You're right, of course. Of a 6 match series! These days the Strauss blazer types would be pushing for a 2 match Ashes to support the main event of the summer. A tour by Little Mix with 20 mins of kids with plastic bats & balls as the support act.
He was being nominated as NZ sportsman of the year, ironically, for winning the world cup final.....vs NZ.
It's always very difficult to put an innings as the greatest ever but it is certainly up there. I felt it had it all. Sensible batting on Saturday afternoon when it was just important not to lose anymore wickets, Allowing Bairstow to farm the strike a bit as he was looking to brake the shackles a bit and this partnership got us in a decent position and then finally, smashing the thing to all parts to win the game. This is a very decent bowling attack and to play that kind of innings is incredible. Best I've seen is Vaughan in Adelaide, 2002 but that's just me I loved the Tweet from Stokes about Leach getting free glasses for lift from Specsavers and the Specsavers replying to say that they would do this!
Having had a few days to reflect on it, I'm still happy to give Stokes just as much praise as I was immediately after. The one thing I have noted though is the bowling attack - very good bowlers all of them, but look at their efforts when England got down to chasing 70 odd. It was very very ordinary and ragged a lot of the time. Only Lyon's ball that 'got' Stokes for LBW was above par. This isn't a comment to take away from the achievements of Stokes and Leach - but I don't feel Stokes was particularly under threat of losing his wicket if that makes sense? And Leach wasn't targeted to the degree he should have been.
He faced 17 balls. I don't remember one having him in any bother as a No.11 - not one yorker. Every bouncer way off having any effect. Stokes protected him brilliantly. But when he couldn't, Australia were spectacularly tame in their efforts.
Anderson out for the remainder of the series after a recurrence of his calf strain while playing for Lancs 2nd XI.
A blessing in disguise in my opinion. He would have been shoe-horned into the team and building his fitness up at the same time. One less dilemma to worry about.
Imagine the reaction had he been brought back and broken down after 4 overs again. Lucky it happened when it did.
Huge kick in the nuts for our chances. Not fit, irrelevant. Fit, our main weapon. This fella gets it going sideways. Smith can’t do sideways. Much less the rest of them. Anyway, next 2 compulsive viewing.
I would open with Denly and bat Roy further down. I would drop Woakes and play Curran. Decent bat and offers something different with the ball
For someone who seems calm and measured on the radio Johnathan Agnew does seem to get into bother on Twitter. Mainly of his own making ... https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....mplaint-bbc-over-abusive-tweets-jonathan-liew
Isn’t this another example of someone behaving online in a way they wouldn’t dream of doing in ‘real life’? You would have hoped that someone like Agnew would be intelligent enough to realise why it might be offensive, puerile, or just generally a bad idea. But obviously not.
It seems to me that if there was more of a fuss made about Jofra Archer being included in our team, than for Ben Stokes say, then Jonathan Liew has a point and Agnew is simply angry that he's been 'found out'.
So Denly and Roy have swapped places. I’d wager Denly going for single figures in both innings whilst Roy gets 50+.
I think i would take that as Roy could be the future where as Denly probably won't go on the winter tour unless he of course gets lots of runs in the last two Tests
Or unless he's great mates with Ed Smith....which is what got him in the team initially. I've never seen as lucky an innings as Denley's 50 last time round. He played and missed more than he actually connected with the ball.
Interesting. Wonder if Woakes is still struggling with his knee(?) injury, or the pitch won't suit him, or it's just performance related ?
Just listened to Ben Stokes interview on sky "Ben Stokes my summer so far" . Surprisingly articulate and comes over as a pretty smart guy. I know it destroyed Botham but could be captain material ? Or better to leave him to just deliver rather than risk destroying his form like Root? Perhaps the Bristol incident means it could never happen.
Fairly certain he’s been vice-captain since that incident so I think the ECB largely have put it behind them. Saying that, I think they should just leave him be in terms of the captaincy. I don’t see them taking it from Root anytime soon so think he would need to relinquish it at some point in all likelihood. It wouldn’t entirely surprise me if they went to Bairstow or Buttler next for captaincy. But as I say, I don’t expect it to be a vacancy for quite some time in reality.
The Aussies look much stronger with Smith back and Starc/Siddle likely to come in for Pattinson and Khawaja.. The top of their batting line up with Smith, Warner, Labuschagne looks stronger than ours, bowling attacks look about even. I just hope the Ashes are still alive coming into the last game.
There is a bit of rain about for the first three days so a draw might be a good bet which would set it up perfectly for The Oval
I was going to suggest as much anyway. With the conditions and the OT pitch being made for bowling - I think the game may be over in that time anyway regardless of the weather.
