The Ashes 2023

Yeah Root done by the pitch. Must have kept 3 feet lower then he expected it to.

Bucknor, Bowden, Bird, Shepherd, Venkat are just a handful of Umpires I can think of who wouldn’t accept these constant delaying tactics that Australia are engaged in. Interruptions are beyond tiresome now.

delays because of problems with their…

runups..

footwear..

faded pitch markings..

tapeing for various body parts..

injuries - you have a fûcking 12th, 13th man etc for a reason…. Have a footwear issue, go off too.

also the multiple occasions delaying for drinks between overs. Umpires did I recall tell one runner to get back to the pavilion….

Downside of that is that it gives the set batsmen more time to settle & recover. If they kept hustling & things moving, might be more in their interests to get wickets.

Australia really up against it, yes it was a good day for batting, England really have had the luck with the conditions in this series, Australia will be hoping that the conditions come to their rescue because it seems that's the only thing saving them from a defeat. England were excellent yesterday, stunning batting at times, Crawley rode his luck many times but once he got the century he really took off.

I felt a three innings match wasn't possible but given how England batted today you couldn't rule it out. England could keep batting tomorrow, build a sizeable lead and then put Australia in and try to make inroads into what has been a somewhat frail batting line-up but a team that is probably a bit demoralised now and then finish the job on Sunday. It's a bit risky because of the weather and England have to win. It's more likely they'll want to get a lead of 150 then get Australia batting ASAP.

Starc's injury looked bad, he may not be able to bowl, Cummins looks tired and worse his captaincy suffered big time today. Australia are really feeling Lyon's absence. The senior batsmen need to deliver a performance in their second innings.

If England win here, they will have all the momentum going to the Oval, particularly with the short gap between matches.

Aus has showed an incredible inability to stay in. I know they are a good team, and perhaps they are just having an off series, but to me, they have played really poorly the entire series so far and it is more than to England's mistakes than Aus beating them. England could very easily be 3-0 up at this point. In saying that, I fully understand that you can argue that about almost any sporting contest.

Aus don't really seem to have a plan A, never mind a plan B, and they were well beaten in the last test and save for the weather look set to be well beaten in this test.

toothless in attack and lacking in any form in batting. Never a good combination.

England to declare when they have a 200 lead?

lead of 200 looked a formality but need a bit of tail wag now. Woakes isn’t exactly Brian Lara but that shot 🫣

But why would they take the new ball? When clearly they want Eng to bat as long as possible and play for a weather driven draw.

Was listening on BBC TMS while working outside and they had some co commentator on a similar theme - she was wondering why Aus weren't trying to polish off the last 3 quickly!! Why on earth would they?

Should just declare now at lunch

that way they won’t lose two overs / time for the change of innings later…. Know it’s only minutes but it might be necessary.

I’ll be pissed if the weather turns out to be the final deciding factor in the result of the Ashes. Everyone deserves better than that.

forecast needs to improve though over the next hours for the days ahead.

Are they waiting for Bairstow to get 50? !!!

Don’t understand why England are batting on….get bowling ffs.

Maybe, I hope so. This is a super inning by JB. Needed probably.

Won’t exactly be a gook look is he gets a ton and the declaration comes immediately.