TOPIC:

CA has hired a "student of the game" as their national mens coach
massive problem with that is when the opposition comes up with something outside the book 
this student has not a single clue of how to combat it , other than stack the boundary or keep bowling short and hope for a mishit
if this is what NSW & Victoria's control of cricket is all about then there is some serious pain coming
coming hard , cold & fast

curiously though I reckon Australia should have been the ones who snared McCullum - fancy that

Well done to the Poms.Crawley and Root really put us to the sword.
Bazball left no where for the Aussies to hide.Every day of every test has been a sell-out. Great test cricket by the Poms.
Great to see our Coach and Captains planning for Bazball worked.lololololol,team selection, negative field placements, just keep bowling short..
Rain might save us here.But where totally rattled.Batting,bowling ,field placements. England confordence is growing, every day.
 

I'd daresay everyone (but the Oz heirachy) knows England will come out on Day 3 and smash everything to try get 200 odd in the first 2 hours
then declare and bowl over the Grandads

and this quote from the dickhead's presser with the BBC says everything as to why this "coach and selector" has be eradicated asap

But regardless, coach and selector Andrew McDonald said there was nothing to suggest from the pitch yet that Australia had got their call wrong.“We felt like on this surface, against this opponent, that spin wouldn’t play a huge part and we’re yet to see that,” McDonald told the BBC.“I know Moeen took a wicket in the first innings, but we’ll never know what it would’ve looked like with a spinner today.“We went with a different attack and we’ve got to focus on the bowlers we’ve got.”

Most of us knowledgeable cricket "traditionalists" have been saying for some time that this combination of a deadset clown in McDonald as Coach (who has no weight in the cricket world especially Internationally, I mean he was just a hack at state level fmd) and your best fast bowler Cummins as Captain cant work and hasnt worked in reality!

McDonald as predicted has no clue and his only positive is he can drive the team bus from the hotel to the ground in time for them to get their hides tanned. The players wanted him in because they know he wont ask hard questions of them, lets face it he has no knowledge nor credibility to and just a pat on the back and a ruffle of the hair before play is as tactical is this buffoon would get.
Also fast bowling Captain's have rarely if ever succeeded and this has proved to be the case once again. I have always personally felt Cummins is being put up as the Captain to keep the NSW/ES mafia happy and thus protecting his mates Warner & co from ever being dropped! Tactically wise I have seen better skippers in the 4ths at my local club in the hills cricket comp!

Ronald McDonald is totally out of his depth.He flew Sturt Dew ,former GCS coach.Over the England as a mentor to the players. 
Does McDonald still want two ashes trophies. One for the winner and another for the r u nners up,lol.

Amongst all this negativity we also need to take a deep breath and say well played England. They are basically the same unit that got flogged from one end of Australia to the other just 18 months ago. They havent been at their best so far in this series but are now starting to produce the brilliant cricket that they have been demonstrating against other countries since the last English summer. Stokes is a risk taker as a captain but he is brave as well and his confidence in his team is paying off in bucketloads.

Australia are facing a tsunami of momentum which they will find hard to reverse. This series reminds me a bit of 2005 when England came from behind to win and the Australian team of that year was so much better than the current side.
 

Well said Mikey - as hard as it was to watch last night - It was bloody good batting from Moin, Root and Crawley.

I expect Stokes, Brooks and Bairstow to throw the kitchen sink at everything in the first session on day 3, get the lead over 250 and have us bat for the last two sessions.

In that scenario, If we are any worse than 5 down by stumps tonight and don't have a lead, its game over even with rain. They only need a couple of hours of play over the last two days to clean up the tail.

I agree with comments, some clueless leadership is causing us to play dumb cricket

Beasley Hutton wrote:

Most of us knowledgeable cricket "traditionalists" have been saying for some time that this combination of a deadset clown in McDonald as Coach (who has no weight in the cricket world especially Internationally, I mean he was just a hack at state level fmd) and your best fast bowler Cummins as Captain cant work and hasnt worked in reality!

McDonald as predicted has no clue and his only positive is he can drive the team bus from the hotel to the ground in time for them to get their hides tanned. The players wanted him in because they know he wont ask hard questions of them, lets face it he has no knowledge nor credibility to and just a pat on the back and a ruffle of the hair before play is as tactical is this buffoon would get.
Also fast bowling Captain's have rarely if ever succeeded and this has proved to be the case once again. I have always personally felt Cummins is being put up as the Captain to keep the NSW/ES mafia happy and thus protecting his mates Warner & co from ever being dropped! Tactically wise I have seen better skippers in the 4ths at my local club in the hills cricket comp!



I recall the moment in the Headingly test on Day 5 when England were about 100 , so they still needed around 150. Mark Taylor was in commentary and he said that moment was the time to bring on Murphy, when they still had some runs to play with. Then if England took to him, they could take him off and still try him again later. Whereas if they left it till England needed only 100, they would only have one crack to use him. It was sort of a captains instinct type thing. Of course Cummins delayed his introduction and he was then rendered ineffective. Instead we had more of Cummins bowling and I doubt if I have ever seen him bowl so poorly in a series. Murphy then would have thought the captain had no confidence in him and that made  him really unselectable for this test. Contrast this with the way that England have treated Mooen Ali and he has produced for them.
 

most cricket people understand there are times when you need to take the pace out and make the batsman adjust and change
that is the role your spinner plays it seems to be lost here