Woakes should be in the starting XI anyway. Do we know England’s team yet?
Burns
Hameed
Malan
Root
Stokes
Bairstow
Buttler
Woakes
Robinson
???
???
Root has said England aren’t in a position to name it yet but all the talk is Woakes will play now Anderson is out and Bairstow will be favoured over Pope. Have to presume it will be two from Wood, Broad and Leach for the last spots. I hope they back Leach, don’t think we’ll need five seamers.
Poms haven’t won in Brissy since the days of Beefy so it’s been a while between drinks.
Captains might want to lose the toss given the greenish pitch and a general fear of backlash if sending the opposition in fails.
Hopefully not much play is lost through rain.
Ooohhh
12-man squad for first test. Pope preferred to Bairstow
Joe Root (c), Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler (wkt), Haseeb Hameed, Jack Leach, Dawid Malan, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood
My XI would be
Burns
Hameed
Malan
Root
Stokes
Pope
Buttler
Woakes
Robinson
Wood
Leach
Although if the wicket’s green I would play Broad ahead of Leach.
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The bowling attack would be ok in England, but will toil in Australia
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I think it all comes down to England’s top three. If they can collectively deliver a hundred runs on average, I think Australia will struggle.
I would have thought Bellerive but I do wonder how much preparation they would need for the pitch.
I hope they don’t play two tests at the same ground.
Would also be nice to see, given how the big 5 grounds have monopolized the biggest test matches, Tassie given a real test match instead of thrown the scraps of the test matches no-one cares about.
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Yeah, the only 2 options would be Bellerive or Manuka, if they go for that option. My guess is either The Vic or NSW govenrment will offer ACB a few brown bags and it will go to one of MCG or SCG
Glad they’ve opted for Pope, I think his game should be perfectly suited for Australian pitches. He did well when touring in South Africa on a few tracks that were similar to what he’ll be batting on in the next couple of months. Hopefully he can stand up to the mental challenges he’ll face.
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This a million times over.
What’s the weather like…
Hopefully bad
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Not looking good
http://www.bom.gov.au/qld/forecasts/brisbane.shtml
Looks great to me
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Broad left out
Green and even covering of grass on the pitch, should be a bit of assistance early on for the bowlers.
The first hour could be a cracking hour of cricket looking at the pitch and weather conditions
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Now starts my issue. Its midnight. How long will I be suckered into watching this…ruining my working day tomorrow.
Oh for fuck sake.
Golden duck. Ouch.
Burns…he just never comvinces me.
What a peach of a ball to start the ashes
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