It's just not cricket

[LGTrotter]

Sorry to interrupt the excitement of England capitulating but I thought you should know I have just had my first mince pie of the festive season. A Sainsbury's Taste the Difference, and you really could.

I have had occasion to mention schadenfreude before to you. Or is this your English humour?

[DRT]

Sorry to interrupt the excitement of England capitulating but I thought you should know I have just had my first mince pie of the festive season. A Sainsbury's Taste the Difference, and you really could.

I have had occasion to mention schadenfreude before to you. Or is this your English humour?

Not at all. I was just passing the time. I have listened to lots of very experienced and knowledgeable ex-England captains talk nonsense to fill the gaps in excitement on the pitch and thought it was the done thing.

Rogers ton up from 135. Very good.

[LGTrotter]

Soon we can go to bed.

[DRT]

More seriously, back to the problem.

Does a run rate of 4.2 in the final innings of a international test match constitute a bowling collapse?

[LGTrotter]

Even the end of this Graham 77 is not too spirity.

[LGTrotter]

More seriously, back to the problem.

Does a run rate of 4.2 in the final innings of a international test match constitute a bowling collapse?

No, but for this match it does.

[DRT]

More seriously, back to the problem.

Does a run rate of 4.2 in the final innings of a international test match constitute a bowling collapse?

No, but for this match it does.

Why this match? Should England have been more aggressive or should they have played for a draw?

[LGTrotter]

I cannot think of a strategy which would have produced an England win from this team. Neither can Cook.

[DRT]

All they need now is 8 wickets for <31.

[LGTrotter]

All they need now is 8 wickets for <31.

I have had occasion to mention schadenfreude before to you. Or is this your English humour?

Ahem.

[DRT]

Believe me, I am feeling no joy. I am watching this as an interested neutral. My preference would have been for a true contest, but I feel slightly let down.

[LGTrotter]

Believe me, I am feeling no joy. I am watching this as an interested neutral. My preference would have been for a true contest, but I feel slightly let down.

Exactly. I wonder if I can finish this post before Australia win?

Lame is the word.

[DRT]

Fat lady is singing again - time for bed.

[LGTrotter]

Night.

[djewesbury]

Gents. Good morning. Apologies for only drifting in and out of conversation. I was listening on my phone via a wifi network on the other side of this house. Moving the phone at all, let alone trying to do two things at once, interrupts the stream and requires such footering that it simply isn't worth it.
So. Five days' rest. Bring on Mr Turnbull's Under-13 B-team, I'm ready to try anything at all. Even my old school XI couldn't be worse.

[LGTrotter]

I liked the idea of flying out the Durham team and filling in the gaps left by the overseas players with the rump of the England side.

But nothing will be done until the team gets back home.

[LGTrotter]

Just listened to the TMS podcast of the journalists deciding what is wrong with England. Two points, first the journalists sound very similar to the thoughts expressed on this forum which makes me wonder about our sagacity and second Gideon Haigh is a wise man and a better class of hack.

[djewesbury]

Just listened to the TMS podcast of the journalists deciding what is wrong with England. Two points, first the journalists sound very similar to the thoughts expressed on this forum which makes me wonder about our sagacity and second Gideon Haigh is a wise man and a better class of hack.

Always liked Haigh. Always wished he was one of ours, so that we could listen to him more often!

[LGTrotter]

Just listened to the TMS podcast of the journalists deciding what is wrong with England. Two points, first the journalists sound very similar to the thoughts expressed on this forum which makes me wonder about our sagacity and second Gideon Haigh is a wise man and a better class of hack.

Always liked Haigh. Always wished he was one of ours, so that we could listen to him more often!

He was born in London so he is nearly. I came to him via 'Many a slip' which I enjoyed tremendously, just stories from Aussie club cricket.

[DRT]

Just listened to the TMS podcast of the journalists deciding what is wrong with England. Two points, first the journalists sound very similar to the thoughts expressed on this forum

Have you considered the possibility that the world's great cricket journalists are watching our little blog for ideas? Perhaps the selectors should pop in and have a read.

[djewesbury]

Play Rankin! Come on, the big man from Strabane! He's fast. He may be expensive. Let him learn. I completely disown the comments made by someone impersonating me saying that Sydney was not the place to blood new talent. Sydney is definitively the place to blood new talent.
Start the campaign! I'm with Boyd!

[jdaw1]

The headlines would be so easy to write: ‟New England team chosen by self-appointed internet drunks”.

[djewesbury]

The headlines would be so easy to write: ‟New England team chosen by self-appointed internet drunks”.

I happen to think that this panel of self-appointed internet drunks have an entirely enviable skillset that could be usefully put to most of the big tasks.

[LGTrotter]

Play Rankin! Come on, the big man from Strabane! He's fast. He may be expensive. Let him learn. I completely disown the comments made by someone impersonating me saying that Sydney was not the place to blood new talent. Sydney is definitively the place to blood new talent.
Start the campaign! I'm with Boyd!

Is Rankin fast enough? I do not say this as a challenge merely in ignorance.

[LGTrotter]

Drunks? I like to think of myself as a functional alcoholic.

[djewesbury]

Play Rankin! Come on, the big man from Strabane! He's fast. He may be expensive. Let him learn. I completely disown the comments made by someone impersonating me saying that Sydney was not the place to blood new talent. Sydney is definitively the place to blood new talent.
Start the campaign! I'm with Boyd!

Is Rankin fast enough? I do not say this as a challenge merely in ignorance.

Fast medium. Faster than the others but not a real quick. But 6'7" and able to get a fairly terrifying bounce. Why not, I say.

[LGTrotter]

Whatever happened to Stuart Meaker? Is he still out there?

[djewesbury]

Whatever happened to Stuart Meaker? Is he still out there?

Doesn't seem to have appeared for the Lions since 2011 according to Cricinfo. Not really very aware of him..

[DRT]

I reckon there are at least eight or nine former England superstars sitting in commentary boxes in Australia right now. Perhaps a celebrity 11 could go out onto the field and demonstrate where they think the current team are going wrong?

[jdaw1]

This is no longer just a losing Ashes series. It is the death of a team: staked out in the unrelenting Australian sun, guts ripped open, dingoes feasting.

In losing the first three Tests by a combined margin of 749 runs, England had suffered the most complete of sporting defeats.

In being thrashed in the fourth by eight wickets, less than a day after being 116 runs ahead with all 10 second innings wickets in hand, they have reached the end.

When once-great teams fall, they fall far and fast, in ways that scarcely seemed possible in their lofty days of easy superiority.

So it was on the bright MCG outfield on Sunday. It wasn't just the dropped catches, spilled in an incomprehensible manner, or the wanton mis-fields, or the tactics born not just of desperation but disorientation and delusion.

It was the body language - the lowered eyes, the slumped shoulders, the sense not of a single unit but of 11 individuals, lost and alone in the wide green spaces, all of who seemed to be saying, I want to escape, but I can't.

No other sport extends the torture like Test cricket. If a big-name tennis player had blown his Australian Open chances so comprehensively at the adjacent Rod Laver Arena he would have been gone in half a day. If a top-ranked golfer falls apart at a major, he is spared further humiliation by the quick mercy of the cut.

England's agony has gone on, day after day, like that same golfer being forced to play round after failing round, an Open every week, duffing drives and missing putts, swing in pieces, galleries guffawing.

For a Test team in a death-dive, only the scenery changes. The story remains the same.

It is a cruel, gratuitous process for those sucked in. You could see it on Sunday in the loneliness of Alastair Cook, stripped on this tour both of his old form and three of his senior players, impotent at first slip as Australia cantered to the 201 runs they needed for victory, so haunted by what was happening that he dropped a catch that would have stuck to a wall.

You could see it in the anger of the Englishmen watching, in the blame that gets cast at even the innocent when a team capitulates so totally, at the way talk moves beyond a mere criticism of sporting skill and into the denunciation of a man's character.

It matters little some may be without fault. England's team psychologist Mark Bawden, to offer one example, has been indispensable to several England players, a factor not only in their highs but in alleviating myriad unseen lows. But there will be those who demand his dismissal, just as others will the similarly excellent batting coach Graham Gooch, because people want explanations, and they want scapegoats.

For those on the pitch it can be more brutal still.

Players - experienced men, successful men - are pulled apart and opened up. Michael Carberry's technical flaws are no longer just his own or those of a few canny county bowlers; they have become public property, his humiliations discussed by people he will never meet.

It can be an unedifying sight. !

Are the English, or even the British, particularly talented at self-flagellation?

[LGTrotter]

Pensee on the above;
I think self-flagellation is a much overrated virtue.
In these times the line of argument which says that the team is composed of the best men for the job is a counsel of despair. However good and talented a man Graham Gooch may be clearly the team and the batting failed in a quite jaw dropping display. At such times it is important that changes are made not because Gooch has some character flaw but to have change. This does not mean that you then change all over again the next time you lose a test.

More to follow.

[djewesbury]

Pensee on the above

Hey Pascal, if we had an Acute Accent Crimes section, you'd be in it.

[LGTrotter]

Pensee on the above

Hey Pascal, if we had an Acute Accent Crimes section, you'd be in it.

I think I would qualify for pretty much any grammatical/spelling/usage namer-shamer.

I toyed briefly with 'meditations' but knowing the strength of the classics on this forum I thought I should bring on the enlightenment.

[djewesbury]

Boyd Rankin to play tonight?

[DRT]

I don't know any of the young bucks.

I heard someone say that this pitch normally yields lots of runs, so I'll predict that England will score 224 in their first innings.

[djewesbury]

I don't know any of the young bucks.

I heard someone say that this pitch normally yields lots of runs, so I'll predict that England will score 224 in their first innings.

I'll predict that England are able to get over 300 for once.

[DRT]

So, who is sitting up to watch/listen to this tonight?

I think I'll give it a couple of hours.

[LGTrotter]

I think Daniel may be right on this occasion. Now they are interested in playing a career saving innings rather than the team. Apologies for the cynicism but we shall see. I predict the old lags will try hard for once.

[djewesbury]

I'll give it a go till lunch and evaluate then. Is it an 11.30 start? Or midnight?

[DRT]

11:30 I think.

[djewesbury]

Good. Team guesses anyone?

[DRT]

Team guesses anyone?

I think it will be Australia v England.

[djewesbury]

Team guesses anyone?

I think it will be Australia v England.

Uncanny. Derek wins again.

[LGTrotter]

I hope they pick Rankin, just for Daniel. I hope they pick Borthwick and he gets carted round the park but picks up enough wickets to stay cheerful. I do hope they ditch one of the frontline batsmen, anyone. Pour encourage les autres.

[DRT]

My guess is Carberry will be the sacrificial lamb, Panaesar will be declared injured (i.e. sacked), one other might be bumped, Bell will move to 3rd man and will still score next to nothing and Pieterson will be out for a duck.

Apart from that I think England have a great chance to win this one.

[LGTrotter]

Yes that sounds about right, the man who has done least wrong. I would prefer you to refer to number 3, third man makes me think of the field placing.

[djewesbury]

"Yes, we could do. Certainly there will be some changes," Alastair Cook said when asked if England might play three debutants at the SCG. Such a scenario might have seemed laughable before the series but it's now anyone's guess what England's best XI is. Gary Ballance is likely to be included, given England's poor batting throughout the series, and it might be that Michael Carberry makes way with Joe Root to move up to open and Ian Bell to No.3. The legspinning allrounder Borthwick would also strengthen England's batting if he replaces Panesar, while Boyd Rankin could be given a chance at the expense of Tim Bresnan. But, really, who would know?

England (possible) 1 Alastair Cook (capt), 2 Joe Root, 3 Ian Bell, 4 Kevin Pietersen, 5 Gary Ballance, 6 Ben Stokes, 7 Jonny Bairstow (wk), 8 Scott Borthwick, 9 Stuart Broad, 10 James Anderson, 11 Boyd Rankin.

[LGTrotter]

Leave Root alone, not back to opening. Number 5 would suit him I fancy.

[LGTrotter]

Drop Root! Pusillanimous is the only word for it. Moving Bell up to number 3 is a start, by why drop Root?

[djewesbury]

Do you know what? Perhaps that might work. Let's see.. I agree that Carberry was the weak link. But who knows.