Ashes 2025-26.

[Durhamfootman]

I've just seen the Smith dismissal

jeez......

[Durhamfootman]

Potts getting flogged, judging by the scorecard

Head closing in on another hundred this series

[alfie]

Typical second day for England on this trip... First they leave fifty plus runs out there (Brook and Smith donating their wickets) ; then they bowl it all over the shop and let Head and Marnus see Australia into a strong position at the close on 166/2.

Potts showing how hard it is to come in cold at the end of a tour , Carse expensive as ever. Tongue and Stokes pretty good but more of a group effort needed as the pressure kept getting released . Apart from the two wickets , Stokes might have struck another blow at the end as he hit Neser on his bowling arm and it didn't look good...

Root was outstanding for England . Nothing silly , fluent throughout and enabled others to get away with some reckless play around him. Jacks supported him well. But I am left with a feeling that this has been another case of throwing away a good position. Way to go yet so we will see.

[Arthur Crabtree]

In a series with the bowlers on top, maybe a case Head has been the POTS, rather than Starc. Close to a third ton, which will be as many as everyone else added together.

Neser quietly having a solid Ashes.

[Gingerfinch]

Starc has scored a few runs as well but 3 tons and over 500 runs on these pitches is a damn good show!

[andy]

And opening which is a unfamiliar role for him in red ball too

[sussexpob]

England have a great chance to make this 3-2, and given how many balls this morning jumped off a length, with near 400 on the board they probably should do. My fear if England do win here is that results at this stage in dead rubber games are less important than showing you have learned from your lessons in the first three tests, and whacking around Australia's B team attack or winning on a lottery surface in Melbourne playing the exact same way as you did when you sunk to 3-0 is not in the least encouraging. All you are really doing is rolling the dice and getting the number you need based on luck going with you, and we know during the live series against quality opposition that this strategy does not work.

Stokes/Jacks at Brisbane, Stokes in Adelaide, Archer bowling maximum pace in the 4th at the Gabba..... these are moments that mean more to me for the future of this team than winning dead rubber games slashing and smashing the ball around still. I winced at hearing Joe Root at the end of todays play defend Jamie Smith's wicket. He said that England's plan was to go T20 style to the old ball before the new ball came to change the dynamic. He said they had to target 10 an over vs pie-chuckers. Translation - We have not learned a single thing since we arrived in Australia. We will continue not to treat the ball on merit, we will continue to Bazball.... and we will probably continue not to win against good sides in big series.

Everything we heard at 1/2/3 nil has been forgotten. We are back to Harry Brook making the luckiest big scores possible. We are back to tennis shots at moments where the game is in the balance. We are back to stupid cricket.

The sad thing is, at 3-2 there will be people justifying that. Sometimes it better to lose in a good way, than win in a bad way... because that is how the law of averages work.

[sussexpob]

When Harry Brook came out in Adelaide to pledge to change the stupid shots, I remember posting something about it being like a cheating husband begging his wife he can change as he is about to leave the door. Well, this morning, watching Brook swing and Smith forehand smash a ball to the inner ring felt like the moment 2 weeks later when the wife comes home and catches her husband in bed with her sister.....

Nothing is going to change. The words were meaningless. Why bother spending another 1-2 years putting up with the same stuff to find out what you already knew all along?

This is Bazball. It is never wrong....

[Gingerfinch]

Brook does average mid 50's by playing in a similar manner in all his knocks! He must be doing something right?

[andy]

Brook does average mid 50's by playing in a similar manner in all his knocks! He must be doing something right?

100% however that being said his average has been helped by a triple hundred on possibly the flattest pitch ever seen

[Gingerfinch]

Still averages 50 if you take that innings away. He does play some dumb shots but I'll take a guy who can average 50 but get out in a cheap manner now and again.

[sussexpob]

Brook does average mid 50's by playing in a similar manner in all his knocks! He must be doing something right?

This is a perfect example of my post above about ignoring the method in the short term because the results appear to be fine. Sometimes luck sides with you, other times it does not. Over a whole career it will even out, and eventually technical problems or bad approach will come back to haunt you. Just look at the India series last summer, you can say he got 2 centuries and a 99 and averaged over 50 for the series, but...

In Leeds, he was caught at midwicket for 0 skying a wild pull shot into the deep after a few balls. Bumrah, having delivered two no balls already in the over, was ruled to have overstepped in what was an exact replica of the Brydon Carse one the other day, and a coin-flip decision that could have easily gone the other way. He was then dropped twice before scoring 50, and not long after passing 50 got a leading edge for a return catch that Krishna didn't pick up.

At the Oval, he skied another wild pull shot to Siraj on 15. Siraj caught he ball cleanly, but not noticing he was so close to the boundary, inexplicably then stepped out of play when he went to run off, turning the easiest of catches into 6 runs.... Brook ended up with another 110 runs.

At Edgbaston, he was hit on the pad first ball and given not out, the India review was lost on the barest of umpire call margins with the ball hitting the stumps. He then tried a wild dilscoop and was stumped, only saved by the fact that he fell over trying to play the shot and one of his buttocks hit the ground just before Pant whipped the bails off. On around 15, he charged down the wicket and missed a wild slog, but the keeper didn't collect the ball. He was then dropped by Shubman Gill at 2nd slip..... after which he made another 100 plus runs.

Two umpires decisions going the other way and Siraj not doing one of the most calamatious things I have ever seen on a cricket field, and its suddenly a best of 23 for the series, and an average of under 10 per go.... You end up saying, well if the coin flips the wrong way in Leeds, the average ends in the 30s for the series and he's been under par. If it flips against him in Edgbaston, and Siraj takes the easy catch you'd expect him to 99 times out of 100, he's had an all time bad series.

Those are the margins he is playing with at the moment.

[sussexpob]

Brook does average mid 50's by playing in a similar manner in all his knocks! He must be doing something right?

100% however that being said his average has been helped by a triple hundred on possibly the flattest pitch ever seen

Indeed. I think Crizviz rated that pitch as the 4th easiest track ever recorded based on zero movement/pace and bounce. His 100s in the tour before were played in similar conditions with similar historically tame wickets ..... I think all 4 of his 100s in Pakistan were on top 15 all time flat wickets.

[sussexpob]

Harry Brook can clearly play, but this year he has changed his approach to be ever more suicidal. The dumb fall over scoop and the consistent marching down the wicket at full charge, the wild swings playing away from his body with static footwork... he did not do this when he first came into the team. These are things that have crept in, and they are not going to work for him if he continues.

To begin with he got into strong positions. Head still, strong stance as a basis to play shots... its technically very different. He has changed a great deal in his approach since 2022

[Durhamfootman]

I think all Brook needs is a good slap and a season of red ball cricket with England and Yorkshire to become a very fine test player.

Of course, if he still keeps charging down the pitch first ball, or getting the reverse ramp out at critical moments of test matches, then he won't be able to complain if he gets sent home

Then again, his entire test career has been moulded by culture of carefree, careless, don't matter hit it better next time, so maybe it wouldn't be surprising if he and England failed to get the most out of his career

I still stand by this