Australia Hold All the Chips
The first hour of the morning session was exhilarating. Swann and Anderson made the Australians look silly. I didn’t expect England to cross 400, but they did in stunning fashion. Too bad Swann missed his half-century and Panesar missed double-digits.
The rest of the day was a grind. Australia moving ever surely towards an imposing lead. I suppose if Australia is still there by the end of Day 3, England is down and out. There is a lot of batting to come yet.
I am a little disappointed. It would have been nice to see a tighter contest between bat and ball, like what we did in the England innings. But so far, the England bowlers have shown many glimpses of that.
Homer and others have suggested a defensive strategy by England: pack one side and bowl to it, or bowl fewer overs throughout the day. I am not so sure. I don’t think England can execute it well, nor do I think that the England mangement would think of doing it. They may be forced into it if things don’t improve during the day, but I cannot see them use it to nail the Australians.
The good news is that England can hold their own against the Australian bowlers. So if things don’t turn out well, they can always try to bat out a draw. We will know if England have a hope by lunch tomorrow.
The English batting was never the worry.. as u had mentioned in one of ur posts – Strauss, Cook, Bopara tough to get through.. and then KP and the rest.. great line up.. its the bowling that is crap.. I don’t see them taking 20 Aussie wickets in any test..
Q, the English bowling even looks bad on paper. So what can you expect!
anderson and specially broad looked overawed by ashes…
they lack the self-belief…the way the ball was spinning and bouncing they should have got more wickets…
Straight Point, Australia are a class act. They have the batting depth to take on anything that England throw at them. And of course, the English bowling has never been great. I did expect more from Swann.
I’m a bit confused – England have a GOOD batting line up ?? say what ??????? Save for Pietersen who from the present English line up can replace anyone from the Australian line up ?? Hmm let me take a look
1. Strauss vs Katich – I prefer Katich for the bowling option he provides, not mention he’s an equally good batsmen as Strauss.
2. Cook vs Hughes – Hughes just shades it even though he’s only three tests old !
3. Bopara vs Ponting – No contest !
4. Pietersen vs Hussey – sure Pietersen here ! albeit with his attitude to daft shots once past 50, even this is not a certainity !
5. Collingwood vs Clarke – No Contest Clarke by a mile !
6. Flintoff vs North – crocky Flintoff, nah North is safer bet
7. Prior vs Haddin – Haddin is more likely to change a test than Prior.
So how exactly England shouldn’t be worried about their batting beats me. This English team is hopeless and they would need Australia to bat terribly twice to have a chance to win a test, let alone the series !
Tifosi Guy, I think you miss the point. The relative strengths of the Australian and English batting orders do not really matter. What matters is the absolute capability. Whether the England batsman can handle the current Australian bowling is the question.
To that, I would say that they are capable of doing so. They have enough depth to last more than a day and make a reasonable score. If they continue to do that and the Australian bowling cannot break the English order open, we could be seeing more draws than anything else.
Remember the West Indies – England series. Both sides had poor bowlers, so they just kept batting for ever. The series turned on one collapse in the first Test.
Krishna
My point is that this English batting line up isn’t as good as it is made out to be. A simple check shows how hopeless they are. Not to forget, the present Australian bowlers bowled Aus to a series win in S Africa. The same three bowlers are more than capable of running through this English line up.
Equally the same English bowlers/batsmen couldn’t prevent a series defeat against South Africa at home to boot !!
Taken in conjecture – the Australian bowlers are more likely to run through this English batting line up than the other way around
I agree with your last sentence. It is quite obvious that the English bowlers are hopeless.
I do however have more optimism about the England batsman even w.r.t. the Australian bowling. First, the English batting has been improving for several matches now. They hit a nadir in West Indies, but since then, have come back strongly. All of their batsman are reasonably capable and experienced. Of course, that is not a guarantee, but it is definitely something to work with.
Second, the Australian bowlers did win in South Africa, but that obscures the fact that they are still very inexperienced. Before this Test, the top 4 bowlers had a combined experience of 30-odd Tests. Their bowling averages (in Tests and first-class cricket) is not all that great. If you include Lee, the experience goes up, but not the quality. This is not anywhere near the McGrath-Warne quality. They don’t have a good spin option yet. So there is definitely a weakness there.
Adding all that up, I would say that England has the “potential” to survive the Australian bowling. Whether they live up to that is a different story, altogether. Proof is in the pudding, as they say.