Great idea Boz. More shame on me for not thinking about it.

The Ashes kick off today and here’s a thread for anyone who wishes to comment on the match.

This seems unfair. ..

Look at players per side.

Just to tide us over until I get home tonight and can look and revel in the majesty of the press (incidentally, my Mail Online at work has no new pieces since Saturday night so I’m not up on Newman’s latest, for instance) if the mood so takes me, I thought I’d give my reactions to events of the past four days and the immediate aftermath.

In the middle of the 2013 series Australia had two really good first days – the Old Trafford and Oval tests. These were slightly contrasting wickets and yet Australia filled their boots in the first innings having won the toss and batted. At OT, you know who made a century, while at The Oval, I believe you know who added two half centuries. I just want to put that out there because it is amazing the likes of Samuel were invoking his name, and even Andrew Miller was snorting derisively at people mentioning his name on cricinfo, yet we are all supposed to be moving on and even, hell, yes even forgetting who he is. Dave Kidd’s remarkable piece of weapons grade buffoonery in the Mirror entilted “We Need To Talk About Cooky” (with Kevin crossed out) spoke volumes of a media completely in tumult. Those people just won’t let go, constantly invoking his name, going on about him incessantly. Of course, those people are the media. Not us. There’s not been that much KP stuff prior to this weekend, has there? Kidd’s “Players Thrive Without KP The Forgotten Man” bye-line is a classic. If this weekend was thriving, God help us.

It is important not to over-react. The way media types were jumping on the “look how many times we are three down for not a lot” bandwagon as if this was a shock revelation says it all. That Cook, who has only just started being of any benefit with the bat after his two year slump, is now absolved of all blame is not such a shock. In a reverse Whitaker, it appears to be Ballance’s fault, and it also tolls on the Bell. The other opener has been such a problem for so long now, it’s taken as a given we’ll have another soon. However frightening Ballance’s technique is at the moment, and how Bell’s regression is a terror-strewn binary nightmare, both were seen to be OK after a sixty in Cardiff. The Twitter mouthpiece of All Out Cricket (The Official Magazine of the Professional Cricketers Association) was ramming it down doubters’ throats. “Drop Moeen, Drop Ballance, Drop Bell blah blah blah” (love that underneath my Twitter column for that it has “Translate from Indonesian”) as if doubting these players was erased by a half decent 60. We aren’t doing it because we enjoy it, Jo. We do it because we aren’t blind to trends, to technique, and to the relative abilities of the teams we are up against.

I don’t want to pick on that individual particularly – although that Tweet rankled – because in the main I agree with sticking with people for a while. But this England team set the bar with Cook’s wilderness period, and now Bell, with a 143 of great quality not three months ago, in the firing line there is the obvious implication of one rule for one etc. That’s the problem with our selection process. We have journos and pundits saying they can’t drop Bell without dropping Ballance and vice-versa. Why the hell not. Since when has our selection process, that has trust as its prime factor over ability, had any logic in it? If we have only one replacement that they think can come in, then drop just one player.

I am rambling, as usual, but I want to leave this piece with a couple of thoughts. First of all, we weren’t as good as Cardiff made us seem, and we genuinely aren’t as bad as this performance made us look. But we found out some harsh lessons that the “experts” chose to avoid. Steve Smith is a class number three and for all this was a featherbed, he made 215. He looked supremely in control when I saw him even when not at his best. Don’t insult him Swann. Don’t talk rot. Then there’s the Johnson can’t bowl at Lord’s codswallop based on the 2009 model. It’s six years on, and he was devastating. I don’t think we have a thing about him, I think we have a thing about left arm pace. Thirdly, Anderson was atrocious. Yes, atrocious. But he’s another sacred cow in this team, and that’s our issue.

Let me go back to Dave Kidd on Thursday:

“Pietersen’s new chums in the bookmaking industry make England even money to reclaim the urn. If Cook continues to lead as he did at Cardiff, they may soon be red-hot favourites.”

I don’t call the Australians “the cockroaches” for nothing. They may have been displaying distress signals, but they are never killed off. That’s the sign of a resilient, formidable team. Not a “win one game, ain’t we just the best, shut up haters and doubters” mob.

Back tonight.

In case you are not aware we have set up a satellite blog for pictures and century watch. It’s called Being Outside Cricket – The Extra Bits.

I’ve just posted some pics over there on this thread. Feel free to have a look. Do check in…

Well this is going to be enjoyable today.

All comments in here.

UPDATE – Some pictures from Day 2 up on the Extra Bits… https://collythorpeii.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/lords-test-snapseed-interpretations-part-1/

It’s indicative of the mess England have got themselves in that this was probably the best day of the game so far for them. And they still well and truly lost it. In isolation, a total of 312 having been 30-4 isn’t that bad, but it represents a major fall off from 266-6 which had represented a decent recovery, albeit while still miles behind in the game.

The trouble is that having got off to such an awful, and frankly careless, start, each wicket was a huge blow further deteriorating the team position. The pressure on the batsmen in such circumstances is immense, knowing a single error cannot be made, while conversely the Australians simply have to be patient, waiting for that mistake.

Cook and Stokes both batted very well, but such was the disastrous state of the game, each needed another hundred on top of what they got to become significant. Doubtless Cook will receive his usual media adoration for his innings, because that’s just how it is, but it wasn’t anything exceptional. He batted well, as did Stokes, and both were deeply frustrated by their dismissals, but in neither case was it close to being enough, and simply that means it has no material effect on the game. It’s not being churlish about this, but the focus on Cook to the exclusion of all else is so tiresome, it becomes vexing when he scores runs to know that it’s coming. In today’s instance, there is absolutely no reason whatever the focus should be on Cook rather than Stokes. None whatever.  Both batted well, but it isn’t the story of the day.

Australia didn’t surprise anyone by refusing to enforce the follow on, and batted freely thereafter. That’s also not much of a surprise. But what this awful performance has done is to play a whole host of Australians into form. After Cardiff, the pressure was certainly on, Warner going so far as to publicly talk about the difficulties he was having. No longer, especially after he was given a life on 0 second time around.

As far as this particular game is concerned it is likely to matter little, as far as the series goes it could yet prove fatal. England had their foot in Australia’s throat after the first Test, to say they have released the pressure is an understatement, England have been every bit as awful at Lords as Australia were at Cardiff, Cook and Stokes the batsmen excepted.

Quite why this is is hard to pinpoint, but it’s not exactly hidden from view. Assuming England do go on to lose this game, it will the third time in a row that they have lost immediately after winning. And the third time in a row they’ve played poorly immediately after winning. Of course x the opposition in each case deserve the credit, but it isn’t coincidence that England don’t match up to their winning display, indeed don’t even begin to get close to matching their winning display.

Not that you’d know that from the media coverage, whi h on each occasion has got extremely giddy and made the customary ludicrous assertions that England are becoming a fine side, only to then brush that under the carpet with the subsequent collapse.

The game is now in one of those phoney war periods while we wait for the real action to begin. Australia will spend tomorrow winding up their attack on the England bowlers, and England will be forced into the position of simply trying to restrict the scoring to keep Australia batting as long as possible.  Clarke is in the enviable position of knowing that the lead is already far beyond what England can achieve, and so can simply tire out the England bowlers and turn an overwhelming position into a completely impregnable one.

Midway through the day, Australia will be over 500 ahead, and leave England around 130 overs to survive.   It’s not impossible that they do it either, this remains a very flat pitch, and is if anything dying for the bowlers rather than showing signs of wear. It’s that that is the risk for England, as the repeated drag ons today showed – the classic sign of a pitch that is getting even slower.

If Cook does an Atherton and bats through the last say and a half, that will indeed be worthy of note, for its hard to see too many others doing it.

In reality, England look a beaten side, it won’t cause paroxysms of shock if when they do come to bat they lose wickets early again.

@BlueEarthMngmnt

UPDATE – I hope TLG doesn’t mind me tapping on to the end of his post, but we are setting up a site to take on Century Watch and most of the photos, as well as things like book reviews etc. This is especially for the busy times so we don’t flood the main site with material.

The link is www.collythorpeii.wordpress.com – and I’ve just put up a couple of pics of batsmen walking off to start it up.

Comments to follow during the day.

Got a decent pic of the first ball.

Surrounded by top people. And Graham Gooch is nearby…..

Broad bowling well.

Think Voges looks in awesome touch. Very good morning’s cricket.

On the phone so sorry for the short bursts. A pleasure to watch Smith but he had a monster on there. Silly shot in my view. Nevill looked dead handy. Still looks like 600.

It’s aggression. Face up to your tormentors and go back with positive intent and a happy demeanour. Don’t take a backward step, but play positively and everything will be all right. It’s really that simple.

A penny right now for the thoughts of Peter Moores. He’s being made to look a bit foolish isn’t he, and that’s got to be hard to take. Once again, though, we’ll be told that he brought all these players on, and that his successor has a lot to thank him for.  But it must eat away that the key was that simple. Get aggressive players to be positive and we’ll be fine. This is being decreed as some wonderful new discovery. As if things are that simple. Already we see the fawning articles about Trevor Bayliss, and Paul Farbrace – who appears to have had his faults absolved by one series. We’ve really been here before, people……

I’m content with the win, of course I am, but this is a five test series and Australia are not a bad side yet. I thought it telling that I felt no nerves at all on Saturday, which is different to any other England performance. I was utterly confident we would win it on Saturday. Totally. Australia to chase 400+ on that pitch with an undercooked line-up was never going to happen. Look at my early tweets that day if you think this is hindsight talking. I think it’s because I’m more dispassionate about Team England. To quote 10cc Mr Dobell “I’m Not In Love”. (Been listening to the Switch Hit from a couple of weeks ago on the way to work, where George thinks we are all (mostly) back on side. Erm, not quite…..).

So, we have a quick turnaround for Lord’s. The blog will be getting you in the mood for the 2nd test with a number of things. We have Ashes Panel #004 which will be up later this evening. There are currently six respondents, so it will be a long one. No change there. My thanks to all the contributors. The five questions are:

1. Well that was a surprise, or was it?

2. Your thoughts on the pitch?

3. Are Australia an old team  and this could get messy?

4. Joe Root was MOM. Who would be your runner-up?

5. Was this a vindication of Big Al?

These are paraphrased questions, and PLEASE PLEASE respond when I put the panel up and not before….. sort of spoils it if you don’t. I’m hoping it will be up at 9pm.

The Leg Glance has said he will be able to put some more stuff up this week, which will be terrific, and I’ll do another Ashes memory, accompanied with photos. Then, of course, there will be my on the ground report. Yes. I will be in the citadel on one day of this test. Keep an eye out!

I’ve been invited to a press screening of Death of a Gentleman. I haven’t been able to make the nights suggested, so I may have to miss out and watch it when it’s out on general release.

Finally, it would be remiss of me not to relay this piece of brilliance from Selfey…

“Cricket Australia’s immediate response was to put its finger in its ears, go “nah nah nah” and announce the dates of this year’s Big Bash in time for its morning bulletins.”

Priceless. From him, especially, priceless. I couldn’t have summed up the ECB or his reaction to the 5-0 loss any differently.

Have a good day, and look out later!

With the game ever so slightly in England’s favour the usual suspects are out asking for our surrender. Come on now, with all your nastiness and ill will, admit you are wrong.

At least they had the good grace to wait until we actually won a match in Grenada or at Lord’s. Now we are getting it two days in. To a series. Where the Aussies might need a decent run out to get up to speed.

Here is the base for comments on day 3. Cook and dismissing the tail goes together like fish and bicycles. We’ve seen it all go wrong too many times.

It’s so far so good. We’ve laid down a competitive marker. We’ve been given a chance with that Haddin drop of Root, and England took it. That’s what you need to do. But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. There’s a decent match in progress.

I’m out tonight for a social function so again won’t be around much. Keep the comments coming. ….