It's The Ashes (again)

[Borin' Baggie]

Meh opening session. Good scoring rate but two cheap wickets thrown away. There's a platform but the second session is key to building a good total.

Only 26 overs bowled though, pretty poor from the Aussies.

[rsbaggy2]

2 myopic umpires.

[AnelkasBeard]

Duckett was a poor choice of shot, and Pope should've done much better with his. Lyon does have the wood on him though.

Not much Crawley could do with his, that was a ripper. Shame because Crawley was genuinely looking in great nick.

Need these two to build a really strong partnership here.

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Well that's incredibly unlucky. How the fuck.

[SuperBob2002]

Bazball getting torn apart like I'd expected. Anything under 450, in these conditions, is below par.

[ChamonixBaggie]

ffs unbelievably unlucky for Brooks then just when we need to steady the ship Stokes comes out guns blazing and throws his wicket away. There's been a lot of praise for his captaincy but Root was much better at setting an example imo

[strawman]

Stokes - absolute idiot - at least get your eye  in first

[SuperBob2002]

ffs unbelievably unlucky for Brooks then just when we need to steady the ship Stokes comes out guns blazing and throws his wicket away. There's been a lot of praise for his captaincy but Root was much better at setting an example imo

This is my fear with the gung ho approach. You risk throwing wickets away and handing initiative to the opposition. 

We're in danger of being all by tea, and facing an innings defeat, because Aus won't throw their wickets away.

[AnelkasBeard]

Bazball getting torn apart like I'd expected. Anything under 450, in these conditions, is below par.

The only wicket you'd consider being out to "bazball" is Stokes. Brook incredibly unlucky, Crawley got a good one, and the other two were slightly poor shots, but nothing overly aggressive.

Stop with the hyperbole.

[ChamonixBaggie]

I much prefer the approach to 'keep it steady then be 40-3 anyway' which used to be our modus operandi. On any other day Brooks gets another 30 odd and so does Root meaning Stokes comes in with us 60-80 runs better off and has more license to go big.

However, it wasn't any other day and unlucky or not Brooks was out and we needed to keep it tight for a couple of overs. Clinging blindly to a philosophy despite the situation in front of you rarely works well (ask Monsieur Ismael)

[Borin' Baggie]

ffs unbelievably unlucky for Brooks then just when we need to steady the ship Stokes comes out guns blazing and throws his wicket away. There's been a lot of praise for his captaincy but Root was much better at setting an example imo

This is my fear with the gung ho approach. You risk throwing wickets away and handing initiative to the opposition. 

We're in danger of being all by tea, and facing an innings defeat, because Aus won't throw their wickets away.

The Stokes' wicket was because of going "gung ho", the other four were fairly standard test cricket wickets.