Unless Leach or Bess have an extraordinary epiphany, sadly Root will probably be our best spin option. Which puts a whole load of extra pressure on his shoulders. One of those two has to step up to the mark, but I won't hold my breath.

David Warner? Nasty bit of work but not exactly chaff

You're right. A Test average of 48 is very much 'wheat'. I guess I'm hoping that he replicates his 2019 Ashes form, where he scored 95 runs in 10 completed innings & one of those was 61.

Honestly think Leach is so underrated. He's never let the side down really, and when you consider he gets taken on these long tours to basically carry the drinks it's not bad going to be averaging under 30 with the ball, he must struggle for rhythm with how little cricket he's played. He's miles, miles better than Bess.

My lineup would be:

Burns
Hameed
Malan
Root
Stokes
Bairstow
Buttler
Robinson
Wood
Leach
Anderson

Very true and also it was cheap ticket prices not to mention

Tight arse:hi::D

:)

Green top and grey skies await next week apparently. If Joe Root wins the toss, will he do a Nasser?

Looking at the weather forecast I would go the draw.

If he does, the odds of Wood doing a Simon Jones are even apparently!

Outstanding

Not more dick pics?

They make Vaughan(y) look like a fine upstanding citizen. Bellends.

Cringe ... utter bellends

:

:D

Haha. You dudes are gold. Keep it coming, although a bit more humor wouldn't go astray. At this point it's just shit throwing. You've hit the mark on a few comments, but missed as much as you've hit. Where's that British humor that we all love? Or do we have to put up with the notoriously boring British whining and whinging.

Who are the two on the left?

Nice to see that Steve Rubber Face Smith is managing to hold back the tears

Labuschagne and Carey?

Robin Cousins, top right.

The brits whine and whinge.

The Aussies cry and cheat.

Root did have a good win rate with toss. So hope he don’t muck up if he does win

Glass houses wolf.
Is cheating only when you get caught??
The crying bit I’ll cop, as it’s pathetic to put on a performance after the fact.

Sorry, have England been using sand paper to make the ball talk?

Mike Atherton rubbed some dirt on the ball 20 years ago but you lot take the biscuit.

:D

EFA

Don't for get the mints. Think Trescothick dropped you guys in that one with his book.:D

All good though cause you didn't get caught.

Would've thought you guys had enough on your plate with all the racism issues in your cricketing landscape. Dickpic or racism, hmmm.

:D:hi::hi:

No racism in Straya's cricket, oh no: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...remain-unknown

Unforgiveable behaviour, granted.

Might have taken a step sideways on the point being made in terms of 'players', not spectators. Agree though, not a good look from a group of uneducated neanderthals.

We could digress and bring up the horrendous attitude your Country has had toward Black Players over the years from fans and supporters, but then that's for another thread tbf.

Old Bonesy is on very shaky ground here. Everyone sucks sweets but only immoral cheating arseholes go to Bunnings Warehouse en route to a test match.

He keeps admitting defeat and proposing some other non event.:D

Don’t you call Pakistanis ‘Pakis’ ?

Not racist though, cos ‘you’ve always done it’

Ha! YJB out 1st ball against the Lions, so they let him have another go later, when he scored 11....

Do our lovable larrikin colonial cousins still refer to football as “w0gball”?

Not where i live we dont, no.
Didn't you call black people S****s and Da****s.

Now what i posted is as ignorant as what you posted. Ridiculous post Worksop.

For interests sakes though.
Paki is short for Pakistani
Aussie is short for Australian
Dane is short for Danish
Swede is short for Swedish
Argie for Argentina
Scot for Scottish.
Brit for British
Are any of those racist? Just wondering as one would think whatever word you use after the shortened version would probably be the deciding factor wouldn't it?

Admitting defeat to what? Agreeing is admitting defeat is it, well **** me.
Everyone sucks sweets!!! So everyone is a cheat then, or by your standards it's only a little cheat.
To inform you, a cheat is a cheat irrespective of how you do it. Yes we cheated (grrr), but so have you guys and it seems all to easy to sweep under the carpet. Hypocrisy and double standards, who'd of thought from you lot.

No. It's referred to as football, soccer or the world game actually.
Thanks for asking though. Such a thoughtful post.

Regards the abbreviation for Pakistani, have you not followed the scandal currently engulfing English cricket ? As Azeem Rafiq rightly says, racist language isn't friendly banter.

Sweet mother of nectar :)

Moving on swiftly to cricket and less sledging for the time being.

Only Stokes seems to have had a good innings
I liked the team swap for second innings

Nor is anti sematism. Which i do believe he was caught tweeting.

So if he finds the word Paki offensive then that's fine, i respect that. ( I don't use that word but obviously some do). Do you find being called a Brit offensive as i don't find being called an Aussie offensive. Which raises my point. Is it the word after the shortened term that seems so frequently added rather than the shortened name of their country?

Good to see Carey get a gig for the Aussies to. Looking forward to see how he performs. Was hoping for young Inglis to get the nod, but Carey deserves a crack.

Can't see how he gets in our best side.

Let’s be honest the whole match became farcical in the end

I don’t know what those starred out words are but if they are racists terms then no, I haven’t used them.

The rest of your post should go on a sticky.

Unbelievable

Are you being obtuse on purpose?

‘Brit’ or ‘Aussie’ isn’t used as an insult. ‘Paki’ is.

This isn’t difficult stuff to understand in 2021.

Not sure how anyone can come out too well in a 'who’s the more/least racist' pissing contest

No I don't find any other term you mention offensive, only the abbreviation for Pakistani. I am a bloke in my 40s and that term has always been highly offensive in the UK. Please, this is not directed at you Bones, but maybe another poster from down under should think carefully before posting such a disgusting term in the future.

The difference is that the P word (and you've gotta stop saying it, it's doing you no favours) has been used for a very long time by racists all over the country (and many other places, i'm sure) as a derogatory, catch all term for anyone from a certain part of the world. There is no other way to see it. It's racist. I'm not saying you are, but it is a racist term. Doesn't matter if it's been shortened from the country.

Obtuse, really. It was a genuine question in which the answer is quite obvious. But for all intense and purposes it is an abbreviation of the countries name.
If you feel uncomfortable discussing it then perhaps don't reply.

:p

There no point in arguing about it.

The bloke equates eating sweets with taking sandpaper on to the field of play.:D

I'll call you dummie - which is short for dumbarse.

All good Aki. Just making an observation of an abbreviation and posing a few little questions. No harm meant and no harm in posing questions. :p

Intelligent contribution wolfie. I commend you;)

I wont get personal like your good self. Adults having a discussion and every now and then a child wakes up and wants his bottle of milk, night night.

If this is what happens when there is more rain than cricket, we're in for a long series.

Many thanks.

True.

Just think what crafting the Aussies will be able to knock up in the changing rooms. :D

Plenty of opportunities for more photo-ops too.

I love Oz but it did take a while inwardly not to do a second take when I was there when called a 'pommie bastard' before realising the contect of local usage

The following is indicative of attitudes to terminology down under:

'The terms Pommy, Pommie and Pom, in Australia, South Africa and New Zealand usually denotes an English person (or, less commonly, people from other parts of the UK).

The Oxford Dictionary defines their use as “often derogatory” but after complaints to the Australian Advertising Standards Board (ASB) regarding five advertisements poking fun at “Poms”, the board ruled in 2006 that these words are inoffensive, in part because they are “largely used in playful or affectionate terms”. The New Zealand Broadcasting Standards Authority made a similar ruling in 2010.

Despite these rulings, the terms are considered offensive and derogatory by many British, regardless of context.

The community organisation, British People Against Racial Discrimination, was among several complainants who had objected to the use of the word ‘Pom’ as a ‘derogatory’, ‘offensive’ and ‘racist’ slur.

The Advertising Standards Board gave careful consideration to whether the ads breached the section of the Advertiser Code of Ethics dealing with discrimination and vilification.

In deliberating on the complaints, the Board considered that the use of the word ‘Pom’ is part of the Australian vernacular, which is largely used in playful and often affectionate terms.

The Board also found that ‘Pom’ is not used in a way to vilify, or incite racial hostility towards, people of British extraction, particularly when considered in the context of the cricketing tradition and affectionate rivalry between the two countries.

The Board unanimously dismissed the complaints against the five ads.

we are Donald ducked if it rains :)

:p

The mind games have begun

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/59530925

EFA :p

Lol

Don't know if this is mind games, but the Aussies have named their 11 already.

Including Stark, Hazlewood, Cummins and Lyon - Rubbish bowling attack, that:supergrin::rolleyes:

I know he has a half decent record, but I’ve never had Lyon as a particular great bowler. I think he’s breakable

I used to think that, but he is very good. Not sure if it's 300 or 400 wickets, but he is a great back up, when their pace bowlers need a rest - he keeps it tight.

Just shy of 400 I think. I’d have him firmly in the ‘good solid bowler’ category. Nothing wrong with that of course and better than we have currently for sure

I did read the team and they have this new keeper which I think is who Bonesy mentioned the other day.

I wouldn’t dismiss the bowling as rubbish.

I think Carey is the wicket keeper Bones mentioned some pages back. Well roll on 8th I am going to take some time off to watch this (disgusting I know)

I think he may have been being sarcastic

I have reluctantly signed up for BT App just for a month so I can watch it on my phone in bed

Bonesy being sarky??? Sweet mother of nectar, never

:)

Fine piece by the Aussie Gideon Haigh in The Times:


There is nothing good about Sandpapergate, even the word, born of that mindless habit of affixing the suffix - gate to any imbroglio. Were Watergate repeated today, as The Times writer Matthew Parris has observed, it would automatically become Watergategate.

Yet 3½ years on, Australian cricket, and Cricket Australia (CA), are legroped to the events of Newlands — just how tightly has been evinced by the past few weeks.

After all, it was Sandpapergate that gave us, on the spur of the moment, the captaincy of Tim Paine, then the expanding cult around his being a redemptive figure, which CA knew to be flawed at best. Only Paine has now paid the price for that, just as only Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft paid the price of the events of Newlands.

Sandpapergate also defines our future leadership. Pat Cummins, unbesmirched, succeeds; Smith, semismirched, must work his passage back as vice-captain.

Warner, with many of the attributes of a successful captain, remains permanently disbarred from office. Marcus Harris is an indirect beneficiary too.

More generally, on the eve of the next home Ashes summer, the exit of Paine demonstrates that we are still living out the unaddressed consequences of the last.

Cast your mind back to the Gabba Test of four years ago, on the first morning of which Paine sent his smokiest sexts.

The prelude will be remembered for a weird trash-talking Nathan Lyon presser; the postlude involved Smith and Bancroft guffawing over a sneakily leaked nothingburger of a story about Jonny Bairstow.

Paine was "partying like a rock star"? Of course he was, because Australia four years ago was a pretty obnoxious team. And, frankly, nobody at CA had any problem with that, from the chairman and chief executive downwards. Remember that putrid parade float after the Sydney Test? Jeepers creepers.

They didn't even have a huge problem with it afterwards. "Winning is everything ... Suddenly we have a culture problem — we didn't have one when we were winning!" an

Australian player told The Ethics Centre during its 2018 "cultural review" of the Australian game.

As The Ethics Centre concluded, Newlands was "not an aberration" but "an extreme example of a latent tendency growing out of the prevailing culture of men's cricket in Australia".

The French philosopher Montesquieu had a dictum that applies well to CA, and equally to the England & Wales Cricket Board in the day of Azeem Rafiq: "If a particular cause, like the accidental result of a battle, has ruined a state, there was a general cause which made the downfall of this state ensue from a single battle."

Sandpapergate was the accidental battle result — and let us not forget how accidental it was, depending as it did on a single SuperSport camera being trained in the right direction to detect Bancroft's malfeasance. But the general cause was the team's sense of impunity and entitlement in the context of CA's organisational arrogance.

"Ultimately," Greg Chappell says in his new book Not Out, "every one of us in the organisation was guilty." Now retired and deprogrammed from the cult, he concedes: "We all walked past things we shouldn't have walked past, from top to bottom."

It has been rightly observed that there was a disproportion to the response after Sandpapergate.

But the team was finally picking up the tariff for its general dislikeability.

The bullies, we learnt, were also cheats.

A lot of distaste localised in Warner, which suited his coaching and managerial enablers, who thereby escaped with minimal damage to their reputations. The lack of a comprehensive public accounting for events at Newlands, the drive to quickly designate the guilty so that everyone else could stop saying sorry, remains a problem, not relieved by the scrutiny of The Ethics Centre.

Given the time and resource constraints on investigating officer Iain Roy in 2018, is CA really sure it knows the whole history of Australia's preparing balls for reverse swing in and around Newlands? Or does it fall into the category of things for which it is better to have, to borrow from Watergate, plausible deniability?

It confirmed some apprehensions in May when Bancroft confided in an interviewer: "Yeah, obviously what I did benefits bowlers and the awareness around that, probably, is self-explanatory." "The investigation was a thorough one," countered Nick Hockley, CA's chief executive, when asked about Roy's report. "As far as we are concerned, the investigation is closed." In the matter of Paine, as in Sandpapergate, the CA board has faced the baneful combination of good intentions and no good choices. It is possible to sympathise with their predicament. But CA's tendency to secrecy has had two negative consequences: it has developed not only a horror of negative publicity, reflected in the haste of its recent deliberations, but also a reputation for expedient behaviour, which has damaged its public credibility.

It is the worst of both worlds.

Because the natural inference to draw from "move along, nothing to see here" is: "Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?" It has been said that Americans before Watergate believed everything their government told them, and that after they believed nothing. Will that be Sandpapergate's legacy in Australian cricket?

F~cking arseholes - Anderson's out of the first test already.

FFS but better than pulling up after five minutes like last time.

This is true. I wonder who will replace him. Perhaps it will be Darren Gough who appears to have eaten the 16 sacked Yorkshire folk?

It’s fine.
Woakes and Robinson will do the damage.

We’re winning this test.

He’s fit to play at The Gabba. They don’t think he will manage 5 Tests so are targeting the ones where they think he can have most impact. Seems reasonable.

But you can still pretty much double your money on this 1st Test with an insurance bet. I just lumped on Australia at 5/6. Weather looks like it just might hold long enough for a result.

No Jimmy. Fvck and bollocks.

Do extremely well to take 20 wickets now.

Apart from the night test, a Gabba green top would surely be the second ground he would do some damage?

A drop in MCG road and the batsmen/spin friendly SCG aren't going to help him much.
Perhaps he only has one test in him?

Looks that way. If he was going to play, surely it would have been this test?

England may think that the Perth replacement might also be Day/Night. Or, more simply, that he, more than the others, is massively undercooked. Or maybe he’s just been shite in the nets.

You maybe right. But Jimmy plays whether he’s been shite in the nets or not!

Anderson isn't rated to do 5 tests in quick succession. They are saving him for the day/night test when the pink ball may well do hoops. Most reports expect him to play 3 of the 5 tests.

Jimmy has a 'slight calf niggle' according to the Telegraph. My guess is the Gabba isn't that green, and England don't want to flog him for 40+ overs given so little preparation.

I don't think Anderson has ever had much success at the Gabba anyway.
I also doubt the Gabba will be quite as green come midnight tonight.
If they have any doubt then they've made the right call, and it's time someone else makes a name for themselves.
We've got enough bowling in the ranks anyway.

Have we? I’m not so sure. Broad is knocking on, Wood isn’t all that and Robinson is still learning his trade. Woakes is good but doesn’t get lots of game time. Taking 20 wickets will be tough

Other reports say we are simply 'managing his workload'. Whatever the truth, it is a good smokescreen.

Broad is getting on - He is still taking plenty of wickets, and has the 3rd most wickets of all time from a fast bowler. We also know he can go on match winning spells.

Wood - HE's the only fast bowler available, and in countries which encourage fast bowling he has done extremely well (Five wicket hauls against South Africa and West Indies away). He's also the sort of character that thrives on competition.

Ollie Robinson - Had a breakthrough summer. Bowled brilliantly. A lot to prove still and owes the England team after previous controversy.

Woakes - Never let England down. If it wasn't for the brilliance of Anderson and Broad he'd have played a hell of a lot more test matches. He has something to prove too.

Stokes - we all know what he can do on his day. 8 years ago he had a very respectable figures over in Australia, and with more experience he can do the same.

Australia might just have the edge with their bowling, but they're getting on a bit.

I'm far more concerned about our batting than our bowling.

Worrying about Englands batting is just the norm !

Robinson was so good in the Summer - this is a big step up but he seems to me the sort that would absolutely love taking on the Aussies.

Pope in, YJB out

He reminds me of Josh Hazlewood in terms of bowling style. I think he could be very well suited to Aussie pitches.

Good point about the replacement test being a D/N. Even a drop in road like the MCG pitch would swing in the evening.

Mind games a la Glenn Hoddle in 1998? God help us if so.

Under huge protest, I've bought my BT pass.

But am I missing something, or are there no televised highlights of the Ashes on any channel?

BT Sport 1 Live from 11pm

Yes - live. If you can stay up all night. But any highlights during the hours of daylight in the UK?

[QUOTE=Tomo;16137602]Broad is getting on - He is still taking plenty of wickets, and has the 3rd most wickets of all time from a fast bowler. We also know he can go on match winning spells.


Especially when Warner's at the other end. Broad v Warner in 2019: 7-35 in 104 balls.....