I’ll believe it when I see it play like that under cloud cover. England would be silly to have overcooked the pitch for a game in which none of Archer, Wood or Stone will play.

I find it weird to be saying this given what I thought of him nine months ago, but I think Labuschagne will play (I saw that Hohns is in Birmingham) and I don’t mind that. I worry that Wade would be too similar to Head coming in just before he would.

The selectors will never overcome their obsession with having a seam-bowling all-rounder in the top six, especially against England of Flintoff and Stokes fame. They’ll therefore give Marsh every chance.

The irony of this is that the only bowler from the Hick XII who looks a chance of getting picked, Patto, is wicketless for the moment.

The analysis here is excellent other than by missing the fact that if Harris is selected to open over Burns and Patterson retained at six, with Head a lock and Khawaja already batting in the nets, we’d have 5 lefties in the top six. For mine, that just doesn’t seem like a good idea against Anderson and Woakes on seaming tracks, allowing them to just put the ball in the same place every ball and let the pitch do the work. It would also allow England to play Moeen Ali when they already bat dangerously deep. Even the best batsman among our likely bowlers (Patto), is a leftie. I am therefore hoping to (not) see (but at least hear) that one of the right-handers (preferably Burns) played the moving ball well in the warm-up game. I couldn’t care if he ended up batting at 5 or 6, he seems to know how to fight for Test runs.

Certainly an interesting game for us cricket nerds. Will it be televised or streamed on the CA website or is it going to be played behind closed doors? I’d love to see how Warner plays Lyon, but I’m not sure I’d love England to see how he does.

Khawaja will be fine. According to CA, he’s already doing warm-up with his teammates and batting in the nets. 11 days is a long time to get from there to fighting fit after a minor hamstring injury. You look like you’re searching for something to write about today, Ronan.

The bigger issue is Jhye Richardson. Looks like he will miss the whole English summer. I know we have some fast bowling depth right now, but still such a shame.

I agree that Burns should be in the team, even if they want to open with Harris. He seems better than most against the moving ball, is coming off consistently big runs (including in Tests) and is a right-hander in a lefty-heavy top six with Warner, Khawaja and Head basically certainties. For mine, either Burns opens and the batsman who’s looking in the best form against the moving ball bats six (Patterson, Pucovksi, Labuschagne, Wade etc) or Harris opens and Burns bats 6. It would be risky to leave Burns out and have 5 lefties in the top six, there’s enough pressure on Smith’s batting already.

I can agree that we move in different and differently-sized circles, FunBus, if you don’t think England’s 1966 football WC win was controversial. The English sports fans I was talking about were admittedly living out of the UK and in the football-obsessed parts of the non-English-speaking world, so were regularly confronted with this.

And incidentally, the Swiss referee was overruled by the Russian linesman who was reportedly asked on his death-bed why he was so sure the ball had crossed into the German goal and replied: “Stalingrad”.
That tournament was so controversial it caused all sorts of diplomatic incidents. Not knowing about it is not your fault, but testimony to the existence of the English sports-press bubble that is particularly prominent in football.

Sorry FunBus, not from one of the two Australian states that follows rugby, so can’t follow your examples. As I indicated, my disgust for parts of the English sports press stems from having spent years trying to explain English press reactions to European and world football events to nonplussed people from the Continent. Maybe the English people writing about rugby are different, but on football the English press is quite diabolical and the double-standards are plain to see.

I think we should be careful with the “crap way to win” stuff. I might be true, but someone has to win a game of fine margins and a part of me feels sorry for my English sport-loving friends that this first Cricket WC victory certainly wasn’t convincing. Many are still suffering from the controversy surrounding how they won their only football WC in 1966 (heaps of stuff, but most obviously the English winner in the final that didn’t cross the line). Fortunately for those fans, I get the feeling that England has enough talent coming through that they stand a good chance to win a second cricket or football WC — and do it more convincingly — quite soon. I worry that NZ’s next chance will be a lot further off, particularly because they’ll never get a home final.

I see your point about the four years of excellence, Ronan, but I don’t know whether we should pay too much attention to anyone’s wins in a lot of bilateral games that didn’t have much on them (basically glorified friendlies) in which teams rarely played their best bowling attacks. Maybe we need some kind of nations league or WC seeding system to make those games more meaningful, because right now they don’t really mean much — as NZ very nearly showed. Besides, this would make the wait for the next WC more bearable.

Nice of you to confirm that you live in Perth, Ronan. I now understand how you manage to watch so much cricket without revealing clear signs of sleep deprivation. I just hope Scott lives there too, for his sake. The informed commentary of all of you has been much appreciated through this tournament and will no doubt be as highly valued come the even bigger (for me at least) six weeks of Ashes contests.

Never said they were, Piru, the Kiwis were awesome in both finals. I was trying to make us all feel a bit better about them getting shafted in the final by noting that they just scraped into the finals in the first place, on NRR with a washout against a strong, rather than weak team.

There’s no bias in stating the incontrovertible fact that, as a team, you’re always going to be better off getting your washout against a team like India than a team like Afghanistan.

“probably lucky” because, when you just scrape into the final four, even if you have a good record against India, you’ve still been a bit fortunate to get your washout against them than, say, Afghanistan.
Where NZ rose to the occasion was with the ball and in the field in the finals. The batting never really clicked and they also only just scraped the group-stage win over the Windies.
I love them almost as much as my own team, but we have to be realistic about this and it helps ease some of the pain.

Don’t think so George, the Aussie commentators and fans on the Roar have been pretty reasonable about their own team. In fact, I think everyone here thinks that all of England, New Zealand and India deserved to win more than Australia, who, unlike the other three, never really clicked enough to play truly high-quality cricket and didn’t show up at all at the important back-end of the tournament.

You’ve expressed almost exactly what I also feel, Ronan, though you’re more magnanimous about the English deserving this than I could ever manage to be — because of my intense disgust for a large part of their sporting press, bloggers etc. After over a decade living on the European Continent and watching and reading lots of English and Continental press re major football tournaments, I wholeheartedly agree that if the luck, ridiculous rules and misapplication of those rules had gone the other way, the reaction from the UK would have been very, very different — the Continentals are well aware of the English press’s double-standards on these things from countless football examples. You’re right that the other powerhouses wouldn’t have reacted much better, certain of us Aussie fans and the Indian cricket authorities could even have been worse, but the double standards of the English sporting press are unparalleled.

Nothing against the English players though. Begrudgingly, I can accept that a WC trophy going to a team that was clearly one of the best over the last few years and got the rub of the green with luck in tournament-play is not an unfair outcome. As we feel for NZ, we shouldn’t forget that they were probably lucky to get through to the final four in the first place, getting a washout against the tournament’s strongest group phase team.

Does this mean that Jhye Richardson isn’t going to be named in the final Ashes sqaud? That would be a great shame.

Good to see your mind also turning to the Ashes after our terrible end to a surprisingly positive WC campaign on Thursday, Ronan (throughout which you gave us some quality and much appreciated analysis). From that campaign, it seems to me that Carey is definitely the biggest long-term positive (clear post-Paine Test keeper as you say) and the returns (also to form) of Smith, Warner and Starc the biggest short-term positives for the Ashes. I think Carey should now be selected as a back-up keeper for the Ashes though (on the basis of apparent mental strength and getting experience in the Test squad more than anything else), do you? Paine is always an injury risk — if Carey came in as his back-up, Steve Waugh could even get his wish and go funky with Pattinson at 7 with a four-prong but can all bat-a-bit pace attack!

Now the bigger questions you raised regarding the 2 vacant batting spots (I think Head is a near-certainty because of his age, strong returns last summer and captaincy potential). We’re obviously looking at a second opener and a number 6. Harris would seem to have the front-running, but is another left-hander and can he play the short-ball well enough against an attack likely to include Archer? Do his runs on roads in Victoria count enough? Bat-off with Burns for that spot in the warm-ups? As regards the number 6, Patterson is probably the better player, but the selectors seem to love Labuschagne and he’s a second right-hander for the top six if they go with Warner, Harris, Ussie and Head. Do his county runs mean much? Too early for Pucovski?

Excellent article again, Ronan.

I reckon if it had been a more important game, Carey would’ve been promoted to bat at 5 when we were in trouble (on form and ability to hit gaps) and not an out-of-form Stoinis (seemed to me like they wanted to give him a chance to find some form before the semis). If Carey had come in and played like that with Khawaja at 5 and left Maxwell at 6 and Stoinis at 7 for some late order hitting, we could have made an almost ungettable 280-odd.

Maxwell would be disappointed with these two innings when he got in early, but he is doing his job pretty well overall and should remain in the team as the number 6 capable of getting promoted if we need to accelerate. Stoinis is the one I’m worried about, he looks like no higher than a 7, but uses balls to get himself in (which is a bad combination). 5 Maxwell and 6 Stoinis looks a bit dodgy, but Carey can go to 5 when we lose early wickets so his form solves a part of the problem.

Yes, though India’s middle-order batting doesn’t look great, so a couple of quick wickets with early movement and they underwhelm with the bat. England remain the best team on paper, but certainly don’t have the mentality and game smarts to match.

Assuming Pakistan beat Afghanistan (by any margin) tonight, India still isn’t through. They won’t rest anyone against England anyway, because they will want to get into some rhythm against a top team.
The interesting decision for them will come if they happen to beat England. By my reckoning, by intentionally losing to Bangladesh in their following game, India could then effectively knock England out in favour of the winner of Pakistan v Bangladesh (this assumes a Pakistan win over Afghanistan and dry weather next week — both of which are predicted).

Excellent work again, Dan, especially your work with the hands — clearly too many variables for Khawaja’s brain in the middle.

I think the problem arises because 4 finalists out of 10 teams makes it too easy to be effectively eliminated too early (like South Africa). Even if the same results had played out, if they’d gone with a final 5 (with a game off for 1, qualifying final for 2 and 3 and elimination final for 4 and 5, similar to another recent Roar article’s suggestion), it would have (a) given more hope to teams down the bottom for longer; and (b) made it more important for teams up the top to finish as high as possible in the group stage.