For whom though?? Finn after a 6 for?? Swann is a given as is Jimmy. Which leaves Broad unless a batsman gives way??

No. Shahzad wasn't even in the initial squad of 16; he was co-opted as an additional member after impressing against Australia "A" in the final warm-up match. He'll only play as a direct replacement for Anderson in the event of injury.

Barring injuries England will pick the same XI for Adelaide. In fact, you could have said that before the Brisbane match even started; not only did the XI for Brisbane pick itself, I'd say only Finn was possibly unsure of keeping his place for the next match, and only then if he'd had the same sort of match as Mitchell Johnson might the selectors have replaced him with Tremlett. After wiping out the Aussies' lower order, Finn has cemented his place for the next two matches at least, and so has everyone else. Collingwood failed once at Brisbane, but given his depth of experience and fielding prowess he won't be excluded before Melbourne at the earliest, and only then if we're trailing and need Bresnan to come in as a fifth bowler/all-rounder. This is the most settled England side I can recall in almost forty years. Our selectors are decisive and consistent, and they've got it right.

Adelaide is traditionally a batsman's ground, so barring some sensational bowling by one or two individuals I can see the series remaining all-square going to Perth in a couple of weeks' time. And barring injury the England XI will remain unchanged and will be an even stronger and more well-drilled unit by then. Our only relative weakness is the lack of a fifth bowler who might take a wicket or two.

If that game had been played in Galle or in Mohali and it were Sri Lanka or India scoring 500-1 there'd be people going mental saying "thats not proper test cricket", "needs to be a balance between bat and ball", "groundsman should be shot" etc etc....as its in Oz and between Oz and England then nothing like that gets said...interesting!

And as for Cook scoring (yet another) century...how can it be "long overdue" as someone has posted, when he's got over 1,000 test runs in this calendar year alone including 6 centuries now??

And as I predicted before the start of the series, both teams are going to struggle to take 20 wickets on a regular basis. Bringing in Doug Bollinger, Ryan Harris or Nathan Hauritz isn't going to radically change that for Australia IMO.

Probably because England scoring 500 odd for 1 at the Gabba is seen as a rare occurrence, but I can guarantee, if the same thing happens in the next two Tests then people will be saying exactly that about balance between bat and ball. Having said that when India score 500-1 its usually before tea on the first day with Sehwag 300 not out.



Cook is a bit like Mike Atherton was, he has a high percentage of low scores, which is why people say "failed again against the new ball" and always seem to talk about him as being out of form despite him regularly getting hundreds. Like Atherton he is vulnerable when he first comes in and is probably the one opposition opening bowlers fancy as the most likely early strike, but again like Atherton, when he's in he has the concentration to knuckle down and make it count. The difference between them is Atherton used to get a run of low scores punctuated by the odd score of 100-130. Cook gets a run of low scores punctuated by bigger hundreds. Although in fairness, Atherton played in an era when the standard of Test bowling was a cut above what it is today.

I can't recall anyone ever scoring 500+ for the loss of only one wicket in a Test, and for England to do it in the first match of a tour where we haven't won for 24 years will certainly make everyone take notice. I tried searching for similar totals on cricinfo, but they only list large totals in excess of 600 in the records section. However nobody has ever scored 600 for the los of fewer than three wickets, which England may well have done had they not declared at Brisbane. It's a very extraordinary occurrance and unlikely to be repeated so startlingly. As you say though, it will soon become tedious if high scoring draws on tame pitches are a recurring theme in this series.

im not sure the bowling isnt as good tbh.. I think these days the batting is better. Look at the batting orders of teams now these days. England for example have a all rounder in Broad batting at 9. Wheres at in the past teams had 7 batters and the rest were out and out batters and plus the pitches these days are mostly suited too batting.

The pitch at Adelaide should be pretty flat and other than any moisture on day one for the first three days it will be a batsmen's paradise but on days 4 and 5 the wicket should start to turn and the cracks should widen and then having someone like Swann bowling could be crucial.

I would imagine both captain will bat should they win the toss but I do wonder if it would be brave to bowl first? That way you get the best of the bowling conditions on day one when it might do a bit and the best of the batting conditions on day 2 & 3. It does mean batting last of course which is not good at Adelaide but if you have a first innings lead then it would be worth it.

Look at the last Test on day one it was doing a fair bit and as a result England lost early wickets, still both captains will probably bat.

oggy123 wrote:im not sure the bowling isnt as good tbh.. I think these days the batting is better. Look at the batting orders of teams now these days. England for example have a all rounder in Broad batting at 9. Wheres at in the past teams had 7 batters and the rest were out and out batters and plus the pitches these days are mostly suited too batting. Well all of this talk about tame pitches has only come about in the last few years as the last of the greats (McGrath, Warne, Pollock, Murali) have been retiring. The overall standard of bowling now is very average, there are still lots of great batsmen in the game, eg Tendulkar, Kallis, Graeme Smith, Chanderpaul, Sehwag, but the bowling cupboard is bare at the moment, it has been in decline for a few years but there were still some good bowlers around at the end of their careers. Look at the top ranked bowlers in the world today: http://www.reliancemobileiccrankings.com/ 1 Dale Steyn 2 Graeme Swann 3 Zaheer Khan 4 Mohammed Asif 5 Jimmy Anderson 6 Morne Morkel 7 Mitchell Johnson 8 Harbajan Singh 9 Dougie Bollinger 10 Shakib Al Hasan Compare this to the top ranked bowlers 10 years ago, Nov 30 2000: 1 Glenn McGrath 2 Shaun Pollock 3 Allan Donald 4 Muttiah Muralitharan 5 Courtney Walsh 6 Anil Kumble 7 Wasim Akram 8 Darren Gough 9 Saqlain Mushtaq 10 Chris Cairns Top ranked bowlers 20 years ago, Nov 30 1990: 1 Malcolm Marshall 2 Curtly Ambrose 3 Wasim Akram 4 Terry Alderman 5 Courtney Walsh 6 Waqar Younis 7 Merv Hughes 8 Imran Khan 9 Kapil Dev 10 Ian Bishop

oggy123 wrote:im not sure the bowling isnt as good tbh.. I think these days the batting is better. Look at the batting orders of teams now these days. England for example have a all rounder in Broad batting at 9. Wheres at in the past teams had 7 batters and the rest were out and out batters and plus the pitches these days are mostly suited too batting. Well all of this talk about tame pitches has only come about in the last few years as the last of the greats (McGrath, Warne, Pollock, Murali) have been retiring. The overall standard of bowling now is very average, there are still lots of great batsmen in the game, eg Tendulkar, Kallis, Graeme Smith, Chanderpaul, Sehwag, but the bowling cupboard is bare at the moment, it has been in decline for a few years but there were still some good bowlers around at the end of their careers. Look at the top ranked bowlers in the world today: http://www.reliancemobileiccrankings.com/ 1 Dale Steyn 2 Graeme Swann 3 Zaheer Khan 4 Mohammed Asif 5 Jimmy Anderson 6 Morne Morkel 7 Mitchell Johnson 8 Harbajan Singh 9 Dougie Bollinger 10 Shakib Al Hasan Compare this to the top ranked bowlers 10 years ago, Nov 30 2000: 1 Glenn McGrath 2 Shaun Pollock 3 Allan Donald 4 Muttiah Muralitharan 5 Courtney Walsh 6 Anil Kumble 7 Wasim Akram 8 Darren Gough 9 Saqlain Mushtaq 10 Chris Cairns Top ranked bowlers 20 years ago, Nov 30 1990: 1 Malcolm Marshall 2 Curtly Ambrose 3 Wasim Akram 4 Terry Alderman 5 Courtney Walsh 6 Waqar Younis 7 Merv Hughes 8 Imran Khan 9 Kapil Dev 10 Ian Bishop

Is there (i ask because i genuinely don't know) a decline in the world participation of the sport ?

The dreaded corrupt(allegedly) beast that is football does seem to be taking up most of the kids time and energy when they grow up.

Well this has been said for a long time, but is it matched by an improvement in the quality of football teams? Look at the England team, ten years ago we had Seaman in net, Adams and Sol Campbell in centre defence, have we improved on that? Have we improved on Shearer up front? What about the Aussies, have they improved on the team which had Viduka, Kewell, John Aloisi in it? Also I don't see teams like Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka or South Africa making huge strides in the world of football!

Personally I think it goes in peaks and waves. Like above I am talking about the quality of bowling in general, but if you said spin bowling, in the 1970s and 1980s, the cupboard was pretty much bare, you had Derek Underwood who was more a flat medium pace cutter than a proper spin bowler, and Roger Harper for the W Indies, and Abdul Qadir for Pakistan, but there were pretty much no decent spinners in international cricket. Then you fast forwards to the 1990s and suddenly there's Warne, Kumble, Murali, Mushtaq Ahmed, then Saqlain, Harbajan and Vettori appeared. The quality of batting in international cricket today is still strong and in some other areas I think we have moved forwards, like oggy says above about the depth of batting, there are a lot of bowlers who are virtually all rounders today, and wicket keepers now are nearly all good batsmen, back in the day you had keepers who would average 20-25 in Test cricket, now they are averaging 40, pretty much batsmen. Fielding standards have gone up as well. So I am not saying there is a general decline in cricket, but there is a very big decline in bowling especially fast bowling.

I also think standards in county cricket are far far lower than they were in the 1980s and 1990s, but thats a result of the expansion of international cricket, pretty much anybody who is good, hardly plays any county cricket once they start playing internationals, and you don't have the top overseas players over here like you did before. All of those top players on my list for 2000 and 1990 bowlers, were in county cricket apart from Merv Hughes, and they played lots of games, not like the 4 or 5 guest appearances which happen today.