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Ashes 2019

waiopehu oldboy

Stirling Mortlock (74)
Thoughts on players having names & numbers on their backs? Call me a traditionalist, a fossil even, but that ain't Test Cricket IMO.
 

waiopehu oldboy

Stirling Mortlock (74)
^ the "player number" numbers on the other hand I don't mind as they actually mean something & are theirs for life (it astonishes me BTW that you still haven't capped your 500th Test cricketer).
 

Finsbury Girl

Trevor Allan (34)
Need a big one from Smudge after top order again failed miserably.

Head, Wade and Little Timmy better contribute this innings or we we'll be 1 down.
 

Up the Guts

Steve Williams (59)
Smith becomes the 5th Australian to score centuries in both innings of an Ashes test. Average is currently north of 63. Ridiculous player.
 

Lindommer

Steve Williams (59)
Staff member
Hard to believe but Bradman ISN'T one of those five. They are: Bardsley, Morris, Waugh, Hayden and now Smith. Three Poms: Sutcliffe, Hammond and Compton, all great batsmen.

Ran into DCS Compton at the races at Royal Ascot many years ago, he was very impressed an Australian recognised him. He asked me how his mate Keith Miller was going back in Australia. Stumped me there.
 

barbarian

Phil Kearns (64)
Staff member
Thoughts on players having names & numbers on their backs? Call me a traditionalist, a fossil even, but that ain't Test Cricket IMO.


I'm probably an outlier on this, but I like it. Simple reason - it helps me identify players. While I know our guys, there are 4-5 guys in the England team who I can't identify by sight.

So I can turn on the TV and immediately tell who is facing, down the other end, and bowling.

I'd think it would be of great assistance to someone less familiar with the teams.

The numbers are a bit meh, but the names are useful. And I think it looks a bit better than I thought it would.
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barbarian

Phil Kearns (64)
Staff member
Just like in rugby, the national selectors are not hesitant to show their lack of smarts when they put a team together.


Cricket is a funny game, isn't it.

Wade scored crucial runs today, and justified the selection. Siddle has bowled well, and saved us with his dig in the first innings.

The only bloke who hasn't fronted is Bancroft. While I advocated for Harris ahead of him, it's hard to say he'd do any better under the conditions we have seen.

We may still not win the game and we've certainly been helped by the injury to Anderson (and maybe Woakes), but it's been a really pleasing effort from our team thus far.
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Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
The numbers are a bit meh, but the names are useful. And I think it looks a bit better than I thought it would.
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I'm with you. I think the names are a good addition for helping spectators but the numbers offer no benefit. The player numbers are meaningless in that they neither describe a position nor are they ever likely to be so entrenched and well known that players arel known for which number they wear to assist identification.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
We may still not win the game and we've certainly been helped by the injury to Anderson (and maybe Woakes), but it's been a really pleasing effort from our team thus far.
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We should win tonight. It's of course nowhere near a sure thing but if you can't bowl a side out on a 5th day pitch with enough runs behind you that you can really attack, you're not going to win a lot of tests.

We could easily end up winning this test by 200+ runs which will paper over how close we came to disaster. If not for Smith or even just Siddle for sticking with him in the first innings we could have easily been smashed inside 3 days.

Even at the start of day 4 England were strong favourites. If we'd lost a few wickets in the first session we could have struggled to lead by much over 100 and England could have cantered home.

It's quite amazing how dramatically test matches can be turned within the space of a session.
 

Brumby Runner

David Wilson (68)
Cricket is a funny game, isn't it.

Wade scored crucial runs today, and justified the selection. Siddle has bowled well, and saved us with his dig in the first innings.

The only bloke who hasn't fronted is Bancroft. While I advocated for Harris ahead of him, it's hard to say he'd do any better under the conditions we have seen.

We may still not win the game and we've certainly been helped by the injury to Anderson (and maybe Woakes), but it's been a really pleasing effort from our team thus far.
.

Pommie commentators are also saying something's not right (physically) with Ali.
 

Froggy

John Solomon (38)
Lindommer, Keith Miller died 15 years ago, my father used to play golf with him at Long Reef.
Was in some ways the Shane Warne of his day, drinker, womaniser, mug lair, unbelievably talented!
 
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