Would have called plunkett and patel up instead. Need bowlers who can hold a bat.

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Now Ball has an ankle injury, not sure how serious.

Crane took 3 wickets in the warm-up game albeit rather expensively.

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geez just looked at the scorecard from the England warm up game what a collapse from England..
I stand by my statement a while back. if England preform like they did in the last ashes series down under in the coming ashes series.. I will finish with cricket.. I've had enough of lily livered morons who get paid untold amounts of money to be spineless

and looking at the batting line up apart from root/cook and bairstow the rest do not fill me with any optimism

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As above but with Ballance at 6 instead of overton.

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Is it a modern thing to want 5 bowlers? England historically have only played 5 bowlers when they have had a world class allrounder Botham, Flintoff and in recent times stokes. In the wilderness years between Flintoff and stokes England played 4 bowlers. Would stick with that method without stokes and use the part timers when necessary. As the late great Richie benaud once said. If 3 seamers can't bowl them out then can't see what a difference a 4th would make.

comment by Greatteamswinit4times- a terrible enemy (U6008)
posted 3 days, 10 hours ago
comment by Liverpoolwhoelse17 (U16825)
posted 3 hours, 34 minutes ago
geez just looked at the scorecard from the England warm up game what a collapse from England..
I stand by my statement a while back. if England preform like they did in the last ashes series down under in the coming ashes series.. I will finish with cricket.. I've had enough of lily livered morons who get paid untold amounts of money to be spineless

and looking at the batting line up apart from root/cook and bairstow the rest do not fill me with any optimism
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Did you see the conditions?! It was pretty brutal. The outfield, wicket and overhead conditions. We did well to get what we did as we have shown by blowing them away at 40/7.

Everyone knows this is our weakest team for years. It's the way it works unfortunately. Vince and Malan aren't test quality but who else is there? No point calling them lily livered when in reality they're just not good enough. It isn't like the last tour when people actually bottled it. You're going to have to take this one on the chin I'm afraid, with Stokes we'd do well to keep it below 4-1. Without him it could easily be another 5-0.

As it stands at the moment, after performances in the warm up games the side looks to be settled.

Cook
Stoneman
Vince
Root
Malan
Bairstow
Ali
Woakes
Overton
Broad
Jimmy
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That looks to me like what the team will be. Moeen is an all-rounder, Woakes is seen as an all-rounder, so there shouldn't be any concerns about the depth of the batting - in theory at any rate!

Back in the day we had depth in the batting prior 7, broad 8 swann 9. Wouldn't move them up a place in the order though.

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England team to play Cricket Australia XI: Alastair Cook, Mark Stoneman, James Vince, Joe Root (c), Dawid Malan, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Craig Overton, Stuart Broad, Mason Crane.

Ball is expected to be fit for the Test and I expect he will come in for Crane.

Ballance and Curran have been left out.

Flintoff was never a world class all rounder.. His bowling was decent.. But has a batter he failed miserably.
I look at the England batting line up.. We will need more than Cook Root and Bairstow to contribute..

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comment by Greatteamswinit4times- a terrible enemy (U6008)
posted 18 minutes ago
comment by Blue Heaven (U20912)
posted 1 hour, 51 minutes ago
England team to play Cricket Australia XI: Alastair Cook, Mark Stoneman, James Vince, Joe Root (c), Dawid Malan, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Craig Overton, Stuart Broad, Mason Crane.

Ball is expected to be fit for the Test and I expect he will come in for Crane.

Ballance and Curran have been left out.
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Ball won't come in for crane will he. Jimmy will be if for crane. It's between Overton and Ball.
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Sorry, forgot about Jimmy!

I know the Australian batting aint great.. But I fear we wont score enough ourselves.. we collapse like a pack of cards..

comment by Greatteamswinit4times- a terrible enemy (U6008)
posted 1 day, 3 hours ago
comment by Liverpoolwhoelse17 (U16825)
posted 37 minutes ago
Flintoff was never a world class all rounder.. His bowling was decent.. But has a batter he failed miserably.
I look at the England batting line up.. We will need more than Cook Root and Bairstow to contribute..
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Obviously we will. I think stoneman will actually have a better series than Cook. Vince will probably average about 25. I wouldn't be surprised if 6,7,8 got more runs than 3,4 and 5.

All this being said, let's not forget that this Aussie side is borderline average too. Warner and Smith are their only world class batsmen. Starc is class but he'll go for plenty of runs too. Their other bowlers are good but not outstanding.
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Agree with all of this. Which is why we need to pick 5 bowlers as we aren't going to beat them with heaps of scoreboard pressure. I've got a feeling Stoneman will announce himself in this series but we will still be searching for a 3 & 5.

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England will be in trouble if looking for runs from number 9. The top 5 need to take responsibility and score big runs. Play your best bowlers.

We know that but our top 5 is unsettled and therefore we've been looking for runs from 6-9 to bail us out of a few batting collapses. Roland-Jones contributed handy runs at 9 in the summer which is what we're probably going to need from Overton, he's capable of it so hopefully he'll come good for the series.

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I'd also say England will pick their best bowlers anyway; Anderson, Broad and Woakes are clearly England's best 3 quicks and will all play. Overton is the next best in the squad, even when Finn was in it, so England will pick their best attack.

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