Grats to the poms on their draw! Genuine resistance for once!
Okay thoughts!
- I'm a bit cold on Cummins atm because of the way he lost the plot against Wood during his first dig this test. Cummins gave up tons of runs going for Wood's head, anyone could tell that a yorker when he stepped away would have been an easy wicket.
It doesn't bode well for Pakistan, their pitches won't be ideal and when the Pakistan batsmen start carting us around I'm worried he'll lose the plot.
- Australia ALWAYS declare too late. I first started noticing it under Michael Clarke, but fuck me they always back themselves to get 10 wickets in a day and the pitch rarely seems to deteriorate enough for that.
Is it written in some Australian cricket bible or something that you need a fucking 400 run lead to declare? Fucking beat the record chase by 20 and have at them. Whichever coach has been around giving these declaration tips for the last 10 years needs to fuck off.
- Meta here (i think) this ashes has just been, in general, harder to get worked up about. Back in 13-14 or whenever when we fucked them up via Mitch Johnson it was sweet because Stuart Broad didn't walk at Trent Bridge; next time it was still sweet because the fans in the UK were wankers and Jofra Archer was a butcher, and the GOAT-but-Bradman Smith retained the trophy for us with colossal innings. This time, what? They're just kinda pathetic. Ollie Robinson is a racist, apparently, but that's kinda been sorted out by now apparently, and he's but good enough to make a good villain. Smith never really had to make crucial huge innings here because the poms never made much of an obstacle, so his average has suffered, so too the Mighty Laboosh.
- South Africa vs India is a far more interesting series. SA started slowly and lost the first test, but they beat India in the second for the first time at that ground. They've been gutted of all their old stars, Quinton De Giant Cocksucker retired at fucking 29 because he didn't want to play with a middling team (not really, actually he's had kids but whatever) but Dean Elgar was an unbreakable titan chasing a high target in the second test for the win. I'm firmly behind SA, India are great and that's great but I prefer SA being consistently excellent more than India beating the world. Here's to SA getting things back together.
- First test of New Zealand vs Bangladesh was great, first Bangladesh win in New Zealand, but this second test seems far less competitive. I'll remain a fan of Bangladesh going forward, wouldn't it be great if one of these smaller teams could behind legitimate winners, like Sri Lanka from a decade or so ago