Whoops
Whoops
Another day of nonsensical batting when not required.
These stupid attempted flicks of the upper hip down the leg side are going my head in along with the throwing the bay from the moment Ali pulled his groin.
He should’ve gone off and Stokes come in instead.
At 60 odd for non we had them by the nuts and at 184-3 we were well placed.
We deserve to lose now.
So Stuart Broad has officially retired from cricket tonight. He has been a mainstay for the England attack for a long time now and it is fitting that he is going out at the top of his game. Go on Stuart, give those Aussies one last pasting tomorrow.
It’s been a great series and I will admit that at 135-0 yesterday afternoon I thought we’d blown it, I think the rain actually saved us yesterday and gave us a fifth day pitch and time to regroup.
Today with only 120 needed and 7 wickets in the hutch I went out for my afternoon exercise in a proper glum frame of mind, I thought it was all over.
It’s easy to be smug in hindsight 923, for all my perceived faults, I’m always true to myself and stick my neck out when predicting stuff.
We have been the better team, we threw away those first two Tests, more game awareness and a touch less arrogance from us would’ve seen us win 4-0.
Very good these last three matches though.
Not smug just positive in my view. I'll be critical and have been but some can't wait to whinge and whine when it goes wrong which over 25 days of cricket is always going to happen. Testament to this is after England's tremendous win we had ONE just ONE well done post before I posted. Lost (we easily could have done) and I reckon all the usual culprits would have been straight on here with loads more 'diabolicals' and 'stupids.'
The first Test was plain stupid batting, almost to a man in the media the feeling was the same, I wasn’t on my own in thinking that.
Nasser Hussain made the point again yesterday after the match, when you have an Aussie down you keep him down, you don’t declare on the first evening with an under par score on the board.
That decision reeked of arrogance and hubris and in effect it’s cost us the series.
We still have the habit of getting into a good position and then losing 2 or 3 quick wickets, often to bad shots.
Yesterday the stars aligned to make it the perfect last passage of play and the fairytale ending for Broad but I do feel we got lucky.
On the Saturday they were cruising to victory and our bowling looked impotent.
Rain on Saturday afternoon, a change of ball and a fifth day pitch made a massive difference, we got the luck we didn’t get in the previous match.
We have a lot of innings where batsmen get in and don’t go in to make 100+.
Root only had one century, Brook had none, Pope was poor, Duckett failed to convert a single good start and Bairstow failed to get one as well.
I’m being picky I know but I just think there’s enough room for an expansive style mixed with the odd “correct” batsman and I’d like to see Root be a bit more like the old Root and Foakes in the side to keep to a high standard and bat more conventionally.
A great series though, I’m not going to be too churlish but I do think we were good enough to have beaten them 4-0, 4-1 or 5-0 if weather hadn’t killed the OT Test.