It's The Ashes (again)

[Peachy]

Dropping catches, missing stumpings and having a bowler that won't / can't bowl helps lose em

Agreed. 

I'm not calling for an overhaul in style or selection, or anything as ludicrous as that. But Foakes has to come in and we must select a genuine spin bowler who has played regular cricket. Quite who that is, I don't know. But we can't persist with Ali. We need to somehow find a balance between being aggressive and showing positive intent without being reckless and giving wickets away. You don't need to be reverse sweeping, ramping and slogging to score quick runs. There's plenty of safe and sensible ways to score runs. 

Australia have taught England a bit of a lesson over the last five days. Slow, sensible and steady cricket beats fast, aggressive and reckless cricket.

England have dropped catches and missed stumpings that have cost significant numbers of runs. They’ve also had two of their main bowlers struggling with injury for the majority of the game. Despite all this, they find themselves 1/2 to win the game deep into the final session. 

Struggling to see how, given the above, that the Aussies have taught England a lesson?

Completely agree, but he won't answer.

The declaration isn't why we lost. The missed catches (there were a lot), missed stumping, and the no balls bowled were the reason we lost. Take even 2/3 of those chances at the right time, and we'd have won relatively easily. Broad doesn't no ball when he bowled Khawaja, I think there's another 20/30 runs instantly that we really could have used.

Those 3 things, every cricket team has to get right to win a match, and that's why they're far more important. The declaration is just something Stokes and McCullum are going to do because it fits in with their ethos. Get used to it.

They have won the first Test by playing ruthless and battling cricket. We had our chances, but didn't take it. We're not ruthless enough, and until we find that killer instinct and actually select the best team and players available, we won't have consistent success against the best sides. We're being too loyal to certain players (Crawley, and arguably Anderson and Stokes), and selecting players who haven't played red ball cricket in years). How'd you expect to win an Ashes series when you're already conceding an advantage to the opposition by not playing your best and strongest squad? Just another way where we're not ruthless enough. 

I don't think the declaration ultimately cost us, it was poor selection, but winning that toss, in that pitch, in those conditions, you should have been looking to pile on 500plus runs, bat for 1 & 3/4 days while grinding the opposition down in the field as well as batting the opposition out of the game. That's what Australia would have done. They  would have ground us into the ground, shown no mercy, and then bowl at a tired and worn down batting line up. They may not have won, and that tactic would probably have led to a draw, but they wouldn't have lost the Test. 

So yes, Australia have taught England a lesson, but we're far too stubborn and set into this overly aggressive mentality that will cost us consistency. They're current World Test Champions, the best side in the world and arguably the best Australian side since the early 2000's. Why shouldn't we look at how they play and take lessons from them? They're the standard. We're trying to invent the wheel while Australia are the wheel.

That's two Tests out of three we have lost when declaring. Will we learn the lesson or continue with ignorance? 

We're talented enough to beat this Australian side but the current selection and mentality won't get the job done, unfortunately. As I've said, I like us being aggressive and positive, but we don't need to be reckless and we need to play the game situation when it requires. You can't consistently go gung ho. It has already cost us the first Test of the Ashes. We must learn from that error and reign in the recklessness and replace it with some sensible cricket.

Spot on. There is a middle ground to be found between Bazball and boring cricket. I like our attitude and it's refreshing but we still need to think clearly and play the match as it unfolds. Root was in great touch when we declared. I'd have told him he can have another 30 minutes to throw the bat at things. It could have made all the difference. If we had tail enders in and were straight batting everything then fair enough but whilst Root was in the groove I thought the declaration looked more than a tad eager. I know there were other factors going on, flat wicket, Ali's injury, dropped catches etc, but another 40 runs on our total and I think we'd have beaten them.