Cricket

England are far too cocky at the moment, I'm switching my allegiance to Aus.

declaring on day 1 it's like they read tom's comment and decided to raise the bar

on a flat pitch with a v uncertain spin bowling option and stokes carrying a niggle it seems foolhardy tbh, but i guess we will see today.

pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse, after all

For those wanting a taste of Bazball Done Well btw, check out the women's Ashes warmup scorecards. Aussie reign of terror helpless in its face. Alternatively, it is just a warmup

i guess we will see today.

Indeed.

more like Bagofshiteball

Bullshit aside, this is a brilliant test match.

bloody entertaining Test match but even more excited for this tbh

It's one thing to have a drama series on Shane Warne.

It's totally another thing, when Ch9 is bringing a show on the feud between Ian Chappell and Ian Botham.

In the preview, Ian Chappell called Botham a liar.#Ashes pic.twitter.com/MMQfxCO32j

— Vijay A (@VAAChandran) June 19, 2023

Cricket lovely cricket
It's the game with stumps and bails and wickets
In Birmingham on the fifth day the elements
Threaten to curtail the packed Ashes crowd's enjoyment
England prospered with their aggressive approach called Bazball
But sometimes they give away their wickets for practically nothing at all

<saxophone solo>

none of you deserve this

okay except Chinaski

happy for Pato and Australia if they finish this. absolutely no desire to hear any whinging English casuals 'oooh Bazball is shite mate' fuck off, you hate cricket

I can't take another six weeks of this

Bazbollocks

... will be a headline in the Daily Star tomorrow.

great test match. be v interesting to see how england respond. they’ve had so many great results over the last 14 or so tests, because they’ve been able to put their foot down on the accelerator, to give themselves runs and time to beat teams in the second innings. stokes and others were v capable of building an innings but they were also capable of accruing runs incredibly quickly. they bat deep, are an experienced team, and they’ve got great, disciplined bowlers capable of taking wickets in all conditions. mccullum himself i believe has banned use of “bazball” in the dressing room.

here they had several weak points in the team. spin, and recent injuries to anderson and stokes. bairstow, if you like. that extremely high pressure approach is more fragile to that sort of raggedness at the edges.

also, some things never change, you gotta take your chances.

fwiw didn’t mind the declaration, should have let root hit out or get out tho.

Fair play to the Aussies - did what they needed to, basically. Always that feeling that we'd never win like that over there (2011 was different altogether).

Agreed the team is a bit ragged around the edges, particularly Bairstow and Moeen. I wonder if they'll go Dawson for the next test, assuming Mo's finger won't heal? Wood for Anderson, who looked like he was struggling throughout?

from what anderson said he was just struggling to find his rhythm after a lay off from picking up a niggle, so he will back himself to improve over the series i’d imagine. i back him to have some pivotal moments!

more generally it was a fine, competitive test match and there’ll be a lot of crap written, but given the record of stokes, mccullum and team you back them to get to the right place. go again in two weeks’ time!

lol (entertaining) england

re: The Declaration - tbf to B. Stokes, how would he know that they wouldn't be able to get Nathan Lyon out?

Stokes said something in a post match interview about how England are not playing "results based cricket" and I thought the Aussies will love hearing that.

It's like my mother telling me how "taking part is what counts" after I entered a swimming race and finishing last was meant to make me feel better.

Look, after both teams had lost 18 wickets in total, England were ahead, so its a moral victory for me Clive

also Joe Root is back, back, back as best batsman in the world in the ICC Rankings sponsored by MRF Tyres, so who are the REAL winners here?

England were massive favourites with an hour to go. Needed two tailenders to play the innings of their lives. Had England their main spinner available, they'd have probably won. Unearthing a functional spinner is the priority before the remaining Tests

"results based cricket"

That's going to make for a truly thought leading LinkedIn update.

"When your fast bowler with a history of racist tweets verbally abuses a Muslim opponent in an Ashes Test, do you start asking questions, or do you simply assume you already know the answers?"

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/jun/27/english-cricket-independent-commission-equity-prejudice-azeem-rafiq-racism

good article, would quibble this though

a sport created and codified for the purpose of allowing rich white landowners to bet against each other

CLR James writes of how it was codified in the Victorian era as a means to establish sport as 'civilising' influence over the workers both at home and abroad and ofc quell resentment, but how the game itself was devised earlier - yes, with betting a crucial component

In all essentials the modern game was formed and shaped between
1778, when Hazlitt was born, and 1830, when he died. It was created
by the yeoman farmer, the gamekeeper, the potter, the tinker, the
Nottingham coal-miner, the Yorkshire factory hand. These artisans
made it, men of hand and eye. Rich and idle young noblemen and some
substantial city people contributed money, organization and prestige.
Between them, by 1837 they had evolved a highly complicated game
with all the typical characteristics of a genuinely national art form:
founded on elements long present in the nation, profoundly popular
in origin, yet attracting to it disinterested elements of the leisured and
educated classes. Confined to areas and numbers which were relatively
small, it contained all the premises of rapid growth. There was nothing
in the slightest degree Victorian about it. At their matches cricketers
ate and drank with the gusto of the time, sang songs and played for
large sums of money. Bookies sat before the pavilion at Lord's openly taking bets. The unscrupulous nobleman and the poor but dishonest
commoner alike bought and sold matches. Both Sir Donald Bradman
and Mr. Neville Cardus think that cricket is too complex a game to
encourage betting. The history of the game is against them. There is
nothing too complex for men to bet on. Cricket took its start from the
age in which it was born, both the good and the bad. That the good
could predominate was a testimony to the simple men who made it
and the life they lived.
The class of the population that seems to have contributed least
was the class destined to appropriate the game and convert it into
a national institution. This was the solid Victorian middle class.

not to take anything away from Liew's analysis of its current problems, which are well-observed and manifest across the game

That article is I want to say brutal but I guess just honest. Liew is on fire at the moment.

much to unpack here but one thing jumped out at me in all this: Lord's, the self-styled "home of cricket", has NEVER hosted a women's test match, and yet continues to provide the venue for the annual Eton v Harrow match.

just nice to see Stokes committing to being a saviour

liew had to take a fair amount of shit from Jonathan Agnew a few years ago about his cricket writing iirc

liew was right then and he's right now

Aggers called Liew a cunt; then backtracked and blamed it on his meds.

Despise Agnew!

This is fucking idiotic.

Trying to attack the short stuff?

Falling into the leg theory trap aye. Four wickets and counting (five if you count Root getting out twice).

not great shot selection but batters are allowed to make mistakes on occasion, particularly JE Root. Stokes seems to be calming things down now.

If England carry on like this I'll be back supporting them before the end of the series.

I'm thinking we should go back to not talking about men's mental health

where to even start with all this

that Bairstow incident certainly got them going!

*frantically checking Robinson and Tongue's first-class batting records*

I knew I should have put a tenner on England an hour or so ago when they were almost double figures to win this test

it seems Broad has been caught on the stump mic calling them 'Same old cheating Aussies'

Fucking hell, this is crazy.

Just need an Anderson half century now to win it.

I put a pish £3 bet on England when they were 20/1 just in case there is another plot twist on the cards today