Good side. All great players. Only thing I would say is that the entire team comes from the 70s to 90s eras which was obviously very strong but I reckon Haynes, Dujon and possibly Lloyd are a tad lucky to be in the final XI despite being great players. I’d replace them with Headley, Worrell and Walcott.

Buttler is one of the most insane batting talents this century. How does he not score runs in test cricket? He’s too good not to. I don’t know who is to blame. Eng mgt or Buttler himself. Considering this team has only one quality batter they must be able to utilise him somehow, even if they take the gloves off him. Tell him it’s a T20 and send him out to open or something

Genuine question. What is the point focusing on test cric if there are only 3-4 decent teams and wild mismatches even amongst them? I don’t really understand why England would overhaul their entire structure as a reaction to an away series of 5 matches, held every 4 years, in the middle of the night. I love test cricket but let’s be honest. Outside of the Big Three it does not even attract the best players anymore. Look at DeKock retiring this week. Look at the West Indies for the past 10 years. If you were a young player, why would you focus on red ball skills?? I would suggest LESS test cricket overall, so when it is played in a window, it retains its prestige and can attract the best. Introduce a multi-format ashes. And focus on white ball and building up associate nations so that there are a greater number of viable opponents.

Cummins bowled the 19th over yesterday to Zaman, Malik and Ali looking to go big and got 1/2 (plus 1 leg bye). That was a major reason the target was not ultimately out of reach for Aus. If you are contending Agar is genuinely a better bowler in the power play and at the death than Cummins then this may be a consideration but if not, it wildly unbalances the team in terms of who to bowl up front and at the death, where Cummins bowls lots of his overs.

Yeah but BLM is a global movement now. If you look hard enough at some of the more extreme branches or views, among the millions of supporters of BLM, of course you’ll find something to disagree with, something the Spectator will gleefully dredge up to discredit the entire movement. Gareth Southgate and the Eng team stated repeatedly why they were taking the knee and it had nothing to do with dismantling capitalism or abolishing prisons. It was about solidarity with the black community including members of their own squad who themselves suffer racist abuse (and did so again following the final). The intention of the SA cricket team appears to be similar, simply a stance against racism – v important particularly given testimony from Paul Adams and others about the workings of this very team in the not too distant past. So I still don’t really understand why QdK would not want to participate with his teammates in a united stance but he doesn’t have to explain himself to me. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

He can do what he wants I guess but I genuinely don’t understand why QdK would not want to be part of “a consistent and united stance against racism”.

You are persistent Pale Roarer! 😁 I still can’t agree. I don’t believe you can make such certain assumptions in hindsight about would have happened if people didn’t score ‘easy’ runs.
I would LOVE to see you do some articles during this Ashes so you can tell us mid-match exactly which runs are easy or unnecessary. Or can you only tell us that in hindsight at the end of the match?

Wow. Good stuff by Stoinis and Wade to scramble over the line. The top order were awful and put Stoinis and Wade under pressure they should never have been under when chasing such a small store.

You don’t reckon Aus will get to the semis Jeff? 😛

Well deserved win and another excellent performance from this group of Scottish players who have been absolutely phenomenal over the past 5 years. By my reckoning we have gained victories over full members including England, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Ireland and now Bangladesh from very limited opportunities during this period. It is a shame that having already succeeded in a cut-throat qualifier to reach this tournament, the successful associates are made to go through yet more qualification stages rather than starting on a level playing field in the tournament proper. Hopefully there are more scalps to come for the associates in this tournament.

It is unfortunate that having already progressed through several cut throat tournaments, the ‘qualifiers’ continue to be belittled and half will not even get the opportunity to test themselves against the higher profile teams in the main draw.

As a Scottish fan I’ll be disappointed if we do not put in a really good performance against Bangladesh, hopefully winning or if not, going close. This is probably the strongest Scottish team that has arrived at a World Cup, in particular the bowling led by Mark Watt and bolstered by the availability of Brad Wheal is particularly improved.

Over the past 20 years it seems to have moved from one on one positional contests all over the field to a zoned possession game focused on controlling the ball and minimising risk.
I would love to see some stats on how scoring has trended over the years but considering games are generally now played in pristine conditions, I suspect increased ‘professionalism’ has actually just increased inefficiency and brought scores downwards.
Well done Dees. It was great to see a team get on top in the middle of the ground and being rewarded for moving the ball forward as quickly as possible. If the Dogs were not good enough to get their hands on the ball and were continually beaten in the contests, they deserved to get absolutely rinsed. Thank goodness they couldn’t put a dozen guys behind the ball to slow the game down.
666 appears to aid fast, attacking football. Hopefully the coaches encourage this.

Very good article. England are shameless. Pak literally helped save them from financial ruin just last year! Aus are no better. Essentially the Big 3 own the game and can do pretty much what they like. Unfortunately though, after a while, by trampling on the less wealthy sides, they’re just going to have less viable opponents to play against themselves and they will lose out too.
New Zealand aside who have been superb, this has already happened in test cricket. The reduction of the ODI World Cup to just 10 teams was another sickening example of this.

Sadly unless NZ becomes a financial heavyweight to rival India, I don’t reckon CA will treat them with any more respect regardless of what they do.

Also Jones 150* vs India was literally the match defining knock that broke that game open and Aus subsequently won that game. Surely that is not a good example of a meaningless innings.

Spot on Paul. Some of the ‘meaningless’ quirks are among the best aspects of cricket.

What is cricket? Does anything have meaning? Is every Ashes run Mark Waugh scored meaningless on the basis Australia would have won every series easily regardless?

I totally agree Paul. Context is important but the game is unpredictable and I don’t think you can discount performances so easily based on perceived conditions or the ultimate outcome of a match.

I’d love to score a few meaningless test tons anyway.

I ask you fellow Roarers, do you honestly believe that such tinkering with seven innings in five Test matches… makes him a better player than he already was?
I get your overall point that when viewed in context, some runs are more valuable than others. I totally agree with that. Mark Waugh played some incredibly valuable innings that most players wouldn’t or couldn’t have played. But equally, he played 128 tests and only reached 150 once. Of course if you give him 4 double tons and a triple in test cricket he would’ve been a better player. But he didn’t. In the cases you mention, Waugh scoring runs that others mostly scored anyway probably wouldn’t have impacted the result in hindsight. But he also didn’t make any big ones when it MIGHT have mattered either. That is the point. Perhaps he could’ve been an even better player if he showed the concentration/ hunger to go really big in test cricket.
It’s easy to look back 25 years later and say an innings was useless in hindsight because the team didn’t win or that the next guy in would have scored those runs anyway ‘cause the pitch is flat but surely you recognise that cricket can be wildly unpredictable. When a player is playing an innings, they’ve got no idea how the rest of the match is going to pan out. I just don’t think you can discount performances so easily based on conditions or the ultimate outcome of the match.

Hi Renato,

I guess the difference is I do indeed think most of the above knocks were of huge importance to his team. From 1995- West Indies W23 L60 D29 in matches Lara played. From 2000- it is W9 L40 D17. The Windies batting was not particularly reliable. I believe many of these knocks were extremely significant in both avoiding losses, while his record breaking feats were also significant for West Indies cricket. Plus Lara generally scored quickly. If he’d had a Warne and McGrath in his bowling attack in a number of these matches, they’re probably turned into wins in which case the innings automatically become ‘meaningful’ I guess.

I guess we’ll never know but if Lara didn’t go big (and even sometimes when he did), the West Indies generally lost post 1995, certainly post 2000. You have a lot more faith in the rest of the Windies batting than me if you think they’re still securing draws in these games with no contribution from Lara. If you agree a draw is a better result than a loss, these knocks ARE critically important in both avoiding defeat and giving the team a chance of victory. Lara scored both big and importantly, relatively quickly.

The 400 game for example, if Lara fails and the middle order is in early against Hoggard, Harmison, Flintoff and Jones it is a completely different game. The Windies are already down 0-3 in that series. On the other hand, if Lara has a strong bowling attack at his disposal, this match becomes a win.

You can be the greatest bat of all time but if you don’t have bowlers who can knock over the opposition, you’re not going to win many matches. Post Ambrose, the Windies did not really have a single world class test bowler until say… Kemar Roach? If Lara had Ambrose, Patterson, Marshall and Walsh available throughout his career, they’re going to make a lot more of these knocks into wins.

Mark Waugh played his entire career in a team containing world class batters and bowlers. There was less of a need for him to get double tons given the strength of the batting unit and the bowlers were generally capable of capitalising. Though they both generally batted in a similar position, to be competitive the Windies relied far more on Lara to get big runs than Aus relied on M Waugh so I believe that needs to be acknowledged in the comparison.

You seem to be reaching extremely hard to try to denigrate Lara’s knocks. If a guy scoring 226 in a test match in Australia against McGrath, Warne, Lee and MacGill is ‘meaningless’ then we might as well stop playing cricket.
When Mark Waugh failed, it didn’t matter so much because Boon, Hayden, Taylor, Langer, Ponting, Border, S Waugh, or Gilchrist would pick up the slack. If Lara had failed in some of the above matches the West Indies almost certainly lose.
I reckon having the ruthlessness to cash in in favourable conditions is actually a positive, not a negative and a valid reason why Lara should be rated well clear of Mark Waugh in test cricket.

It’s a pity the domestic one day tournament has largely been sidelined in recent years and nice to recall that the international players largely played in 2015. I used to love watching the old Mercantile Mutual Cup on TV possibly even more than the internationals and it always seemed to be a very serious comp with high quality cricket.
Also nice to recall Victoria beating a full strength NSW 😊 I recall another occasion this happened in 2000, the NSW team was M Waugh / Slater / Haddin / S Waugh / Bevan / S Lee / C Richards / M Higgs / B Lee / MacGill / Bracken / McGrath. Not a bad side.

There was nothing particularly inviting watching the struggle between skilled spin bowlers and perplexed batsmen from Day 1. It was nonsense cricket from Day 1 of each of the four Tests.
To be honest I completely disagree. Not saying you’d necessarily want to see this every time, but this was some of the most captivating test cricket I’ve ever seen and certainly way better than the many, many flat pitches turned out over the years that favour batters and give bowlers little chance.

Hi Paul, re looking for an international coach, it is more about widening the net to find the best candidate. Perhaps someone with a different perspective, or someone well-travelled could be handy given Aus’s underwhelming away performances in particular. The best candidate may still turn out to be Australian but I get the sense in Australian cricket that if you didn’t play for Australia or at least in the Sheffield Shield, you’re not worth consideration.

Mickey Arthur is an interesting one. I’d love to see his Aus record compared to Lehmann and Langer. I suspect it would be comparable but he was unceremoniously sacked whereas these guys have very pointedly not been, despite major issues.