The Ashes 2021-22

VillaMad

Australia vs England

First Test - Brisbane - December 8th-12th

Second Test - Adelaide (D/N) - December 16th-20th

Third Test - Melbourne - December 26th-30th

Fourth Test - Sydney - January 5th-9th

Fifth Test - Perth - January 14th-18th

Australia squad: Cummins (Captain), Carey, Green, Harris, Hazlewood, Head, Khawaja, Labuschagne, Lyon, Neser, Richardson, Smith, Starc, Swepson, Warner

England squad: Root (Captain), Anderson, Bairstow, Bess, Broad, Burns, Buttler, Crawley, Hameed, Lawrence, Leach, Malan, Overton, Pope, Robinson, Stokes, Woakes, Wood

So this all gets started on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. The build-up has been overshadowed somewhat by events off the pitch with the Tim Paine story and also the issues at Yorkshire.

For me, it's hard not to see a comfortable victory for Australia again at home. England have been poor at Test cricket for a while now and being still hugely reliant on an ageing Broad and Anderson says it all really. If they had Archer fit, it would have made a big difference to them, but they don't seem to have a bowling attack that can take wickets on Australian surfaces with the kookaburra ball. Having Stokes will help particularly in that they might bring in a spinner in the team. Their batting has struggled for a long time now with collapses being a regular occurrence. Joe Root has been brilliant in the past year and will need to stay at that level to give England any chance.

Australia pretty much have the same side from the last Ashes. Labuschagne has been a revelation and you can already imagine him and Steve Smith spending long periods of time out in the middle. Their bowling of Hazelwood, Cummins, Starc and Lyon are pretty much veterans at this stage and have all done it all before and it's hard to not see them doing it again. The Paine issue shouldn't be a huge problem for Australia as I'm not sure whether he was worth his place in the team anyway.

Tom Mann Centuria

I fear it's going to get very ugly for England but hopefully I'm completely wrong and they storm it!

4 nil to the Aussies is my honest guess.

Strumms

stuart broad should not be anywhere near the squad...

he is of late taking fûck all wickets...while he’s not too expensive he’s medium pace... too many injuries and too many miles on the clock..

the English ‘pace’ attack would worry me...

Woakes and Wood average about 3 wickets a test.

whats Anderson left in the tank in the Aussie heat ?

No_Hope_Club

Australia to win 4 out of 5 is probably being kind to England. But who knows?

VillaMad

Teams for tonight:

Australia 1 David Warner, 2 Marcus Harris, 3 Marnus Labuschagne, 4 Steven Smith, 5 Travis Head, 6 Cameron Green, 7 Alex Carey (wk), 8 Pat Cummins (capt), 9 Mitchell Starc, 10 Nathan Lyon, 11 Josh Hazlewood

England 1 Rory Burns, 2 Haseeb Hameed, 3 Dawid Malan, 4 Joe Root (capt), 5 Ben Stokes, 6 Ollie Pope, 7 Jos Buttler (wk), 8 Chris Woakes, 9 Ollie Robinson, 10 Mark Wood, 11 Stuart Broad 12 Jack Leach.

Bairstow and Anderson left out for the first test. England named a 12-man squad so the last spot seems to be between an extra seamer or a Leach as the spin option. It has rained in Queensland for almost the past month and there is expected to be delays in the first couple of days, so England might pick another seamer depending on the pitch.

Head chosen instead of Khawaja was really the only decision that the Aussie selectors had to make.

England didn't win any of the test matches in the past two tours of Australia and to me they look weaker somewhat than those sides, so it's really hard to see anything other than 3/4/5-0 scenario again for Australia.

Strumms

Ordered the sky sports extra package this afternoon and just coming accessible online now after a bit of worrying wait and me scrambling looking for a sky email....happy days

Australia 3-1 with one drawn.... England haven’t got near enough a good bowling attack to worry Australia I don’t think...

Richard Hillman

The wicket is looking very green. A lot of moisture in the air, cloud cover. If ever there was a bowl first at the Gabba it's this one.

The Aussies know full well the English cricket is scarred from Nasser Hussain's decision In 2002. If you are Australia and you lose the toss, you know that they are batting. Unless Joe Root has a massive bollox.

VillaMad

England won the toss and will bat first. Very muggy morning at the Gabba. It just looks like a bowl first day so Root will get panned if they are struggling at lunch.

England choose Jack Leach instead of Stuart Broad. Big call that with all those Aussie left-handers.

Strumms

First session is key, be interesting to see how Hameed goes... he in his six tests so far is without a big score to his name... 4 half centuries and a top score of 82... thus far but it’s early days...only 24

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118288026#Comment_118288026

Root is already getting criticized or hammered even by the BT lads, his ex teammates for the team selections and the choice to bowl... he’ll be panned by more then them if things go wrong now.

hopefully the weather forecast changes... things ain’t looking good for a completed test and that’s some heavy gray sky over the Gabba..

Hodors Appletart

lol

what a start

quality delivery

MFPM

England in the mire already, some start by the Aussies.

Richard Hillman

Yeah it was a bowl first wicket. Serious spring in it.

Strumms

Some real good bowling but two of the three wickets were rank bad shots

Aussies bowling well but I think anyone could bowl well against the England top order at this stage. Hameed a walking wicket too, matter of time.

Strumms

27 overs gone, England are 60-5 after ...2 excellent deliveries by 3 absolutely rank terrible shots.

Tom Mann Centuria

Well they comfortably made 3 figures..... So that's something. Root is a poor captain, England have treated test cricket as an afterthought and they're going to get a shoeing.

simonrooneyzaga

any ideas re radio coverage for Ireland. It's annoying we seem to get left behind with the rights.

Listened to Aus India on ABC last year and the coverage was brilliant.. looks to be geoblocked this time. TMS don't have the usual international youtube link either.

I Have BT sports but nice to fall asleep to a bit of cricket on the radio during the night!

First ball says it all about this series... not looking good for England!

Tom Mann Centuria

Use a VPN?

Can't go into specifics though, as that would be an infraction (well it would be in days gone by).

MFPM

Storm Barra put paid to my Ashes viewing! Great first day for the Aussies and particularly for Pat Cummins first day as captain. England have real issues at the top of the order and when Stokes and particularly Root fail then they are in trouble. We should hold a bit of judgement to see how Australia bat today.

TrueDub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118288879#Comment_118288879

And still would be.... 😁

VillaMad

All very predictable last night from England. Their batting has been trash for a long time so once the Australians got into them, there was very little fight back.

One thing I noted is when you look at England, their bowlers will probably change for every game. They rarely have the same bowlers for two test matches consecutively and of course that can be down to form and injury but Australia have these same four bowlers pretty much series in and series out and the three quicks also play all formats as well. It's remarkable how they have been able to do with Cummins in particular being very injury prone at the start of his international career.

Richard Hillman

Looks like there's still a good bit of bounce in the wicket. Will get better to bat throughout the day though. Huge session coming up here.

Strumms

Huge session and a very good one so far for England...

only 11 runs scored by Australia from 7 overs and the one wicket has fallen... Aussie batsmen being super conservative and super watchful but when the lines and lengths are as consistently challenging I guess needs must.

Strumms

England haven’t been hugely threatening but they’ve limited the Aussie run rate to 2.7, taken one wicket and should have had two more... the Stokes no ball, a wicket but his heel is about 10 inches over the line and the Root drop, a difficult chance but the slips look way too deep.... batsmen taking a fancy to Leech here, he is not bowling well and the pitch doing nothing... a few maximums off him....run rate picking up nicely.

Richard Hillman

Leach is getting battered. Going to be a long test match for the England seamers.

Lots of uneven bounce too. Wouldn't fancy batting last if the sun bakes it and it gets crispy.

Strumms

Leach has bowled 3 overs which has cost him and England 31 runs... several sixes hit off him...

Strumms

Burns drops Labuschange, a chance of medium difficulty you’d have to say a nice height and not far away, it went quickly but still... 115/1... probably the Aussies should be four down given the chances England made a mess of, drops and the no ball...

another chance, runout but Hameed misses the stumps only 5 or 6 meters away all be it a tightish angle...

MFPM

Good performance by England to get back into the game a bit though some of their fielding has let them down. They have problems though, Leach leaking runs big time, Stokes struggled in that one over. Robinson off the field now. The decision to leave Broad out looks increasingly bad as the game goes on. Australia in a very strong position, if the lead gets towards 200 it'll be really tough for England.

Royale with Cheese

Those Jack Leach figures... ouch.

IAmTitleist

Whitewash incoming...

These first 2 days have given me very little appetite to continue watching the next 6 weeks or so.

Gillespy

Watched two sessions last night so missed the fireworks from Head. Labuschagne's judgement in leaving is a lesson for the English. Wood, Robinson and Woakes all did very well. Best I've seen Wood I think. Stokes did well too until later. Let down by dopey fielding. Rory Burns straight after lunch worst of all.

This game is gone unless a miracle happens. England need to at least make Australia bat again or this series will get ugly fast.

Strumms

Joe Root quite mad captaincy...Stokes bowling to Head without a single slip...

Strumms

Leach has conceded 97 runs from his 12 overs... that’s even shitè for limited overs.

Butler now with a drop, one he should have taken but Wood takes a wicket next ball.

Richard Hillman

I have always thought that Burns' technique looks like somebody on Crystal Meth. But after getting out in the first innings the way he did, and still doing it in the second innings, I think he may be actually on crystal meth.

It was also an act of cowardice in leaving it to Hameed to take the first delivery. A real man would have imposed himself to say I am taking the first ball.

Strumms

Burns gone sixth ball after lunch, 23-1.... dreadful shot... the line of that delivery was way too straight for the shot but that extra bounce off a decent length didn’t help.

See what Malan can do.... An experienced test cricketer who averages.....28.62 considering he’s played 17 tests you’d have to think he’s lucky to be in the team... especially batting at 3....solid county record but not being translated into test cricket.

Strumms

England consolidated and were going well when Hameed tries to glance a ball down to third man rather then trying a more orthodox pull shot, it was too short a delivery for that effort he’d been going well but he won’t look back at that shot with much fondness... neither will his teammates, England’s fans or their management...

Tom Mann Centuria

Great from Root and Malan but I think this predicted score says quite a lot about England's lower middle order and tail!

Doodah7

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118299109#Comment_118299109

Just on this. I think England have, for the longest time, rotated the strike between first and second innings. Certainly Cook and Strauss always did and I think Cook continued the policy with the hundreds of openers tried in the years after Strauss retired also.

Edit: on reading a match report it seems he did indeed bottle it. He probably has two innings to save his career I think, if he even gets another chance.

Doodah7

Being realistic, I think either Root or Malan need to make a 'daddy' hundred or Stokes or Buttler make one of their own for England to have a chance of saving the game.

The scores also show that winning the toss was not an advantage in this Test. If Root had put Australia in it is likely they would have racked up a big score anyway. No way to win that argument really.

Gillespy

Didn't see any of that big partnership yet so don't know if they rode their luck or anything like that. It's not like Australia didn't bat like a cat with nine lives. Warner alone was one cat on his own.

It is a relief to see they weren't blown away. Root especially. Talk about the complete opposite of Rory Burns, showing why textbook orthodox is always best aside from a handful of outliers.

Is there some concern with Hazelwood not bowling. That would be a big blow.

Strumms

a savage effort by Malan and Root really... but they have to be there tomorrow at lunch though if England are to have a chance...

If that happens, and England go to lunch say with a lead of 30 or 40 there is something to hold on to.

with the weather set fair, lots of time left in the game, Stokes, Pope, Buttler, Wokes and Robinson need to put on 200 plus between them, coupled with another hundred or so on the board from the partnership of Malan and Root....

a fairly hefty ask... I’d say the English were hoping to lose a bit of time due to weather but Brisbane weather looks set fair right through ...

Australia firm favorites in spite of the Malan and Root fightback.

Strumms

Final test has been changed to a day / night test in Hobart, utilizing a pink ball...hmmmmm

Royale with Cheese

Fair play to Cricket Australia for deciding to move the Ashes to a new city as opposed to repeating Melbourne/Sydney for extra cash and competitive advantage. I suspect they'll already have the ashes by the time it gets to Hobart anyway.

Strumms

New venue fine, pink ball... day / night ? Don’t know about that one....would England have had to be consulted and agree ?

Malan gives his wicket away, I think he just lost patience....advancing down the pitch to a spinner with a rather close silly mid on... poor batting..

Strumms

Root with a similarly awful shot, looks as if he’s in two minds to play it or leave it, hangs it and the ball takes the edge...

Royale with Cheese

Game over.

MFPM

After the application and determination of yesterday, it's unravelled today in less than half hour even before the new ball. England saving the game was still a long shot unless the weather intervened but it's gone now...Australia could win this today.

Royale with Cheese

Australia could win this without batting again at this rate.

Strumms

I was just saying to myself... “ Buttler looks in decent touch how long until he fûcks up without making a decent score “.. about 2 minutes was the answer... typical Jos... the middle order just falling asunder again..

another goddam awful excuse for a cricket shot....

223/3 to 273/7.... jeez

Gillespy

Classic England. Started the session two down, ended it all out. Too easy for Australia.