The Ashes. | Vital Football

The Ashes.

O

Old Red Fart

Vital Champions League
No not a fire, this matters, it's cricket. And it's important.

Some of you might be interested enough to want to swap news and views on the upcoming series. If so I'd love to hear.

From the point of view of an Oz supporter it's much like this. The Aussie side is in a bit of a state of flux mainly regarding our middle order, it's still not fixed. And after getting stuffed in India it seems as though we can't handle slow crafty bowling. None too sure about fast bowling either. It looks as though we'll be depending on fast bowling and hard pitches for our attack.

Our papers seem to think that without Stokes you're going to lose. I don't believe that. He must be the total idiot, on top of his Bristol fiasco he's getting much more rotten publicity from the video of his mimicking that disabled child, doesn't sit well with an Aussie public. All the papers are giving him hell for that. And we're all agreed.

The only thing being said in his favour is that he is a match winner, no doubt about that. The other point made about him is that if he was an Aussie he would be thrown out of the Ashes completely and probably worse. At the moment all we read here is that he won't be travelling with the team. Feeble stuff.

 
Not many cricket enthusiasts here by the look of it. I'm surprised or are you all worried by the way things are going ? Or not.

This will not be a good Aussie side so that even without out your star man it won't be a walkover.

Come on, give us something to debate.

 
This is depressing. No interest at all ?
My wife seems to have heard of Ladies Lib as she was watching the English ladies playing our lot on TV this afternoon in a 50 over day night game. To preserve a bit of peace I had to sit and watch for a short time. It wasn't bad, nothing like the mens game though. No sledging , which is something I don't like either.
It looked to me as though we were on the way to another win, this is the second game, Oz winning the first.

Has Stokes got the sack. He would have if he was playing for Australia.

Is there anybody there ?



 
Love the response Joe. Pommes well on the way to losing this. 9 wickets down and umpteen runs to get, it's all over Red Rover. ( old aussie term for you that don't know it ).

Proper Ashes still to come. In my view it's anybodies game, should be interesting.

That's if anybody cares. Apart from me that is.
 
Old Red Fart - 26/10/2017 08:24


This is depressing. No interest at all ?
My wife seems to have heard of Ladies Lib as she was watching the English ladies playing our lot on TV this afternoon in a 50 over day night game. To preserve a bit of peace I had to sit and watch for a short time. It wasn't bad, nothing like the mens game though. No sledging , which is something I don't like either.
It looked to me as though we were on the way to another win, this is the second game, Oz winning the first.

Has Stokes got the sack. He would have if he was playing for Australia.

Is there anybody there ?

As far as I know he hasn't been sacked, in fact nothing much seems to have been happening. The last thing I read the Police were appealing for 2 potential witnesses to come forward. On the subject of the actual cricket, it appears that both teams have a dodgy middle order propped up at times by a couple of really good players and a decent lower middle order, though without Stokes that may be negated somewhat. Should be an interesting series not because both teams are good, but because both have their failings & weaknesses. I can see results fluctuating wildly, but really looking forward to it either way.
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Looks to me that seasider's got it sussed, suspect middle order in both sides.
As for your forecast TPL I just can't see it happening like that. You're not taking the mickey are you ?
With regard to Stokes I hope he plays, he's a match winner and adds that spark to the game but he does come across as being a bit of an idiot. Spoils himself.

Could be a close and interesting series and I'm looking forward to it. :14:
 
Stokes first on the team sheet without a doubt, mind you, some of these wanted Freddie kicked off the bus ,)
 
Well Freddie always seemed like a one off to me and I could never imagine him behaving really badly like Stokes. Some of the players these days appear to believe that they can play top class cricket all day and get half pissed well into the early hours of the morning. Not just your lot either,we've got our share as well.
Oddly Chris Gayle is taking our local paper to court today about a report that he exposed himself to a female masseuse in the 2015 World Cup over here. He is quoted as saying that he is heartbroken and that this was the most hurtful thing. Feel sure that you can make your own minds up.
I know the Ashes form the most important part of the tour but the games that I like most are the 50 over day night matches which are always shown on TV here.

 
Can't see there being any draws ORF. England are up and down and rely on a handful of players. Cook, Root, Bairstow and Moenn Ali will be our consistent batsmen and possibly Stoneman may do well. Bowling will depend highly on Broad with Anderson,Woakes and Ali chipping in . However Notts bowler Jake Ball could be a surprise package if given a chance. Don't think we have enough about us without Stokes and expect a 4-1 or 3-2 defeat.
 
3-2 either way for me, but sadly leaning more towards Aussies 3-2 win. Agree about Ball depends on him being given a decent chance though. Stokes may yet be there of course, which could change the equation somewhat in our favour
 
Just for once I've got no idea how it will go. You fellows will know that over here we tend to specialize in hard brown wickets and originally we had 4 pretty good fast bowlers, now down to 3 as one was injured. And probably Lyon our best spin bowler who's in good form at the moment. Batting we're inconsistent and still have a problem with the middle order as well so don't write England off just yet. And we still haven't settled on an opener to partner Warner.
Anybodies game in my opinion.
And would still like to see Stokes.



 
And I've been lucky enough to see Broad bowl really well several times, also been a long time fan of Anderson, all on TV of course. Those two blokes always seem to do well over here,if I didn't know better I'd take them to be Aussies.
Anderson seems to have been playing for ages, any idea of his age ?
 
Anderson 35 now so must be odds on his last Aussie tour, seems to keep himself in generally good order though so you never know
 
Old Red Fart - 26/10/2017 23:37

Looks to me that seasider's got it sussed, suspect middle order in both sides.
As for your forecast TPL I just can't see it happening like that. You're not taking the mickey are you ?
With regard to Stokes I hope he plays, he's a match winner and adds that spark to the game but he does come across as being a bit of an idiot. Spoils himself.

Could be a close and interesting series and I'm looking forward to it. :14:
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Wish I was ORF - sadly not.
As a regular at TB & avid fan I just cannot see us returning home with anything but our tails between our legs.
Our bowling attack is depleted, the batting line up ( other than Cook, Bairstow & Root ) isn't good enough & we will miss Stokes badly.
On the reverse side of the coin the Aussies will have a fully firing battery of fast bowlers.
A mate of mine is travelling over for the entire series - I was incredibly envious but no longer.
Hope to be proved wrong.
 
PS I had the pleasure to see Broad, Ball & Pattinson bowl together in several games earlier this season for Notts.
Pattinson was different gravy to both Broad & Ball!
 
Interest is growing now that England are over here, First game I think is against W.A. in Perth starting Saturday and that wicket is reported to be as hard as the hobs of hell. Mitchell Stark, our star fast bowler playing for NSW yesterday took 8 for 73 playing in Adelaide. Your ladies found their form yesterday as well playing in the third one day game and won that one. Good game too, worth watching. I don't know the formula for this ladies series but 2 points are awarded for each of the one day games, more for the 4 day Ashes series and so on, I'll just be learning as I go.
One thing that might cause a bit of a problem particularly for your lot is the weather. Yesterday it was 35 degrees and very humid (saps your energy levels like mad ) Today the forecast is worse.
It begins to look to me as though Stokes might have missed the boat, hope I'm wrong, even so I'm not ready to write England off just yet, I can only repeat that the Aussie batting is still inconsistent so you never know.
I'm looking forward to the series, particularly the second innings in the one day games.

 
Things are warming up with England getting in a bit of batting practice in Perth.

Over here in the East Starc has just taken an hat trick for NSW playing against WA. Our three fast bowlers all seem to be in form and I think that Anderson was quoted as saying the pink ball lent itself to day night games, meaning that it was swinging to his satisfaction. Might be a series worth watching.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that England are out of it.
 
According to report in this mornings Daily Telegraph none of the England bowlers could get the ball to swing at all, still early days see how the next couple of "proper" warm up matches go at least some of the batsmen got a few.
 
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