Looks like it’s raining.
The final Ashes Test: can Mason Crane save us? Does anyone still care? 🦗
Scagden
#7
How come it’s raining in Australia? I thought it was a land of eternal scorching heat and creatures who wanted to kill you?
OceanStorm
#9
Thanks to my horrific current work schedule I’m basically nocturnal so yeah I’m still in for this, will watch the first hour or two at least. Dunno how Moeen is still in the team though, I’d rather have Root as the second spinner at this point. Will be interesting to see how Crane goes, may as well chuck him in at this point I reckon.
Hopefully they don’t do a Kerrigan with him and lose faith if he’s expensive early on. Poor dude bowled eight overs in that Sydney test last time. Eight.
tricklenipple
#10
presuming they don’t go on to big scores second dig, have vince and stoneman done enough to start in nz for you lads?
- stoneman
- vince
- both
0 voters
pretty content for now with stoneman going forward, if it was an english summer with some players in form id drop vince again but, as ballance is the back up on tour, probably let him have the rest of the winter.
as bad a tour as it’s been we’ve probably got more answers for how the team is gonna look moving forward than we did in the summer. malan looks strong.
In the context of the whole team performance they stay in the line up on the “they’ve done no worse than anyone else” principle.
If Cooke, Root, Bairstow and Ali were averaging in the high 50s for the series, you could look at bringing in other new faces, but at this point, to drop those two and leave the “established” players in the side, despite their own failures, sends a miserable message.
tricklenipple
#12
having done a stat check I’m surprised how much our experienced players are averaging (barring mo). them not standing up is definitely the narrative but jb is the worst of them at 38, not much removed from his average. mostly come from one big innings tho innit. vince & stoneman @ 28 & 29.
I’ve fallen into the English batsmen averages trap, where it doesn’t matter if you fail 80% of the time, and get outscored by your opposite no., if you can get 1 big score per series it will all look fine.
PaintyCanNed
#14
I know it’s the age old argument the night watchman, but fuck being Bairstow going in at that point
Once more we’ll be lucky to claw out 300.
Root really needs to have a think about what he’s doing once he gets to 70 / 80.
kenako
#18
Is that not the problem? Starts thinking about at 70/80, plays differently/not as fluidly, gets out?
