Cricket

[Chazza]

2 young lads and the tail to try and drag it out of the fire.

[Chazza]

Ed Smith, Ex-England batsman on BBC Test Match Special
"It's been one of the most torturous mornings in Test cricket I can remember."

Glenn McGrath, Ex-Australia fast bowler on BBC Test Match Special
"It's getting worse and worse for England. Again, it was a ball in the right area and Ian Bell tried to defend but got a little edge behind. He thought he might have got a second chance after being dropped from the first ball he bowled, but he's lasted just 31 more balls."

Jonathan Agnew, BBC Test Match Special
"What an utter shambles. Teams just get to this stage and they are gone. What might happen in the one-dayers which follow, I can't begin to imagine. 23-5 flatters England - by rights they should be 21-5 if Ian Bell has been caught earlier."

[Buzzo]

I'll bet Ballance thought there'd be a few more runs on the board for his debut. Unbelievable.

[Shaggy]

It's incredible. They are the most spineless team in world sport.

[Chazza]

Out for 7 again?

[Leyton388]

What the hell has gone wrong in the camp? Something must have happened in the England camp prior to this series.

[Chazza]

Vaughan does love the sound of his own voice but he might have a point here.

Michael Vaughan, Ex-England captain on BBC Test Match Special
"Andy Flower has been outstanding for England but I feel there has been too much finger-pointing at the young captain rather than other personnel. England have not evolved, they continue to play the same attritional way. Look at what happened before this series - the weekend before the players left for Australia for three months they were taken away on a training camp and taken away from their families."

[Harv]

This Zimbabwean you have looks reasonably solid. Took a nice one on the helmet from Mitch there and looked pretty unfazed.

[Harv]

He is actually from a farm in the middle of nowhere.



http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/spor...-talks-2995580

Get out!

He wont hae to worry too much, he'll be back on the farm soon enough.

Cant wait to see what he looks like batting

[Harv]

This Zimbabwean you have looks reasonably solid. Took a nice one on the helmet from Mitch there and looked pretty unfazed.

Scrap that, out first thing after lunch.

[Buzzo]

I take it the England selectors current process is picking players to prove they are not good enough?

Rankin - check
Borthwick - check
Ballance (18, but off 92 balls ) check...

Not particularly friendly conditions to give anyone a debut, let alone 3 guys with a lot to prove.

[Shaggy]

We took a 17 man squad to Australia and have contrived to use 18 players but still have never picked Finn. What an absolute shambles.

[Chazza]

England have been "outskilled and outcompeted" by Australia in the Ashes, said batting coach Graham Gooch.

The tourists, trailing 4-0 in the series, were bowled out for 155 by Australia, who closed on 140-4 to lead by 311 runs after two days in Sydney.
"We have not been good enough. That's the brutal truth of it," said Gooch. "They have just outplayed us.

"We've been unable to get to grips with the Australian bowling attack. We've not been making the right decisions."
England are staring at a 5-0 series whitewash after another dismal batting performance in Sydney.

Captain Alastair Cook was trapped lbw shouldering arms to the second ball of the day as they crumbled to 23-5 before recovering slightly to avoid the follow-on in reply to Australia's 326 all out.
Gooch, England's all-time leading run-scorer with 8,900 in 118 Tests, said the collapse was all too familiar.

"There were one or two decent balls and one or two poor decisions but that is the way it has gone on all through the series," he said.
"We have made too many basic errors. Generally, good players get out lbw, caught behind or caught at slip. But in the games before this one, we made far too many errors, getting caught in the ring, caught at mid-on or caught on the hook, which has cost us dear.

"We've got one hundred in the series and that is not going to win you anything. I can't fault the players for the way they prepare and practise, but we have not been able to implement the plans.

"One of the things that has been crucial is that we've not been able to put some pressure on the Australian bowling attack.

"Against good bowlers if you just let them dominate it's very difficult. You have to take it to them a bit. We've not been able to do that at all."
Gooch, who has no plans to quit his role, accepts that several positions may in jeopardy after such a woeful series.

"If things don't improve then everyone's position is going to be under scrutiny," he said.

"That goes for players. If you don't perform, ultimately you get left out.
"Everyone here would not like to leave under these circumstances ... and the debris of this tour.

"I can't speak for everyone but I'd be surprised if everyone didn't want to put things right."

After Alastair Cook, Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen all fell for single fingers on the second morning in Sydney, England relied on debutant Gary Ballance (18), Ben Stokes (47) and Stuart Broad (30) to get them past the follow-on mark of 127.

According to former captain Michael Vaughan, the freedom with which Stokes, 22, has played with bat and ball should point the way forward for England and their coaching staff as they look to the future beyond the Ashes.
"Stokes instinctively reacts to the moment rather than being told what's going to happen by a computer or someone else," said Vaughan on Test Match Special.

"You have to go out onto that stage and release your talent. When players are making their debut, or in their first, fifth or 10th game, they are not going to play like experienced players.

"They will make mistakes but don't try to tell them everything. Let them make a mistake and then hopefully they will learn from it. If they keep making the same mistakes, you have a problem, but let people make mistakes. It's the nature of life."

England's immediate concern is trying to fight their way out of another hole over the remaining three days in Sydney to avoid a series whitewash. Gooch admitted it will be a very tall order.

"We can't just give up, we've just got to keep fighting," he said. "It's going to be a hard match but this is not the flattest of pitches.

"Having seen the pitch yesterday to me it looked like 250 would be a good score. But we were 23-5 and it's very difficult to come back from there."
Australia fast bowler Ryan Harris said the hosts were not starting to celebrate just yet.

"It's obviously not a done thing yet, we've got to make sure we bat well in the morning and get some more and bowl like we did today to bowl them out again," said Harris, who took 3-36 in England's first innings.
"I think it's just the pressure we've put on the whole series, we haven't allowed them to play the way they want."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/25601189

[Shaggy]

Gooch can **** off.

[RichC]

As perverse as this may sound once we'd lost the Ashes losing 5-0 and deservedly is perhaps not a bad thing, there is no way the selectors can ignore just how poor we've been and it should enforce much needed changes being made in coaching, captaincy (perhaps) and certainly the playing personnel we've been picking.

Australia have thoroughly deserved to thrash us this tour which is galling as they themselves are not a "great" side we have slipped so far so quickly it's unreal.

Got to be question marks over Flower, Gooch and Saker as the side has been piss poor all round, batsman have failed miserably and I don't think the bowlers have been much better tbh.

Cook, whilst I like him I think most are probably right on here and he's not the right man for the job as captain

A whole host of players might be on the way out but who have we got to come in, I'm not sure if we're prepared enough to ship out some of the players that need to go, might be a lean few years for us