Old Trafford

[KratosBaggie]

Dom Sibley should have come in for Roy. I'd have found space for Curran, too (If he's fit?).

[billybassett]

Dom Sibley should have come in for Roy. I'd have found space for Curran, too (If he's fit?).

Anyone should come in for Roy. I mean after 80 ODIs and they suddenly think he's a test opening bat. If they thought he was any good why not after 20 ODIs. Just goes to show it's an old boys club in the dressing room. See no reason not to blood some youngsters as let's face it they couldn't actually do any worse.

[Tom Joad]

They've got the best batsmen (potentially of all time), the best pace attack in the world and a vastly experienced spin bowler. Telling that their second best batsmen spent all summer at Glamorgan playing red ball cricket. It's almost as if practice worksm

Smith is exceptionally good, but Bradman's statistics are just ridiculous and will almost certainly never be beaten.

Thing is Smith was dropped/ no ball on 118 I think. There's a 100 runs they wouldn't have scored. So it would have meant the Aussies batting longer - probably another 15 overs. That was all we needed. 

Like any top level sport it's fine margins and taking your chances. In the first test they were 122-8. We never took our chance. It rained in the test we were going to win. And we let Smith off the hook this test. We took our chance at Headingley - amazingly but I'm convinced if Roy had have not played any part and we had someone who could actually open then we'd have won a test  - Boycott would have been much better.

Bang on, but edited that last bit for you

At the top level sport really is about fine margins, and those fine margins have generally gone the Aussies way. Althought they have a better and more balanced bowling attack than us, the major difference has been Smith's runs. Take those out the equation, and the little urn would be ours. Oh well, there's always the rugby...

This is true. Factor in the Anderson fiasco too. They bowled with more discipline, agreed, but this was far from one sided. In fact, I'd really like us to square the series now at the Oval to deny them victory over here. For the future though, we need to put every bit the same effort we devoted to winning the World Cup, into developing a 5 day mentality.

[KratosBaggie]

They've got the best batsmen (potentially of all time), the best pace attack in the world and a vastly experienced spin bowler. Telling that their second best batsmen spent all summer at Glamorgan playing red ball cricket. It's almost as if practice worksm

Smith is exceptionally good, but Bradman's statistics are just ridiculous and will almost certainly never be beaten.

Thing is Smith was dropped/ no ball on 118 I think. There's a 100 runs they wouldn't have scored. So it would have meant the Aussies batting longer - probably another 15 overs. That was all we needed. 

Like any top level sport it's fine margins and taking your chances. In the first test they were 122-8. We never took our chance. It rained in the test we were going to win. And we let Smith off the hook this test. We took our chance at Headingley - amazingly but I'm convinced if Roy had have not played any part and we had someone who could actually open then we'd have won a test  - Boycott would have been much better.

Bang on, but edited that last bit for you

At the top level sport really is about fine margins, and those fine margins have generally gone the Aussies way. Althought they have a better and more balanced bowling attack than us, the major difference has been Smith's runs. Take those out the equation, and the little urn would be ours. Oh well, there's always the rugby...

This is true. Factor in the Anderson fiasco too. They bowled with more discipline, agreed, but this was far from one sided. In fact, I'd really like us to square the series now at the Oval to deny them victory over here. For the future though, we need to put every bit the same effort we devoted to winning the World Cup, into developing a 5 day mentality.

We simply don't deserve to draw the series, let alone win it.  

I've watched a lot of this series and Australia feel like they've dominated a lot more sessions than England. 

We failed to bowl Australia out last Test. That's not good enough.

Yes, the cheat has been excellent. Probably the best batsman I've witnessed. But Archer had an excellent chance to intimidate him, and failed with some pretty awful and powder puff bowling. I may be being harsh but Archer bottled it. Was he scared of hurting Smith again? I can imagine being responsible for a head injury which could be serious, is quite scary from a bowlers point of view?

[Albionmad]

Australia prepared for this series for 3 years. Their cricketing board decided in 2015 to use the Dukes ball in their domestic cricket to prepare their batters to play it as well as possible. Labuschagne came here to play county cricket and obviously learnt quickly. Most of our team spent the early part of the summer wacking a white ball around with limited over bowlers and fielding settings.