The Ashes and other cricket 2017/18.

[TheNuclearOne]

What a day for Australia. Big timely ton for Kwaka just when the whispers were starting, Smith being Smith except for not quite making triple figures and the Marsh boys hammering along nicely. Mitch has certainly tightened up his batting and this is his third top dig in four outings. It's good to see some of the team sorting itself out to a large extent before South Africa. One opening batting spot might be the only concern now. Such a shame Pattinsons injury was such a bad one.

[oldracer]

Crane is certainly pulling out quite a lot. Is he catholic?

Lol!!!!!!

[Sydney Hacker]

Crane a good limited overs bowler Jim? He looks to have enough talent to be more then that!

Spins the ball, has a decent wrong un. A bit of time, a good captain and someone to mentor him and he could be very good. The English do tend to not get the best out of leggies though.

[AndyP]

I'm feeling a bit sorry for Crane. He's bowled a bit better than his figures suggest.

Feeling sorry for a Pom? Give yourself an uppercut.

SH, Crane apparently has MacGill as a mentor.
Mentored by SCG MacGill, middle name Sidney, debut in Sydney at the SCG.

[jimandr]

I'm doing it a bit tough today, as a full fee, 7 day member of the 'why is M Marsh in the team' club.

Mitch was his usual robotic go hard at the ball self for his first 30 minutes, but he got through that. The only remote criticism to make is that he didn't go on after making his ton, but he played so well yesterday arvo and this morning that he is in the team to stay for quite some time.

Even though Crane is now turning it, and the pitch is keeping low on occasion, I still think it is a terrible pitch for test cricket. Not as bad as the one in Capetown though. It was a real minefield. I hope we don't play on that one.

[AndyP]

I'm doing it a bit tough today, as a full fee, 7 day member of the 'why is M Marsh in the team' club.

Focus on his bowling.

[pt73]

All over, Pat Cummins wins Man of the Match.

Great to see him perform so well after all his injury woes from a few years ago.

[Ron Burgundy]

Unfortunate for their skipper. I almost feel bad for him. Nobody likes a dry Root......

[3oneday]

[TheNuclearOne]

All over, Pat Cummins wins Man of the Match.

Great to see him perform so well after all his injury woes from a few years ago.

My thoughts exactly. After all the heartbreak and hard work he's filled out and suddenly it's all come good. Who would have thought he'd play 5 Ashes Tests in a row and handle quite a substantial workload? One ironic bonus for him is that all that work he put in on his batting and playing as a batsman only in grade cricket when unable to bowl has certainly paid rich dividends. 166 runs at an average of 41.5 is a fine effort. Tim Paine also went well for someone so many were claiming couldn't bat. He's upped his Test batting average to almost 40 now.

[pt73]

My thoughts exactly. After all the heartbreak and hard work he's filled out and suddenly it's all come good. Who would have thought he'd play 5 Ashes Tests in a row and handle quite a substantial workload? One ironic bonus for him is that all that work he put in on his batting and playing as a batsman only in grade cricket when unable to bowl has certainly paid rich dividends. 166 runs at an average of 41.5 is a fine effort. Tim Paine also went well for someone so many were claiming couldn't bat. He's upped his Test batting average to almost 40 now.

Yes, his batting was a great bonus.

He's played a lot of tests in the last year with the tours of India, Bangladesh and now the Ashes series and is happy to bowl plenty of overs even when he was crook in Melbourne.

It's a great story of a guy never giving up despite the setbacks he's had.

[jimandr]

I've changed the title of the thread to reflect that there may be quite a lot of interesting cricket to talk about over the next few months.

The first test in South Africa didn't tell us much. Batting was a lottery. I suppose we could be cynical and suggest the pitch was more suited to the home bowlers, but to be fair, Capetown is often like that. the other India tests may be a better indicator of how Australia will go over there.

I'm not sure The Ashes told us a lot about the near future of our cricket either. We already knew most of our batsmen can bat on flat tracks. Can Khawaja get runs away from home? Can either or both of the Marshes?

I'd keep Bancroft, and still take Handscomb as the reserve batsman.

We knew Starc and Hazelwood could bowl well, so the bowling positives were Cummins lasting 5 tests and Lyon getting better. He still bowls at 90k, but he seems to be getting more turn, and importantly, some drift he wasn't getting before. I'd imagine Sayers and Bird would be the reserve pacemen, even though Bird was most unimpressive in Melbourne. He still might be useful if the Saffa's do give us another Capetown minefield or a greentop somewhere else.

[TheNuclearOne]

The South African pitches are a lot closer to our own than England and the sub continent and we usually play pretty well there. Shaun actually scored a pivotal 140 odd (and then Johnson tore them apart in both innings) in the first innings of the first test over there last time and followed it up with 40 odd before bagging a pair in the next test. We won the last series at Cape Town scoring almost 800 for the loss of 12 wickets.

[TheNuclearOne]

Hopefully the Wanders pitch is sorted out by the time we play there.

http://www.news.com.au/sport/south-a...56a948f392571f

[pt73]

Talk today on the BBL game (Stars v Hurricanes) that there's a rumour Maxwell may decide to play T20 around the world and not be available for Test or ODI.

He went for A$ 1.7M to Punter's IPL team today.

[Ron Burgundy]

Talk today on the BBL game (Stars v Hurricanes) that there's a rumour Maxwell may decide to play T20 around the world and not be available for Test or ODI.He went for A$ 1.7M to Punter's IPL team today.

He should. If history is any guide the selectors will continue to screw him over so why not go and make some bank while he can.

[pt73]

I agree, he'll be 30 this year so he chase the cash.

[Lagerlover]

Well it's either that or "I'm a celebrity.."

[AndyP]

Australia have won just as many ODIs, as Federer has grand slams in the last 53 weeks.

[AndyP]

Congratulations to the Australian selectors for getting the Strikers across the line by releasing Head for last night's game (but no one else).

[coalesce]

Finch was injured anyway

[Toxic]

Congratulations to the Australian selectors for getting the Strikers across the line by releasing Head for last night's game (but no one else).

Renegades were poor.Cost themselves

[HOPHEAD]

Pollard could and should have won it for them but was to lazy. Head, Carey and Short all released for the final. Stanlake wont be tho because of the tough workload of bowling 4 overs of pace.

[Jarro]

Pollards arrogance cost the Renegades.

[jimandr]

I'm glad I changed the title of this thread to include other cricket, because right now on Fox 507 there is Ice Cricket "live and exclusive".

It is exactly what you thought it might be. Cricketers playing on a snow/ice covered field. It is actually quite similar to the beach cricket they had on a few years ago, with washed up old cricketers going through the motions as a novelty event on a surface that isn't grass.

It is probably better than playing cricket under the influence of an illegal substance, but not by much.

This is not the future of cricket.