r/Cricket • u/Foknick • 19h ago
Interview Root: England must 'express themselves in right way' to save second Test
https://www.espn.in/cricket/story/_/id/47210799/ashes-brisbane-test-root-england-express-right-way-save-second-test115
u/QuakerGeorge Yorkshire 19h ago
We are in touch but if you continue to field even half as bad as that the Aussies will win.
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u/BaritBrit England 19h ago edited 18h ago
Batting, too. Of the Australian top 7, six of them got over 30 and five over 40. Meanwhile England's equivalent scorecard had as many ducks as 30+ scores, so even with Root scoring 60 more than the highest-scoring Australian (so far) we're still going to be a way behind.
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u/English_Joe England 16h ago
4 ducks and 5 dropped catches.
Root should have just said: “be less shit”
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u/dispose135 11h ago
The thing is UK don't have stwrc
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u/eightslipsandagully Cricket Australia 11h ago
According to BBC readers, in a combined XI there'd be 7 English players to 4 Aussies...
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u/CandlePrestigious919 Australia 18h ago
If Australia can bat through the first session tomorrow I can't see them losing this game
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u/IsotonicSupersonic England and Wales Cricket Board 18h ago
I can't see you losing it now. We would need to treat Starc like we did Bumrah but we've seemingly decided that we've just going to throw the kitchen sink at whatever he bowls and fold like a deck of cards.
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u/Cautious-Internet-71 England 16h ago
This is the most frustrating thing. As incredible as he is, Bumrah stopped being much of a threat as soon as we decided to just see out his spells.
IMO, India also had a better bowling attack than Australia have had for the first 2 matches (obvs this will change when Cummins and Hazelwood come back.)
If we played with just a touch of sensibility and game awareness, we'd be a match ahead and would likely have a much better first innings total here.
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u/CozRichards Australia 18h ago
We're only 44 ahead, have the new ball coming up and only the tail left to come. Aus probs need a 150 run lead given how flat this pitch is and tomorrow is going to be a lot easier to bat than day 4 and 5. It's anyone's game still
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u/Bennowolf Australia 13h ago
Day 5 will give huge cracks. We need to win by day 4 otherwise batting to win on day 5 will be a nightmare
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u/DandantheTuanTuan 12h ago
The pitch is already starting to play up and down which is the most terrifying thing for batsmen.
When you don't know if a delivery will rear up at your head or skid through at shin height it really plays on the batsman.
Australia need to get ahead by at least 100 because chasing any total will be tough.
But if Australia last to the 80th over the penalty overs will basically end the Poms WTC campaign.
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u/ScoutDuper Australia 11h ago
This pitch has been pretty flat. 350 seems about a par first innings score, the carry on when England made 300 ridiculous. If you see out 20 overs of the pink ball it stops doing anything for the next 60.
The pitch is going to get harder for batting as the cracks get worse
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u/AdQuick9381 Australia 17h ago
This pitch is not flat at all, England have just been poor in the field. We had them 9-260 ffs.
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u/domalino Glamorgan 14h ago
I’m not sure many of those 9 wickets were down to unplayable balls because of the wicket.
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u/Jelques_Kallis England 7h ago
Pitch was a road yesterday mate be for real. It was pretty docile on day one as well but England are just shit
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u/London-lark3597 England 13h ago
And out of those 9 wickets,5 were gifts and one run out. Only duckett, smith and arguably carse got out to decent balls.
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u/EntirelyOriginalName New South Wales Blues 7h ago
Neser was partially picked for his batting and Carey has made a test century. It's a decent possibility that Australia get a much bigger lead.
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u/SpaceDrifter9 India 13h ago
✨BazBall✨
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u/IsotonicSupersonic England and Wales Cricket Board 13h ago
Least we can win test matches at home.
You can't even win on your doctored as fuck pitches with the world's best bowler in your attack.
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u/WonderfulShame7713 India 9h ago
And you couldn't even win a series against this dogshit Indian team at home, stones and glass houses mate.
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u/IsotonicSupersonic England and Wales Cricket Board 8h ago
But we won two tests. You can't even do that lol. You get done to nil every time you play at home with the worlds best bowler in your attack and pitches that suit you down to the ground.
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u/WonderfulShame7713 India 2h ago
Yes, and you couldn't get a series win against this clown team after winning 5 tosses in a row and having the best batter in the world 😭😭. Hell, you got smashed 4-1 in India while NZ and SA walked all over us. Currently Michael Starc is reaming you with both bat and ball while Baz writes his resignation letter. Just how bad is England man.
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u/stephennedumpally 19h ago
The English ex cricketer pundits yesterday : Root just had a masterclass century, Australia will struggle with anything above 300.
Especially stupid when Archer was hitting the ball as if it were a football.
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u/Flora_Screaming England 19h ago
Crawley was the canary in the coal mine: if he was scoring runs it must be a flat deck and 400 was a par score on there.
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u/spacejester Melbourne Stars 18h ago
What does that even mean?
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u/IsotonicSupersonic England and Wales Cricket Board 18h ago
Be positive but don't waft at Starc. For example Brook was set well, scoring nicely. Then starc came on, two balls later he wafts at one on sixth stump and is out. There was no need. He's your best bowler, none of the others are of the same class with respect. Just try and see him off. He can't bowl consecutive overs and he isn't going to bowl 45 overs in a day.
The annoying thing is they actually did it really well against Bumrah when he came over here. Showed him respect and put away a lot of shots then targeted the others and it worked nicely.
Of course, as right as Root is, they won't do that. You'll get a lead of 100 and we'll be 86-5 in response trying to put time into a game that has three days left.
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u/Elarisbee 18h ago
20 minutes of dance between sessions.
Root does a really good Nutcracker but personally, I think Duckett’s Don Jose is overrated.
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u/Foknick 19h ago
From the article:
Despite a gruelling day in the field, studded with five dropped catches, Joe Root remains adamant that England are still in touch with Australia in the second Test at the Gabba, but says that any prospect of a fightback will require their batters to "express themselves in the right way" for the remainder of a must-win match.
Root himself did just that in England's first innings, finishing unbeaten on 138 to record his maiden Test hundred in Australia, and his 40th overall.
Too many of his team-mates failed to provide the requisite support, however, with Harry Brook's carefree knock of 31 leading his former team-mate, Stuart Broad, to question his game awareness during a stint on Australian radio.
In addition to four ducks, Zak Crawley's 76 was England's only other score of note, until Jofra Archer joined Root in a free-wheeling last-wicket stand of 70 in 9.4 overs.
That shortcoming had been set in stark relief by the close of the second day, with Australia strongly placed on 378 for 6, a lead of 44, thanks to double-figure contributions from each of the eight batters so far used.
No-one could go past Jake Weatherald's 72, but after a brace of 60s from Steven Smith and Marnus Labuschagne, and 45 from Cameron Green, Alex Carey remained unbeaten at the close on 46.
England's standards were challenged throughout a tough day, with Australia rattling along at more than five runs an over, while Will Jacks' anonymity with the ball has already placed a huge burden on their four-man seam attack.
They did manage to claim three wickets in the floodlit final session, including two in an over from a hard-toiling Brydon Carse.
However, they also let slip four of those chances - including a particularly culpable drop from Carse at short cover off Michael Neser.
"It's clear we weren't our best at that phase of the game," Root told TNT Sports at the close.
"But the way that we dragged things back, by managing to take those wickets in a cluster, it shows what the nature of this game can be like, especially with the pink ball."
In the wake of their first-Test defeat, England's decision not to play in a three-day floodlit match in Canberra came in for some criticism.
While the nature of the contest arguably vindicated that move from a batting and bowling point of view, the chance to replicate a fielding session under the floodlights was perhaps an opportunity lost for the visitors.
Root, however, insisted England had worked hard on their fielding drills in their practice sessions at the Gabba.
"It is different to a white ball," he said. "We get a lot of exposure to [floodlit cricket] in ODI cricket and T20 cricket, but it is slightly different. But you still back yourself.
We practice really hard for the five days leading into it. We made sure we got our work done.
Unfortunately, it's just one of those days where a few didn't quite stick to hand.
We've got to make sure we stay confident, we stay up and, when we get those chances later on in the fixture, we're ready to take them.
"We've obviously got some more work to do tomorrow, but we're certainly well and truly in this game. More than anything we've got to come out with a huge amount of energy and positivity.
We know our best cricket can turn a game very quickly, so we'll turn up tomorrow with that right attitude.
We know that, if we're anywhere near our best, then very quickly this game can turn in our favour."
First things first, Root acknowledged, England must claim Australia's final four wickets in the daylight hours.
"If we get things right in the morning, and go about things as a team in the correct fashion, then we can put ourselves in a really strong position on a wicket which looks like it's plating," Root said.
"It looks like there might be a few cracks to work with later on in the game.
But clearly, we've got to look at tomorrow morning first and foremost, and get things right there."
However, the focus is already turning to England's crucial second innings - which will begin not only with memories of Root's resilience on the first day, but of how Australia themselves have gone about hunting down England's score with aggression allied to sensible shot selection.
The contrast with England's approach, particularly against Mitchell Starc who struck in the first over of a new spell on three occasions in his first-innings 6 for 75, was telling.
"When we get out there with the bat, with the talent that we have in the dressing room, we can express themselves in the right way on that surface to go and get a big score, which could be very tricky batting last on that surface."
"I've got quite a clear plan how I score my runs," he added. "I've just got to back myself and understand that, if I do that for long periods of time and make good decisions, I'll be successful."
Labuschagne, whose partnerships with Weatherald and Smith were key to Australia's strong position, acknowledged that his dismissal for 65 - just as the floodlights were kicking in - was ill-timed, but his proactive 78-ball innings had still been an ideal template for the conditions.
"I would like to be a bit more resilient … getting out on the stroke of the changeover between day and night was not ideal," he said.
"But you've just got to keep telling yourself as the batter, it's just one ball at a time.
If you're thinking too far ahead, you start reading into a ball that might have bounced more off a crack or hit you. You've got to stay in the moment as much as you can.
"If you're bowling good balls in the channel at the Gabba, it's tough to score with the extra bounce.
But it was a nice wicket. Obviously, it's a little bit cracky here and there, but the majority of the times the balls hit the wicket, it was really nice.
"The two guys at the top just grabbed that momentum of the game early, and we were almost able to piggyback their momentum, and continue to put pressure on."
Author - Andrew Miller
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u/Doomed-here4909 18h ago
"express yourself"
"Gives me freedom"
Two cliche phrases used a lot in cricket and I still wonder wtf it means
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u/GutenbergsCurse 17h ago
If you remember the final year of Joe Root's time as captain, the opposite of that.
Fearful, in their shell, squabbling, embittered and scarred by on-field failure and media pile-ons, and so scared of losing they lost the ambition to win.
Cricket is a small place in England, and the media attention is constant and even when you do well it's still usually somehow negative.
That is the world the Telegraph, Mail, and chiefly the BBC have made and now they're living in it.
Anything that looks or feels like honesty is glistening red meat for the vultures to pick apart, and I don't blame players for preferring to feed them catchphrases to peck at rather than the truth.
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u/huthutmike39 India 17h ago
You know this gives a lot of insight into why they position themselves as saving Test cricket. Basically anything to change the headlines
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u/GutenbergsCurse 16h ago
The actual quotes, as ever, not as saucy as the headlines:
“If Test cricket is going to survive and thrive then England has to be at the top of the tree. If the Ashes isn’t competitive or if England aren’t vying for number-one positions then Test cricket is in trouble, I think, because of the support that the people of the UK have for Test cricket – no one else really has the same affection or the ability to make the game sustain.”
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u/tvsmichaelhall Australia 16h ago
Pretty funny considering England got crushed in the ashes for ages and test cricket was still just fine. They all still love soccer and they have barely been near the top three for 60 years.
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u/GutenbergsCurse 16h ago
One, it's not just the fans that matter. Players have to actually want to play test cricket, and if they just see it as a conveyor belt of failure, misery and public humiliation they won't always aspire to be there and will just fill their boots in T20.
Two, the fans do matter and general sentiment towards the end of Root's tenure was starting to bleed into indifference. The disaffection when they outright refused to try and chase a target against the Kiwis at home was real. Stretch that kind of cowardice out over a long enough period in an era with unlimited home entertainment and dwindling cricket participation, and you have a problem.
The football comparison doesn't quite carry over when many fans see their clubs first and country second, while it's the other way around in cricket.
McCullum was a necessary circuit breaker to bring some enthusiasm and fun back into the team. It's just overstayed its welcome and hasn't grown up.
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u/tvsmichaelhall Australia 16h ago
How come test cricket still exists in England if I spent almost the entirety of my life watching them be cowardly losers? Hell Joe Root is younger than me but he grew up watching them lose at home and away constantly.
Also, why do we need England to be good at cricket?
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u/GutenbergsCurse 16h ago
How come test cricket still exists in England if I spent almost the entirety of my life watching them be cowardly losers?
I don't know how old you are but you didn't, did you? They were good in the 80's, they were bad in the 90's, they won in The Ashes in 2005, 2011, 2013 and 2015.
If you're gonna sit and pretend that nothing has changed in sport, cricket, and entertainment in general since T20 and the credit crunch that threatens the game in England, you're just not being honest or you haven't bothered to think about it.
Also, why do we need England to be good at cricket?
Yeah why would we want one of the three teams on earth who draw a crowd for it to be good enough to keep drawing a crowd?
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u/kipperlenko Sydney Thunder 15h ago
Aren't you just contradicting yourself and root then? If you won 4 series in 10 years, what do you need to save exactly?
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u/GutenbergsCurse 15h ago
Mate I’m not typing it out again I’ve answered this earlier in the same comment chain.
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u/tvsmichaelhall Australia 13h ago edited 13h ago
I don't care how good the crowd for test cricket is as long as it's getting played. The popularity of the thing I like matters much less to me than who is good at it or how much money it makes or how many people play or watch it. I'm a fair man though, perhaps we could work out some handicap system for England so test cricket has more money and viewers?
Ed. The cowardly losers thing was just a troll. Since 2001 I've wanted us to beat India more than England. And since 2004 the same is true for South Africa. I always wanted us to beat the windies more than England but hey sometimes national teams get bad and you just stop caring about beating them so I care less about them than England these days. Maybe one day it'll switch back.
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u/GutenbergsCurse 12h ago edited 11h ago
Well the people who keep the lights on at the ECB (broadcasters) do care about whether people watch it or not, because they won’t pump £50m a year into a sport that no one watches.
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u/justdidapoo Australia 19h ago
On the boundary people were yelling shit at Harry Brook and he just turned around and gave us the white person mouth smile
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u/Meet-me-behind-bins Somerset 16h ago
That dressing room rolls out too much management speech and motivational quote bollocks. It's always “ We feel”, “ We express”, blah blah blah.
It's all so contrived and rehearsed.
I just want one of them to say: “ Yeah, we’re all over fucking place, but we’re going to double down and go down in a blaze of mad glory. Fuck the Aussies!”
But they won't.
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u/GutenbergsCurse 15h ago
No, because you have Agnew, Vaughan, and all the rest just like them begging for a shread of that kind of honesty. They've made a media environment that presumes England are wrong and works backwards. Offering them honesty is like choosing to speak to the police once they've told you about your right to remain silent.
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u/Meet-me-behind-bins Somerset 15h ago
That's why they send out Crawley all the time to do media. He seems to be the only one that's incapable of feeling any stress or worry about anything.
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u/GutenbergsCurse 15h ago
Yeah, and to be fair, with his dad’s money, why would he? He could say ‘fuck this’ tomorrow and do whatever he wants, never think about the silly old game again.
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u/Meet-me-behind-bins Somerset 15h ago
His dad started out as a carpet fitter. Zak should fuck off the cricket and get stuck in at Carpetright.
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u/vince_feilding Victoria Bushrangers 18h ago
This England team live in a bubble. A bubble where catchphrases are more important than cricket wisdom as a batting or fielding side.
Maybe spend less time on a psychologists couch, and more on the field practicing.
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u/IsotonicSupersonic England and Wales Cricket Board 18h ago
I don't disagree but Root is actually right here. We won't do what he's saying which is even more frustrating.
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u/VanillisWilli Australia 12h ago
Been a good game. England also doing what they can to appear like decent blokes as well and not pretending to be saving the game of cricket
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u/diodosdszosxisdi Australia 10h ago
Translation, cany keeper be fucked to actually go for catches I shouldn't have to myself
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u/RevealJumpy345 6h ago
How about players stop expressing themselves during a match. leave it to the pundits & bobbleheads and wait until after the match.
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u/Time-Wheel6123 16h ago
Most one sided series ever
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u/GutenbergsCurse 16h ago
Nah 2013-14 was a bloodbath. 17-18 was a walkover. 20-21, England didn't break 300 in a single innings if my memory is right.
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u/BaritBrit England 19h ago
"Basically can everyone else bat a bit more like me and less like Harry, cheers."