The Cricket Thread

Have to take those chances in a tight chase like this

Rubbish!

He clearly guided it between keeper and 1st slip :joy:

Who were clearly asleep. Granted the last time I kept wicket you could probably have described me as medically dead.

Looking increasingly likely

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Ahem

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I do feel with our bowling attack and so on and everything made about that declaration that this still was the poorest decision we made.

Thinking about what @Limiescouse said previously, I don’t know how much more we could have added with two wickets to go…I think not including Wood and Foakes is looking like the bigger mistake

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I think it’s not fair to say ‘what if’ about player selections. A change is not guaranteed to have worked out better. From an Aussie pov, in hindsight we probably should have chosen Starc over Hazlewood given Hazlewood’s low number of overs. But we didn’t we also can’t know if Starc would have provided more.

As for declaring early, who’s to say it would have worked out better had they batted longer? Remember, the declaration was as much about getting Australia batting in the evening but far more importantly, batting in the post rain cloudy conditions of session 1 of day two. You took the wicket of spud and without question our two best batsmen in the first 30 overs. What if those extra England batting overs helped us avoid those difficult periods and Smith and Marnus went on and scored double hundreds?

The point being that changing one important element of the early game doesn’t mean you can fantasize only about positives that could have happened had you changed that. You need to factor in that there may have been negatives also. I think the narrative had become that Stokes was just trying to show her had big balls when I think there was a plan around it due to winning the toss, and ensuring England batted on the best conditions while Australia batted in the worst of them, at least in the first innings.

Starc and Hazelwood are comparable bowlers but Wood provides a significant point of difference to the other English bowlers, extreme pace. So…not quite the same.
Similar for Foakes. He played a hell of an innings last time up only just falling short of bringing England home vs the Kiwis. And he is inarguably the far superior keeper.
But I take your point about what-ifs. Hindsight is 20-20

Ffs :person_facepalming:t2:

Oh cost nothing anyhow*

*Unless I’m missing something Smith was out twice then right?

This is squeaky bum material. Pretty tense watching when our batsmen are so tense.

Going to be a nail-biter, again.

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Simply put, Australia must come out brave with these aggressive field placements. Play shots that are there to be played, and the target shouldn’t be a problem.

My fear is that they come out similarly to how they did this afternoon.

It’s poised at least to be fair.

Weather will also play a factor if it’s disruption lead then I think it could go both ways.

I think all three results are possible.

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Getting Khwaja early doors will be key, both for the runs and the dent in confidence of the Aussies

Still think Australia are favourites

Oh they have to be.

You couldn’t wish for a better scenario. If only every test required a 4th innings run chase of 200 odd.

For me, it’s always advantage bowlers on day 5.

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Ofc they showed the highlights at lunch yesterday of that failed Australian run chase (2 run loss) and that’s helped put enough doubt in my mind. I’m not confident.

There’ll be a bit of cloud, B&A will beat the bat a couple of times, the crowd will roar, and the Aussies will knock off the runs for the loss of a couple of wickets.
‘No worries’ as they say.

![No Worries Chill GIF removed by request of MH)