Cricket

Aussies having an England type collapse.

We could have bowled them for about 150 if we'd taken our chances, but still not a bad day for England. Wood has been ace.

We need to recall Foakes -
Forget the keeping being far superior, he was good for Bairstow’s batting!

FFS England, you go from looking like a side capable of winning the test match to a clueless bunch of Sunday amateurs and back again.

We keep getting ourselves into a decent position, then throwing it all away with a daft session or dropped catches.

I thought today, we were toast, then we manage to drag ourselves within 20 odd runs, take four major wickets to put us right back in it and give us hope again.

If we manage to win any of these tests it won't be due to playing well. It will be down to doing one or two things well whilst the rest is awful. I get that they want to make it entertaining but there has to be a balance as well.

I feel sorry for Bairstow in many regards as he doesn't really look properly fit or ready to keep wicket following his bad injury. It's a bit like in the major football tournaments in the past where we tried to get an injured star player on the pitch even though they were nowhere near ready (Rooney and others come to mind).

Well this is it now - 251 to hang in there for the Ashes…

Tricky session negotiated.

C'mon England.

Wood has looked outstanding , always enjoy watching him bowl  such a shame Archer & Stone are injured because they bring the X factor to , but without them we are relatively medium pace in the bowling department Robinson ,Stokes (who actually used to bowl relatively quickly ,but maybe injuries have stopped that) ,Jimmy and Broad are all the same pace with a bit of variation but not dramatic .

The balance of our bowling attack seems to have been a problem , since Panesar (briefly) and Swann we have not produced a high level spinner  ,Moen is not good enough and Leach always seems to be injured and is probably not good enough.  

Australia ,however much people dislike them always have a high quality attack with variation - Starc -Pace ,Left armer - Cummins -good pace ,line and length ,Bolland medium pace but consistent - Lyon - consistently good offspinner .



Hopefully we knock off the runs tomorrow stress free and there is something on the 4th test and we can turn it around .

Quoted from Mappers

Wood has looked outstanding , always enjoy watching him bowl  such a shame Archer & Stone are injured because they bring the X factor to , but without them we are relatively medium pace in the bowling department Robinson ,Stokes (who actually used to bowl relatively quickly ,but maybe injuries have stopped that) ,Jimmy and Broad are all the same pace with a bit of variation but not dramatic .

The balance of our bowling attack seems to have been a problem , since Panesar (briefly) and Swann we have not produced a high level spinner  ,Moen is not good enough and Leach always seems to be injured and is probably not good enough.  

Australia ,however much people dislike them always have a high quality attack with variation - Starc -Pace ,Left armer - Cummins -good pace ,line and length ,Bolland medium pace but consistent - Lyon - consistently good offspinner .



Hopefully we knock off the runs tomorrow stress free and there is something on the 4th test and we can turn it around .

Don't be ridiculous.... Ashes cricket is never stress free these days...

Mind, it might be me - I didn't find the second half against Luton stress free and we were 3 up

Definately not stress free - feel we are brown bread here losing Stokes & Bairstow .

Bairstow has had another shocker!