They desperately want to fit bairstow in the team. I love foakes, he is a fantastic keeper and damn solid with the bat
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Surely they can open with Bairstow instead of Crawley? And then play Foakes?
Bairstow opening would be as embarrassing at Warner opening 
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Bairstow looked pretty good the last time he played us. Was about the only England bat to show any fight at all.
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Probably not as embarrassing as Crawley opening though.
I suspect a few of those who did get picked won’t be able to Bazball either when they come up against a genuinely good Australian bowling attack…
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It’s going to be a fascinating series in terms of how England’s playing style stands up against our bowling. We’ve heard that the pitches will be hard and flat and that they will potentially bring the boundary ropes in. We don’t have any out and out pace (150 kph+) in the bowling ranks. Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood, Boland et al are fantastic bowlers and will be formidable, but none of them are Mitchell Johnson 13-14 quick and likely to really scare them. It will be interesting to see if England drop back to a “normal” Test match batting pace if things backfire on them early in the series, or if they are wedded to the ultra-aggression…
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The Poms have played one series against an opponent with a good bowling attack during the Bazball thing; South Africa at home last year. Their scores in that series: 165, 149, 415/9, 158 and 130/1. Now they’re expecting Bairstow to come back, on the back of bog average County returns and keeping wicket, to pick up where he left off before a long injury lay-off, they’re still picking Crawley and they’ll have Duckett and Brook (with 15 Tests between them) coming up against an attack far, far superior to anything they’ve faced before. I’ll be absolutely staggered if the approach they took over the past 12 months succeeds in the Ashes. Really hoping Australia’s bowlers are fit and in form for this series. Stokes asking curators for flat pitches says a fair bit, I’m thinking.
Also, England’s highest individual score in the series vs SA was 113* in the second Test…by Ben Foakes.
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He’s a lot better batter than he’s given credit for. Not as quick a scorer as Bairstow, but as we saw last summer, Bairstow can be very destructive. Mind you Foakes was taking the gloves and JB playing as a specialist bat IIRC. Was in a purple patch of form before getting injured.
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Yep, I’m a long-time Foakes fan. Apart from his keeping - he’s better than Bairstow - he’s got 14 FC centuries and his recent Test form was totally solid (two 50s and two 30s in his last three matches). He’s been completely disrespected by the England selectors, and not for the first time.
I like Bairstow, but does anyone realistically think he can replicate what he did last year while being asked to keep wicket and on the back of a very serious leg injury? He hasn’t got past 50 in his last five red-ball games (three Tests and two County matches), and he’s got a crap record against Australia in England. What they’ve done is wildly hopeful, and he’s gonna be under a massive amount of pressure to perform. The decision is harsh on him and Foakes, in my opinion.
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Archer is trash and averages over 31 in test cricket. No real loss.
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2nd Ashes Test at Lords. Day 3 ticket secured! Bucket List Item!
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Thought the worst for a few seconds after Archer hit him at Lords. Damn near killed him … but Smith came back out and swung the bat. He was clearly not right though when he returned to the crease at Lords that afternoon.
One of the gutsiest knocks played by Smithy that day
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Enjoy! I managed to get there for 2 days on my honeymoon in 2009. Aussies got smashed but I enjoyed the experience. There was something very special about it. Getting to wash it down with a beer you could BYO was also very different!
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You’ll love it, the crowd is a lot more subdued than other grounds in England (in a good way) and I guarantee you’ll be surprised at how small and quaint Lords stadium is. You feel so close to the action. Make sure you do a Lords tour too if you can.
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Did a Lords tour last summer and yeah surprised at how tiny it is. Plus that slope! Pumped to see the Aussies there.
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I went in 1997, but it was severely rain-affected. Day 1 washed out as I landed in London from Dublin. Day 2 we lost a lot of time but McGrath ran through them.
I had tickets for days 2-4 (I don’t recall them as being as extortionate as the single room I had near Selfridges), but I recall Matthew Elliott made a ton and one day started really late (like about 5pm) but I’d made arrangements to meet an old workmate at Trafalgar Square at 7 and couldn’t make the time. Didn’t bother with the last day as it was petering out as Mark Butcher made a ton.
I’ve mentioned before how I ran into a lot of Aussies out the back who were touring with Greg Matthews and Dougie Walters. They were drinking stubbies while the Poms were drinking crap champers at 60 quid a bottle. Ran into a group of guys from Caulfield CC on the bus on the way back to the hotel. I knew a few of them from Caulfield Park Committee of Management, where we had monthly meetings hung over.
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Enjoyed this! Well bowled Joe
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They said they were shortening the boundaries, but that’s ridiculous.
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