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The Ashes: Australia reach 61/1 (124 behind) after bowling England out for 185 on Day 1 of 3rd Test

But surely Anderson & Broad have both played their last Ashes. They can easily graft Saqib in if they want to.

Ideally, Jimmy shouldnt even be on this tour. Hes a great bowler in Engand but just an "honest" one everywhere else. But if England were to blood Saqib, they should have done it in the home season. Australia can be rough for debutantes
 
Is England aware Marcus Harris has a distinct weakness against short balls? He would either defend awkwardly or play unconvincingly. Looking at their line, length, fieldset they have zero plan.
 
Anderson strikes. Nice catch by crawley. Warner wicket is a big wicket. Here comes our lucky boy Marnus. Another 100?
 
For all the criticism that Anderson gets, he's still England's best hope of a wicket with the new ball.

Good ball to Warner to dismiss him for 38.
 
Can Mark wood bowl a proper short ball? He is a skiddy bowler. But you need to exploit the bounce on the offer.
 
ENG 185
AUS 61/1 (16) CRR: 3.81
Day 1: Stumps - Australia trail by 124 runs
 
English posters may disagree but there are n players who can make any difference to this team. Sacking Silverwood wont make any difference.

Two years ago, the same criticisms were meted out to Bayliss. Bayliss' interview was very clear: The faults lie in county cricket. And he was right.

I do disagree.

Bring in Foakes who might not get runs either but can at least catch and stand in the right place for knicks to carry to slip.

Retire Anderson and Broad and pick Mahmood.

Give Wood the new ball.

Demote Root and give the armband to the more tactically astute Stokes.
 
Pretty sure the Centurion Test is going to be much more exciting than the entire ashes.
 
England should prove to the world why they deserve to play anything more than 3 test series.
 
<b>ICC
World Test Championship
26 Dec 21
Australia in command after bowling out England for 185
AUS v ENG, third Ashes Test, Day 1, report</b>

A brilliant bowling performance helped Australia to bowl out England for 185 and finish the day on a high despite losing David Warner early.

A bit of drizzle in the morning delayed the toss by 30 mins but with a forecast looking good for the rest of the day, the first day finished without further hiccups. Scott Boland became Australia's 463rd Test player as the hosts opted to bowl first at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

For Australians, the festive celebrations continued as they got off to a terrific start. England's opening woes continued with Haseeb Hameed falling for a duck in the second over to Pat Cummins, poking at a delivery outside off and giving Alex Carey a simple catch.

Cummins was excellent in the opening session, extracting movement from the grassy wicket and soon dismissed Zak Crawley as well five overs later for a 25-ball 12. At 13/2, England looked in usual trouble but their skipper Joe Root paired with Dawid Malan to stabilise their innings.

While Root was confident, Malan was cautious as the duo neared a fifty-run stand. England would have gone to Lunch satisfied had it not been for another Cummins special. In the last over before the break, Cummins bowled a straightish delivery that caught Malan's edge and he ended up giving a catch to David Warner in the slips.

The second session started well for England with Root getting to another fifty. But their misery continued when Root falling to Mitchell Starc soon after reaching the landmark. Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow forged a solid partnership, keeping the scoreboard ticking for the most part and thwarting Australia's chances.

The host bowlers toiled, with Cameron Green strangling the scoring rate in the middle overs and was finally rewarded with a wicket when Stokes cut a shortish ball straight to Nathan Lyon at point. England slipped further with Jos Buttler falling to Lyon as the visitors went to Tea at 128/6.

More of the same continued in the final session. Mark Wood survived for 15 balls before falling lbw to Boland, who claimed his maiden Test wicket as England lost the review. Bairstow, who had held on until then, bravely holding onto one end, was undone by Starc's short ball that reared onto him and had to be awkwardly fended off to the man at gully.
 
Ricky Ponting believes Ben Stokes needs to shed his "ultra-defensive" mindset if England are to turn around their batting woes, labelling their senior players' Boxing Day dismissals as "inexcusable".

England are still yet to pass 300 from five attempts in this Ashes series after being inserted and swiftly being rolled for 185 on the opening day of the third Vodafone Test at the MCG on Sunday.

Stokes, a late inclusion for this tour after finger surgery and mental health concerns kept him out of Test cricket for nine months, has struggled with the bat in his return with scores of 5, 14, 34, 12 and then 25 today when he was out aiming an upper cut off Cameron Green that ballooned to point.

Perhaps more worryingly for England though will be how the man who attacked Australia's bowlers at Headingley with reckless abandon not so long ago has put on the handbrake in the return bout.

Stokes has never finished a Test series with a lower strike-rate than his mark of 29.50 on this tour.

"He's looked ultra-defensive," Ponting told cricket.com.au. "He hasn't looked like the big, physically aggressive presence at the crease that opposition teams have feared to bowl to in other series.

"You can understand why – the batting conditions haven't been easy in any game and he's coming up against some good bowlers.

"But I think if you just sit back and wait, and don't put pressure on great bowlers, they're going to get you out.

"We always used to say in teams that I played in that the better the bowler, the more risks you had to take as a batter, because you simply don't get bad balls.

"You have got to find a way to jump on anything that's a little bit bad, rotate the strike as much as you can."

Ponting pointed out the struggles of the rest of the visitors' batters have not helped either captain Joe Root or Stokes, the pair the Australian rates as England's two leading batters.

England reshuffled their top-order personnel for the Melbourne Test, bringing in Zac Crawley and Jonny Bairstow in for Rory Burns and Ollie Pope, but Stokes has remained at the number five spot he has primarily occupied since the start of the 2019 Ashes.

It's where Ponting believes he should stay, with the allrounder averaging 41.35 from No.5 compared to 36.89 from the No.6 position he spent most of the earlier part of his career in.

"He's probably going into the game knowing that it's so important that he scores runs in that number five slot that he might be trying a little bit too hard," said Ponting.

"The bottom line with it is that technically he might be their second-best player, so you can't keep pushing him down the list when you're batting guys with inferior techniques ahead of him.

"And if you look at everyone outside of Joe Root then I would say that technically he is their second best player."

Ponting was particularly critical of Stokes, Root and fellow senior player Jos Buttler for their dismissals on the opening day of the MCG Test.

Jonny Bairstow admitted at stumps his side have spoken about being "stronger and tougher" at the crease after their stern team discussions following their defeat in Adelaide, but stressed that his side had been at a disadvantage by losing the toss on a seaming Melbourne pitch.

Root (50) fended at and edged Mitchell Starc to be out for his third half-century of the series to extend his wait for a first Test century in Australia, while Buttler was out on the stroke of tea miscuing a lofted shot off Nathan Lyon.

Ponting believes the manner of their dismissals set a poor example, especially after team meetings this week that were described as a "kick up the bum".

"You can talk as much as you want, but we can only judge on the actions that we see, and some of the actions that we've seen today didn't look like they're up for the fight at all," said the former Test captain.

"They showed a lot in the second innings in Adelaide and everyone thought that might have been a blueprint for them on how to fight and get through some tough situations.

"It was a tough situation (today), it was it was a difficult wicket, but, you know, that's where Ashes names are made.

"It's about getting through tough periods of play for your team. Joe got a fifty again and got out, and the rest of them really didn't look like it. It's been very ordinary batting from this outfit in the first two and a half Test matches.

"(It was) inexcusable for three of your more senior players, the players that they needed to stand up on the back of what we believe were some pretty stern discussions after the Adelaide game.

"If your leaders aren't going to do it, then you can't expect the younger guys to get the job done.

"The young guys are going to learn from the senior players and when the senior players are setting examples like that, you can understand why some of the younger guys are making mistakes as well."

"(Joe Root's wicket was) very similar to some of his other dismissals in this series.

"We talked about how he can probably get away with playing shots like that in England where there's not as much bounce, but with the extra bounce they've had in Brisbane, Adelaide and here at the MCG day one, you just can't be wafting and pushing the bat at balls a long way away from your body off front or back foot.

"Stokes' (wicket) seemed like a really strange shot. I think he was scared of the field placement to be honest.

"They had a deep backward square in place and a short ball at the body that, instead of playing a pull shot which is an instinctive shot for him, he tried to go the other way and ramp one up over the slips cordon, which he'd tried four or five overs earlier and played and missed."

https://www.cricket.com.au/news/ric...ralia-ashes-root-buttler-dismissal/2021-12-26
 
Lets be blunt and honest here - Australia didnt bowl that well today and still managed to get england out for 180. Some of the dismissals Buttler were beyond disgraceful. Some of these players need to dropped for ever. Just because they do well in white ball cricket doesnt mean they are test material.

Another 5-0 series loss coming up. Add to that 5 match Ashes series these days are a waste of time. I dont see any cricketing justication for it any more. Are finance that important that such rubbush has to be watched?
 
Some of the shots from England's senior players were absolutely awful. Talk about throwing your wicket away. It was like they were playing in a T20I and they needed 10 runs an over.
 
That’s the thing isn’t it, once the momentum starts running a certain way in a series it can be very difficult to reverse this.

Doesn't seem to happen when Australia tour England. Even when the series is 0-2 down you sense a fight incoming. England in Australia - the other way around, 0-2 means it's a 0-4 or whitewash for sure.
 
Some of the shots from England's senior players were absolutely awful. Talk about throwing your wicket away. It was like they were playing in a T20I and they needed 10 runs an over.

Jos Buttler was essentially signing off his own resignation letter with his dismissal I think.
 
They can still get back in this game, Warner danger man is gone. Get Lamb early and bowl out aus under 300, eng can make a fight of it.

Just play positive.
 
They can still get back in this game, Warner danger man is gone. Get Lamb early and bowl out aus under 300, eng can make a fight of it.

Just play positive.

I agree with you in principle, but when England are playing such poor cricket in general at the moment it is difficult to have any optimism about them making a comeback.
 
I agree with you in principle, but when England are playing such poor cricket in general at the moment it is difficult to have any optimism about them making a comeback.

Lookin at the last 2 test matches, its warner, Lamb and Head doing the damage. I think eng can get back in this, it was a poor toss to lose but eng cant whinge about it and must fight. They certainly have the bowling to bowl them out. I suggest Bairstow as the wicket keeper as Butler is gone mentally. He will retire from test after this series.
 
None of the pitches that were used in this series were unplayable for batsmen. Equally good for batting and bowling. England should have won more batting sessions. This was a poor effort on day one at the MCG. Should have ended up with like 270 for 5 or something. Not getting shot out for 185.
 
Even Haris is scoring now but like a said momentum can turn quick, two quick wickets and eng back in it.
 
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