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Now that the World Cup’s done and dusted we can turn our attention to the next major event. For me the most interesting questions about team selection are; 1) Do we open with Jason Roy? For me it’s a no brainer. I know all the arguments against- he doesn’t even open for Surrey, he struggles against the moving ball etc- but I feel that he’s in such good form and the alternatives are so mediocre that it would be silly not to. If he does come off he could give us control of the game in the first couple of hours. Him and Rory Burns for me. 2) Now that Jofra Archer has to have a place in the side, who are the other two quick bowlers going to be. If fit I guess Anderson has to play and I would give the third spot to Woakes but this means no place for Stuart Broad and the 90 mph+ Mark Wood. 3) Which spinner to go with - Ali or Rashid? Ali’s batting form seems to have dipped but it’s still not an easy decision to make. Any thoughts?
Doubt Smith would have made any difference to how quickly England would have been bowled out on day 5 though. If he had a bowl England may have got to 350 by the time they declared.
Great. Some of England's middle order, particularly Stokes, actually showed they are getting the idea of test match batting. Still concerns over Roy, Denley and now Root though. By batting properly they firstly took away any chance the Aussies had of winning the game and then, with Smith missing, gave themselves an outside chance of winning. The series now hinges on whether Smith plays in the next games in my view.
You are comparing apples and oranges. Concussion is literally life or death changing, a torn muscle is an inconvenience. In all sports authorities are finally taking brain injuries seriously and if they had only allowed a traditional 12th man, Smith would have come out to bat with potentially fatal consequences to his long-term health. This article from the Guardian this morning sums it up pretty well with regards a concussion that Justin Langer had in 2006 in SA. The next change they need to implement is that the doctor needs to be independent - right now the doctor has one eye on the health of the player and the other eye on his employers that want said player back out there. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2019/aug/18/brutal-jofra-archer-cricket-a
"Smith would have come out to bat with potentially fatal consequences to his long-term health. "
Not true. Before this change to the laws, Smith coming back out to bat would have been voluntary not compulsory. If the medics felt it wasn't safe and he was not fit enough to bat again, England would have had to have taken just the nine wickets and he would have been shown as 'absent hurt' or 'absent injured' on the scorecard.
I don't see how Smith could possibly play on Thursday, if he was dizzy when he woke up yesterday. Aside from the fact that I don't think that he should have been playing in the first place, I think that it was wrong to boo him following his injury on Saturday. That seemed unnecessary. He's clearly a strange bloke with those ridiculous mannerisms and I felt a bit sorry for him on Saturday.
As for Archer, I thought that he was good but didn't realise that he was this good. An amazing effort in both innings. He smashed up Amla, Carey and Grandhomme in the World Cup and he's taken two more out here. They won't be the last if he stays fit, so they need to tighten up the rules on helmets and concussion, as he's quick and clever enough to kill someone.
What I was saying is that like Langer in the article I quoted, he would have been desperate to come out to bat in the 2nd innings and if the game was on the line, would they have stopped him from coming out? This takes away the possibility of someone doing something seiously detrimental to their long term health.
Weather looks good enough this week for there to be a result at Headingley. If Oz goes in without Smith I think that Stokes' batting and Archer's bowling might be the difference between the two sides. Leach outbowled Lyon as well, which was a pleasant surprise.
I agree, i.e. that I am convinced that he did not take the catch, though I am not jumping up and down about it as it did not alter the outcome of the game.
I wouldn't necessarily describe him as a cheat, as it is possible that he may believe that he took the catch fairly, but carefully watching the same numerous replays, slo-mos and zooms as the Third Umpire, I saw nothing to show that any of his fingers came between the ball and the pitch; while the conserved elasticity and continued true path of the bounce gave me no reason whatsoever to conclude that the ball hit anything but a flat area of turf.
A completely wrong decision, imho, but Joe Root may have felt the crippling weight of history upon his shoulders. It's a professional sport.
Fwiw, this decision is getting no air-time in Oz; it's all about Steve Smith's concussion, including Archer's bouncer to Labuschagne's helmet being met with a filthy scowl that said "You don't intimidate me, pal." There's no question, Archer will be a fantastic bowler when he learns how to dismiss batsmen by having them caught or bowled, rather than hospitalised.
Yes, I didn't think you down-arrowed people because you agreed with them. It's the discourse that counts. Put up an opinion and see if it stands up to public scrutiny.
As another poster said of you, "There's nothing more punk than pressing a button 500 times a day."
I saw that Smith has been ruled out for the next test starting on Thursday.That might even things up a bit,although his replacement at Lords seemed to fill his shoes quite well.
There were only a few idiots booing Smith when he came back on after his injury.Whether he was right to came back at all is open to question,but nobody can doubt his bravery in returning to the crease. I was there in Oz in 2017/18 and heard the reception that Stuart Broad continues to get for not walking after NOT being given out by the umpire.Even the media was in on it previously by not printing his name or photo,so the booing of all 3 players found to be deliberately cheating,or covering up that cheating was justified. Do you think that any of the 3 of them would’ve made it back to the test team if there had been anyone capable of replacing them?
What makes me laugh with the Broad incident is how the Aussies conveniently forget that all they had to do was review it, but they couldn’t because they’d spaffed their reviews earlier on, I suppose that’s Broad’s fault as well.
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