Ashes 2025/6

@mariner4life said in Ashes 2025/6:

@Old-Alleynians said in Ashes 2025/6:

@mariner4life

Stokes - times his bowling entry - most heavy lifting is done by others.

well, that's their job. Stokes still bowled almost 20% of all their overs, as the 4th seamer, and that's without being fit enough to bowl in the final innings of the tour.
In this last test took the first two wickets of the Aus first innings.
First test ripped the entire middle order out to take 5
Bowled his fair share the rest of the time.
15 wickets at 25, the vast majority of those numbers 1-7.

Weird take to get in to him about his bowling efforts on this tour. Batting? absolutely, but he busted his ass with the ball.

Stokes looked to have pretty much given up bowling a couple of years back but has definitely picked things up of late.

His numbers in both disciplines don't stack up to the truly great all rounders, ( probably better than Flintoff, not a patch on Beefy, particularly early Beefy ) but he is a big moment player. Bowled well this tour, a real let down with the bat ( although his top order sure didn't help in this department )

Most definitely worth his place in a combined team over Green.

@mariner4life

From my English mates - Baz etc fired the fielding coach as he sent through too many plans etc. Here is my mate's message below - like me a fan who follows his team so take it as you will -

No fielding coach. No wicket keeping practice. No reserve keeper. No pink ball practice. No alternative opener. Bryson Carse doesn’t open for his county. We’ve lost to their second string bowling attack. He should be resigning.

@Old-Alleynians said in Ashes 2025/6:

@mariner4life

From my English mates - Baz etc fired the fielding coach as he sent through too many plans etc. Here is my mate's message below - like me a fan who follows his team so take it as you will -

No fielding coach. No wicket keeping practice. No reserve keeper. No pink ball practice. No alternative opener. Bryson Carse doesn’t open for his county. We’ve lost to their second string bowling attack. He should be resigning.

can't argue with it TBH. It's a collective failure, and a bad one at that.

@mariner4life

At my quick glance Stokes bowled less balls per innings than Archer/Carse (I may be wrong). He was better equipped to open than Potts/Carse/Tongue etc but opted out.

No one denies Stokes' effort but as said I think he left the heavy lifting to others and picked his moments.

he's the 4th seamer, and you want him to open?

The guy who is captain and batting 6 should not also be bowling the most overs. If it was going according to plan he would be bowling short spells while his 3 main seamers and the spinner they refused to pick did most of the bowling.

But he was too often called upon to bowl earlier and for longer as the others struggled. The eye test says he also bowled a good heavy ball and looked threatening for a lot of his spells.

@Old-Alleynians said in Ashes 2025/6:

No fielding coach. No wicket keeping practice. No reserve keeper. No pink ball practice. No alternative opener. Bryson Carse doesn’t open for his county. We’ve lost to their second string bowling attack. He should be resigning.

The Aussies were there for the taking this series, old and injured.
Thought the Poms had the raw material to get it done (and the do).
But they were a complete shambles.

Yes - only if you think his batting justified 6. He had newbies and others who didn't open for their County. Looking at England's balls bowled vs innings Stokes (apologies - I can't post it but google etc) bowled less than Acher and his other opening bowlers (as mentioned above who weren't openers or were test newbies). Sure he batted 6 but I don't think his results there justified not bowling more in key moments.

I inadvertently managed it.

It was pointed out Carse had one of the best strike rates on ashes series, 36 balls per wicket. He just went for a few runs. He seemed to bowl better in his later spells too which seemed to highlight he’s not really suited as an opening bowler. Does better when the ball is softer and older
Only other English bower who looked the goods was Tongue
Jofra to me is over rated. His record isn’t even that good. He improved before he broke down (again) but the series was already lost by then

Find it funny 9% who voted that combined team didn’t pick Head…

@Virgil said in Ashes 2025/6:

It was pointed out Carse had one of the best strike rates on ashes series, 36 balls per wicket. He just went for a few runs. He seemed to bowl better in his later spells too which seemed to highlight he’s not really suited as an opening bowler. Does better when the ball is softer and older
Only other English bower who looked the goods was Tongue
Jofra to me is over rated. His record isn’t even that good. He improved before he broke down (again) but the series was already lost by then

Find it funny 9% who voted that combined team didn’t pick Head…

Duckett did have an excellent strike rate

Plus the name Travis Head is very silly and he looks like an 80s throwback. That's all I can think of.

@Virgil

To me Potts was thrown under the bus. No long format cricket since forever.

they were fucked because there was a lot of planning built on hope.

Once their two spearheads proved to be unfit, and predictably broke down, they were screwed. Throw in Atkinson being absolute ass and that's their first choice trio gone.
Didn't trust their spinner who got a free holiday.
They were fortunate that Tongue proved to be their best bowler on tour.

England bowling attack intrigued me.

Carse certainly isn't an opener. Far too many looseners, doesn't have the discipline to bowl the line and length that gets wickets with the new ball.

Stokes is quicker than I realised. He sits in the low 140's which is international opener standard, and seems accurate enough. So why wasn't he opening? Can't he swing like a true opener? Does that matter, on pitches as spicy as we saw? Seems to be another example of pigheadedly sticking to the plan and believing in the troops to leave Carse in.

Pissed me off seeing England throw so much away in dropped catches. Black Caps bowlers seem to toil away for days at a time for the mere opportunity to drop a catch in Australia. They throw their wickets away against this English attack, but everything goes begging. Most frustrating.

To me bowlers rarely make good captains. (Cummins seems to be one of the exceptions, when he’s playing)
They either over bowl themselves or under bowl. It’s like they feel they are biased if they put themselves into bowl.

Baz is the dictionary definition of a one trick pony. He'll discover a new one and reinvent himself for a third time no doubt...

This the bigger Telegraph read referred to in the above:

The inside story of booze-fuelled Ashes tour that divided Stokes and McCullum:

@Donsteppa said in Ashes 2025/6:

This the bigger Telegraph read referred to in the above:

The inside story of booze-fuelled Ashes tour that divided Stokes and McCullum:

View embedded content

Damning

Is it not hard to not hit the booze when as a cricketer you're on the biggest tour in your career.
Is it in a British mans DNA that doesnt allow him not to drink?

Lol if anyone saw how much the Kiwi cricketers put away (on Baz's first tour) back in early 2000s. they would see where he got his ideas of how to relax.

Young men away on overseas work trip drank a lot. More news at 11...

Ironically, England largely lost the 1st test to Bazball, being Head's individual brilliance. Win that, scrape through the 5th test, and maybe it's a whole different conversation.

I'm not sure of the best way forward in all areas because it's not obvious to me that England have a stack of replacement players, captain or coaches ready to just step in and be as good. However, Rob Key sounds like a plonker and England could definitely sharpen up the fielding so maybe start there as an obvious "learning" and make Key the scapegoat.

@Godder said in Ashes 2025/6:

Young men away on overseas work trip drank a lot. More news at 11...

Ironically, England largely lost the 1st test to Bazball, being Head's individual brilliance. Win that, scrape through the 5th test, and maybe it's a whole different conversation.

I'm not sure of the best way forward in all areas because it's not obvious to me that England have a stack of replacement players, captain or coaches ready to just step in and be as good. However, Rob Key sounds like a plonker and England could definitely sharpen up the fielding so maybe start there as an obvious "learning" and make Key the scapegoat.

I'm not sure how much the drinking was the issue, after all Beefy Botham put a hell of a lot away when he was winning the Ashes for England back in the day, although to be fair it was harder for him to keep the weight down and fight off the niggly injuries later in his career.....

I think the issue was England played only one way, and when the pressure was on that one way turned to shit.

I guess it's the old story - if you're not doing something that your opposition is (or vice versa), how much do you really want to win compared to them.

Starc being one example in that story. And while he was at one end of the spectrum in the Aussie team (compared to the "Travis Head-led bar crawl"), it all seemed to be cumulative for the Poms. The story about Carse in a casino sounds interesting. And so on.

@Donsteppa said in Ashes 2025/6:

The story about Carse in a casino sounds interesting.

What was that story???

No international cricketer should be out on the piss the night before a game, that is professionalism 101. The way England played that ODI series against NZ suggests that the overall attitude was pretty poor.

@KiwiPie said in Ashes 2025/6:

@Donsteppa said in Ashes 2025/6:

The story about Carse in a casino sounds interesting.

What was that story???

From the Telegraph via Stuff. Looks like the event itself was in a cafe, just that the team were staying in a casino:

The morning after England’s sucker-punch of an opening Ashes defeat in Perth, Brydon Carse was sat at a riverside cafe with his team-mates Zak Crawley and Harry Brook.

Carse put his hand in his pocket, and accidentally dislodged what eyewitnesses described as thousands of dollars in cash that flew into the air.

Patrons of the cafe, including English cricket journalists enjoying a quiet coffee, were left scrambling to grab the cash and return it to Carse. Crawley looked mortified.

The incident, whether innocent or otherwise, acts as an emblem for an Ashes tour that was loose, careless and at times downright baffling.

Bear in mind that Carse, just a year prior, had served a three-month ban for betting on cricket matches, which leads us into England’s curious choice of where to stay in Perth.

Loose behaviour and a casino stay

England opted to stay at Crown Towers, an opulent casino complex that is home to one of the best hotels in Australia. It was within a short walk of the new stadium, but living in a casino for weeks, with a total of two competitive days of cricket after the first test ended so quickly, put temptation everywhere.

The players, often well-oiled, frequented the casino’s tables in full sight of England fans and other punters, some of whom were there because it was one of the only places in Perth open after hours and showed Premier League football.
....

Source: https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/360922816/inside-story-booze-fuelled-ashes-tour-divided-stokes-and-mccullum

If the general tenor of these stories is true, I'd be extremely pissed off were I an England fan.

And were I in a position of power I'd be handing Brendon his cards.

Sounds like a fucking shambles from the 1980s.

@Chris-B said in Ashes 2025/6:

If the general tenor of these stories is true, I'd be extremely pissed off were I an England fan.

And were I in a position of power I'd be handing Brendon his cards.

Sounds like a fucking shambles from the 1980s.

McCullum is only the second worst coach from NZ though, that's something in his favour.

@Chris-B said in Ashes 2025/6:

If the general tenor of these stories is true, I'd be extremely pissed off were I an England fan.

And were I in a position of power I'd be handing Brendon his cards.

Sounds like a fucking shambles from the 1980s.

Good news for Baz. There's a job opening up in NZ. And he was ahead of Dan Carter as a teenager, don't ya know, so that's enough of a pedigree for NZR!