitch ... but it's not as bouncy or quick as it once was. The SCG still takes the most turn, but no where near as much as it used to. Adelaide is still a road, but not as much as it used to be. etc etc. Our Shield bats are no longer being exposed to significant variation in pitch conditions the way they were in the 80's and 90's when we produced a conveyor belt of top home-and-away bats. The worst part of that being that they're not seeing anywhere near enough of swinging conditions, and the loss of the spinning SCG pitch is costing us when we travel to the subcontinent.

Totaly agree, the Aussies are very average......just the fact that England are two levels below average.
Nathan Lyons is very mediocre, but selecting 6 left handers makes him look special...he aint, what did he do a Worcester last year...f/all.

Perhaps mediocre is unfair. Yes he has a good haul of wickets, mostly in Oz and the Asia. He hasnt set the world alight in England, New Zealand or South Africa.
He is hardly a Shane Warne or Murili that could bowl out a team anywhere in the world.
Picking six lefties is bread and butter to him on their wickets.

Are you one of the Aussie selectors? They seem to think the same as you, the way they've messed around with his career. This reputation follows him around like a bad smell, but it's a reputation earned from his early years thrown into the Aussie team as a very young spinner because there was literally no one else available. He's only 30, which means (theoretically) his best years as a spinner are still ahead of him. There's 3 spinners ahead of him in the bowler rankings: two from India who are roughly of an age with Lyon (Jadeja, 29, and Ashwin, 31), and one from SL who's significantly older (Herath at 39). Note they're all playing the majority of their cricket in spin-friendly conditions, unlike Lyon.

Lyon's clearly not a Warne or Murali level spinner, sure. He's a very different type of spinner to those guys, though, and what he's showing in this series so far is that he has value well beyond the wickets he takes. His economy has been brilliant, which has helped build the pressure that has allowed all three quicks to press the attack. And as much as the majority of his wickets have been lefties, he can only bowl to the guys put in front of him and your top order is lefty-heavy. Might have been a bit of a silly selection choice knowing you'd be coming to Australia's backyard and facing Lyon.

At the end of the day, so far in this series one of the major differences between the two sides has been Lyon. He's taken key wickets and he's kept the scoring rate down in a way that your leading spin option has completely failed to achieve.

 

[Brovion]

Audax, are you sure you''re Australian? That was a very reasoned post and never once veered into "You're ****ing shit mate and we're gonna thrash you again!" territory - which you'd be more than entitled to do frankly seeing as it contains a large element of accuracy.