While swerving the negatives

How does Richardson get that wicket?

the point is, that today, we've shown a bit of fight. Something that we've not shown so far.
It's just a real shame Root couldn't have held on for a handful more balls.

Half way through day 2 I wasn't expecting to be seeing play at 9:30 on the final morning.

Plenty of negatives that will rightfully get focussed on, but gives me a bit of hope that we may give ourselves a small chance in the Melbourne test.

It's much easier to play with a dead bat than to bat in normal circumstances. Buttler just cannot bat against a red ball

Bloke batted for 5 hours and faced over 200 balls, including facing a new ball.

he clearly deserves some credit for giving us even a small glimmer of hope.

Another pathetic display from England.

Given the series is over, makes sense to make some wholesale changes and give the other tourists a chance.

275 run loss. Didn’t make it to 200 in the second innings.

But it’s ok because a couple of players ‘dug in’ for an hour or two.

Shambolic and embarrassing.

Changes needed.

I guess Player of the match will have to go to Lagershandy. No one else really stood out.

They should just start with that mindset then.

Matt Prior and Cook speaking a lot of sense on BT Sport now.

Too many bad choices off the pitch. Talked about all the planning we supposedly did, yet can't see where any of that happened.
Not good enough in the field. Dropped catches costing us as much as anything else.
Not building anywhere near enough partnerships.

Not saying it is OK. It clearly is a miliion miles from OK. Test match batting is multi-dimensional and Buttler has shown he can 'dig in' once in a blue moon. Does it make him worth his place? I think not. He has failed as a batsman and a 'keeper over and again. We have an option. New blood desperately needed - all over. And a captain to take the weight off Root.

Fletcher (D), Flower and Bayliss are the only coaches to really get a tune out of the England Test side in recent years. Time for some outside influence and ideas to sharpen up flabby English minds again.

Warner wants to get into coaching when he retires............................

Moxon?

Bring it on! I can see it now, born on the wrong side of tracks in Sydney, fought his way up - uses that to turn England into a street-fighting bunch of cut-throats. I'm e-mailing the ECB now.

Yes agreed mate.

Foakes has to come in for starters. WK simply cannot afford to drop simple catches

:D

I wouldn't mind.

As long as he gets the right instruction, I am sure he could drive the England team bus from hotel to ground and back every day.

This from Agnew I don’t agree with.

“Jos Buttler has redeemed himself with how he batted there. He dropped a couple of straightfoward chances but that is unlike him - he's actually got a good record behind the stumps. He's taken a few brilliant catches too.

That was not a one-day innings today. That was a tremendous effort. It showed to me someone who is very determined to succeed in Test cricket.”

The bloke dropped 3 catches and got a duck in the first innings when it really mattered. Yeah it’s a good effort to bat 5 hours and give us a small glimmer of hope but he certainly hasn’t redeemed himself. He shouldn’t be anywhere near the test side. He’s one of the best white ball batsmen in the world but he is not a test cricketer.

Burns out Crawley in
Pope out Lawrence in
Buttler out Bairstow in

It should be Foakes instead of Bairstow but he’s stupidly not out there. We might as well makes changes, certainly can’t get any worse.

Root in his interview said Mark Wood would have offered us something different. Bloody pick him then!!! Personally I would leave out Broad and bring Wood back in. You can’t drop Woakes as he is one of our better batsman.

Unfortunately, he’s not even in the country let alone the squad. I can see them bringing in Bairstow for Pope, either as just a batsman or batsman/WK.

I think it would be ridiculous - I don’t think he’d be that much better than Pope with the bat & he’s clearly not a proper WK - but I can see the ECB doing it just because we’ve been awful & ‘something needs to change’.

Too many bit-parts in the England dressing room, not enough players who do a single job really well. Again I would suggest that is, in part at least, due to the fixation with white ball cricket where the onus is on most players to be multi-functional.