Those wickets put a bit of a downer on a great day but still plenty of batting to come. As the non-Anderson bowlers stepped up on Day 2, at some point in this series someone other than Ian Bell is going to have score big runs for us, he can't do it every time. Looks like he'll need to set up the winning position again tomorrow. Root really needs a big one here to justify being moved up the order.
I thought we were 70 runs short in the first innings. 😆 While everyone is underestimating the Aussies I guess I'm overestimating them, probably because after being thrashed by them for most of my life I can't bring myself to every write them off. The right decision not to enforce the follow on for me. Perfect weather forecast so bat them out of the match for most or hopefully all of day 3, then 2 days to bowl them out.
Watson really is an absolute cunt isn't he? Clarke was dead right calling him a cancer on the team. 2nd innings in a row he's wasted a stupid review on an LBW. It was absolutely plumb and as Michael Holding said in the commentary, because of the way he walks across his stumps he's always plumb. Very selfish and it cost them because the decision Rogers got looked dodgy in real time and should have been reviewed but having already wasted 1, he didn't want to risk losing the last 1 on only the 2nd wicket. There's no doubt he'd have reviewed if they had 2 left.
Think it's a big mistake not to give Katich a call personally. He's already over there and scored 200 last week and then 115 this week and they're in dire need of some quality in that batting lineup. Would only be a stop gap for a year at his age but they just need someone at the top of the order who can score some runs in these 2 Ashes series, then rebuild next year. Cowan is probably finished at this level and Khawaja just doesn't look an international batsman for me either. He's been in and out of the squad for 2 or 3 years now and just looks out of his depth every time. As I commented at the time, when they showed him sitting on the balcony when the openers were in he looked absolutely terrified as if it was the worst day of his life or something. Then he didn't know how to play Swann and eventually slogged one straight up in the air when he couldn't cope any longer.
Steve Smith doesn't look a test batsman either, not in the top 6 anyway. Maybe if you put him at 7 and bowled him a lot more he'd be a useful all-rounder but he just doesn't look like getting the runs a number 5 or 6 should be getting.
