Aussies could regret no spinner.
I think the poms can overcome the deficit quite quickly and easily. Good batting track for the next day. They will go for it no doubt.
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Yeah this is a very good batting track. If the poms can do a lot better at keeping their head and not gifting their wicket in this second innings, which I think they’ll do, they are a good chance.
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It’s a big if.
The Aussies have this game won. England don’t know how to defend or grind out an innings. In order to have a chance, they’d need to score 400+. That won’t happen.
I’m at the stage of almost wanting the whole McCullum era to be put out of its misery.
Fair play to Australia. They are the best at the moment, ahead of SA. India are too reliant on Bumrah, NZ not quite there, and England maybe just above a group with Pakistan, SL and WI.
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Will England make it to Day 4?
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This is a good start. Sure, the England batters have taken advantage of Neser losing his marbles, but they look very comfortable.
The entire Aussie team getting into double figures , with everyone getting good starts should tell you there’s still a tonne of runs in this. And unless we crack open the Head, we have no spinner, so this is a super interesting game panning out.
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I better slow down on the Penfolds otherwise I will miss kick off and almighty reds insights in the match thread.
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Second halves are overrated.
(Is what I used to tell myself)
33 mins…
No
Shambolic England.
With the emphasis on bolic.
Did I spell that right? 
Lost interest in this England team a long time ago. As Bekloppt says they are totally incapable of grinding out an innings, apart from Root. You just know the next wicket and collapse is just round the corner.
The whole approach is farcical at test match level.
The only thing keeping me interested has been watching Root work his way through the ranks towards all-time leading run scorer.
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Don’t despair.
The stage is set for a Stokes classic 200, assisted by staunch contributions from the tail, then bowling Australia out for 150 on the final evening…
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It’s obvious that this England team are far inferior to the Australians, and this isn’t even a particularly great Aussie team. There’s only one player from the England team who’d get into their team and that’s Root, maybe Stokes. The English bowling is wayward and ineffective, their batting is lacking application and technique. They aren’t a worthy opponent.
Carey said it’s the greatest rivalry in sport. What a load of rubbish. A rivalry needs some kind of competition.
England can compete in English conditions, but out here they just look clueless.
It would be better if they had to earn the right to tour downunder instead of it being automatic. They should only be allowed to tour Australia after they’ve beaten every other team home and away. That would concentrate their minds.
Won’t happen of course, too much money involved, but how much longer will England fans shell out thousands to watch such limp and uninspiring fare?
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Your spelling was perfect.
Unlike England where indeed shambolic. Befuddled. Completely discombobulated even.
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Proceeded by two weeks of moaning about tiredness and “we practiced enough guv’nor, sometimes shit happens”.
Yes it does.
You’re the shite.
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Outclassed in all three departments again. Batters just cannot learn from their mistakes and do the basics right.
Hopefully when they are 3-0 down they bin off Crawley and Pope for good.
There’s only one team playing Test cricket out there and it’s not England, who are being undone by their own hubris and the total lack of application. One century and two 50s across two matches so far, against Head’s blistering hundred and six more fifties (five in this game alone). The so-called pace attack has been about as effective as a wet fart after that very first day, while the fielding has been substandard, to put it mildly.
Where is the fight, the grit? These players, this team, have been backed for the last few years to come good on this tour yet all we’ve seen from them are their much-publicised faults and weaknesses. So much for all of their preparation (or lack of it).
It’s been so disappointing to see this awful (yet so typical) performance by an England team in Australia. Already, the series looks done and dusted, after only five days actual play. Now, all there seems left to play for is the chance to show some determination and the avoidance of a whitewash.
The miracle of a turnaround looks far beyond this group of players, unless they can start to display the necessary virtues of patience and tenacity, and the common sense and ability to use their skills effectively, as we have seen from Australia.
Sadly, I think we were half-expecting this while hoping for much better, but this looks like yet another hammering.
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It’s worth pointing out that both teams have only won 1 away series in the last quarter of a century.
I think that just reflects why the Ashes is so great. Two nations absolutely tailor-made to their own conditions that it makes an away series win a huge achievement.
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Christ, you could put this post in the Leeds post-match thread and nobody would disagree with any of it!
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