The Ashes Tour of Australia 2025/26

There hasn't really been any exaggerated swing or seam movement, Australia are putting our innings into context. There have been periods were it has been tougher to bat, new ball, twilight (any time Starc is bowling) but this is basically a good surface.
If you take the 2 batting line-up in isolation the match up well in terms of averages & you could make a good argument that England are more talented, which makes it all the more annoying that in areas that we can do something about & control, such a shot selection, game awareness & general tactics, we fall massively short of what is required to be a successful Test side, your average village cricket team is capable of better decision making than this bunch.

On TMS it was noted that Australia were Bazballing England, but they agreed that they were just batting normally, legendary Aussie commentator Jim Maxwell chipped in with Bazbollocks.

Huge hour or so coming up for England we need multiple breakthroughs
Wheres Jimmy Anderson lol.

Australia cruising past 200 with ease & I completely agree with Boomer

We have bags of batting ability and talent, yet all we seem capable of doing is self - imploding with shot selection at the wrong moments and it seems no-one even thinks it's worth digging in and providing a batter - who is scoring well like Root was - with a little rear - guard support and frustrate the opposition bowlers for a few overs. Now it looks like we will chasing down a 4th innings total that on our current batting ability & form, will be way way off of our batting capabilities of achieving. That innings is ominously looking like it will be severe test of both batting ability and mental strength yet again.

(05-12-2025 08:21 )Tbear Wrote:  Huge hour or so coming up for England we need multiple breakthroughs
Wheres Jimmy Anderson lol.

Retired mate lol at this rate we'll be hoping a Baldrick style 'cunning plan' will help us.

5 dropped catches. Catches win matches.

not only that 18 extras we gave away, compared to Australia only conceding 9 in our innings which might prove expensive in the end. Probably shows just how focused the Aussie bowling is.

(04-12-2025 14:18 )Charlemagne Wrote:  I can't understand why they haven't played their quality spinner, Nathan Lyon.

Perhaps because he only bowled 2 overs in the first test.

Or because the last time he played in a pinkball test he only bowled 1 over.

Australia lead now over 100.
England bowlers toiling against Starc and Boland. Every single batsman has got in for Australia. In the England 1st innings there were 4 ducks!!

This is getting grimmer and grimmer.

Quite agree Australia have battered us and have also batted all the way down the order and even Starc has probably outshone England with both bat and ball and he bats at no.9!! That is simply down to them knowing what they are good at and playing Test cricket the way it should be played without over - complicating it. I would say even now if it rains and washes out the last two days play and we avoid a humiliation and a get a draw out of this one - England have just not been good as they seem to think they are in these first two Tests they need a hard dose of reality, with Root's century being their only bright spot in this one.

Let's face it we need to go right back to bloody basics and start again to overturn this Aussie team and cut out the Bazball bollocks for good.