Cricket really doesn’t help itself. The fannying about for an inspection at X and then 45 minutes later we can play is so frustrating. It just allows showery days to stop everything.
There could and should be pockets of dry weather to play. Whether the umpires allow the teams to get back out there, remains to be seen.
Such a shame that a fantastic sporting event as the ashes is going to be decided by the weather. You’d like to think Australia retaining the ashes in this way would be a hollow victory but we just know that won’t be the case and they will be arrogantly celebrating as if they’d beaten us 5:0.
I can’t understand why, in these circumstances an extra day can’t be allowed on Monday to finish the match.
I guess it’s our own fault for playing a game that is totally reliant on dry weather in Manchester of all places…
All ifs buts and maybes now unfortunately.. we’ll just have to take the ashes back in two years time now. It’ll be more fun in their backyardWe could have easily played an extra 3 hours in the three days we did get some play in.
It’s just so annoying and frustrating that we didn’t bat on instead of declaring all the way back in the first test. You never know of course but I think we’d have drawn that one and would now be 1-1 with all to play for…
absolute bollox decision- couldnt an extra day have been added due to no play today ?Day washed out and Aussies retain the Ashes. A completely miserable way to retain them.
I hope the team take a leaf from the women’s team and square the series at the Oval. It would at least stop them winning the series outright.
That would never happen. To be fair that wouldn’t be right, just so it’s suites England. To try and get some sort of result.absolute bollox decision- couldnt an extra day have been added ?
That would never happen. To be fair that wouldn’t be right, just so it’s suites England. To try and get some sort of result.
Maybe we batted too long, and could have had longer at them, before putting on a fascinating run chase. The declaration on the first day of the first test has come back to haunt us.
Let’s just go to the Oval and square the series, and blitz the Aussies there.
I kind of agree Tony, but would say that in the past 2 Tests England have been fantastic.Really pretty angry with the England management right now. Yes, we were unlucky with the rain this weekend, but we've been the better team over four games and we've lost because we've repeatedly shot ourselves in the foot:
1) The first day declaration at Edgbaston. Overly aggressive nonsense. Course it's possible we could have been all out in two balls anyway, but another 30-50 runs there and we definitely wouldn't have lost the game, and could have won it
2) Brainless batting in the first innings at Lords when we fell for the most obvious trap in the book and conceded a needless 90 run first innings deficit - and lost by half of that
3) Persisting with Bairstow as keeper, and having him be the biggest culprit as we missed chance after chance through the first two and a half Tests. We have a great keeper - and one who can bat, albeit in a more sedate manner than what this England management expects - we needed to use him. And there was no need to drop Bairstow either.....see next point.....
4) We've included Moeen for three Tests and watched him get a total of six wickets at an average of 65 (almost exact in line with his career averages vs. the Aussies, by the way) while being comprehensively outbowled by Joe Root, and we've included Jimmy Anderson for three Tests and watched him get four wickets at an average of 75 and prove that Father Time is indeed unbeaten. Meanwhile Woakes, Tongue and Wood have all been massively more effective and have played five Tests between them
5) As I said over and over and over on Thursday and Friday - the weather forecast for this weekend was clearly horrific, and what has transpired was thoroughly predictable. We absolutely had to give ourselves a chance at a three day win by batting super-agressively in the morning on Friday and getting the Aussies in before lunch to give ourselves a shot at bowling them out that day. But the one time when hyper-aggression was clearly needed, England went conservative instead.
And by the way, this comes immediately on the back of blowing the series in New Zealand as well by idiotically enforcing the follow on when we could and should have batted them out of the game.
The difference between the two sides this Ashes is that one sticks to its principles and hopes to win, while the other will do literally anything to win. And while I certainly don't want to see England ever behaving like this Aussie side - there's a middle ground that we need to find to compete with them. One where Vaughn and Strauss' sides always managed to sit - play honestly and honorably but have a ruthless streak. The current England management have done a wonderful job in clearing the players' minds and giving them the freedom to go and out and perform, but they have the ruthlessness of a sponge.
Sure, we lost/they won the Ashes, but I know which team I and cricket fans around the world would rather support. Not only are captains and players like Stokes rare, but people like him are, and while we might not get to keep an urn, as a not particularly prideful nor patriotic person, I love the way we conduct ourselves, and I'm proud to be a fan of English cricket. They're not just players to be inspired by, but people, and the future of our game is as exciting as it's ever been when we've role models like these.Really pretty angry with the England management right now. Yes, we were unlucky with the rain this weekend, but we've been the better team over four games and we've lost because we've repeatedly shot ourselves in the foot:
1) The first day declaration at Edgbaston. Overly aggressive nonsense. Course it's possible we could have been all out in two balls anyway, but another 30-50 runs there and we definitely wouldn't have lost the game, and could have won it
2) Brainless batting in the first innings at Lords when we fell for the most obvious trap in the book and conceded a needless 90 run first innings deficit - and lost by half of that
3) Persisting with Bairstow as keeper, and having him be the biggest culprit as we missed chance after chance through the first two and a half Tests. We have a great keeper - and one who can bat, albeit in a more sedate manner than what this England management expects - we needed to use him. And there was no need to drop Bairstow either.....see next point.....
4) We've included Moeen for three Tests and watched him get a total of six wickets at an average of 65 (almost exact in line with his career averages vs. the Aussies, by the way) while being comprehensively outbowled by Joe Root, and we've included Jimmy Anderson for three Tests and watched him get four wickets at an average of 75 and prove that Father Time is indeed unbeaten. Meanwhile Woakes, Tongue and Wood have all been massively more effective and have played five Tests between them
5) As I said over and over and over on Thursday and Friday - the weather forecast for this weekend was clearly horrific, and what has transpired was thoroughly predictable. We absolutely had to give ourselves a chance at a three day win by batting super-agressively in the morning on Friday and getting the Aussies in before lunch to give ourselves a shot at bowling them out that day. But the one time when hyper-aggression was clearly needed, England went conservative instead.
And by the way, this comes immediately on the back of blowing the series in New Zealand as well by idiotically enforcing the follow on when we could and should have batted them out of the game.
The difference between the two sides this Ashes is that one sticks to its principles and hopes to win, while the other will do literally anything to win. And while I certainly don't want to see England ever behaving like this Aussie side - there's a middle ground that we need to find to compete with them. One where Vaughn and Strauss' sides always managed to sit - play honestly and honorably but have a ruthless streak. The current England management have done a wonderful job in clearing the players' minds and giving them the freedom to go and out and perform, but they have the ruthlessness of a sponge.
We didn't win back The Ashes because we dropped too many catches, simple as. We could have won Test 1 and 2 if we had. Equally if Wood and Woakes were fit to play those tests we might have won them. But we didn't, but we are evolving the way test cricket will be played.Really pretty angry with the England management right now. Yes, we were unlucky with the rain this weekend, but we've been the better team over four games and we've lost because we've repeatedly shot ourselves in the foot:
1) The first day declaration at Edgbaston. Overly aggressive nonsense. Course it's possible we could have been all out in two balls anyway, but another 30-50 runs there and we definitely wouldn't have lost the game, and could have won it
2) Brainless batting in the first innings at Lords when we fell for the most obvious trap in the book and conceded a needless 90 run first innings deficit - and lost by half of that
3) Persisting with Bairstow as keeper, and having him be the biggest culprit as we missed chance after chance through the first two and a half Tests. We have a great keeper - and one who can bat, albeit in a more sedate manner than what this England management expects - we needed to use him. And there was no need to drop Bairstow either.....see next point.....
4) We've included Moeen for three Tests and watched him get a total of six wickets at an average of 65 (almost exact in line with his career averages vs. the Aussies, by the way) while being comprehensively outbowled by Joe Root, and we've included Jimmy Anderson for three Tests and watched him get four wickets at an average of 75 and prove that Father Time is indeed unbeaten. Meanwhile Woakes, Tongue and Wood have all been massively more effective and have played five Tests between them
5) As I said over and over and over on Thursday and Friday - the weather forecast for this weekend was clearly horrific, and what has transpired was thoroughly predictable. We absolutely had to give ourselves a chance at a three day win by batting super-agressively in the morning on Friday and getting the Aussies in before lunch to give ourselves a shot at bowling them out that day. But the one time when hyper-aggression was clearly needed, England went conservative instead.
And by the way, this comes immediately on the back of blowing the series in New Zealand as well by idiotically enforcing the follow on when we could and should have batted them out of the game.
The difference between the two sides this Ashes is that one sticks to its principles and hopes to win, while the other will do literally anything to win. And while I certainly don't want to see England ever behaving like this Aussie side - there's a middle ground that we need to find to compete with them. One where Vaughn and Strauss' sides always managed to sit - play honestly and honorably but have a ruthless streak. The current England management have done a wonderful job in clearing the players' minds and giving them the freedom to go and out and perform, but they have the ruthlessness of a sponge.