Righto, that is all from us today. The lights are dimmed here at Brisbane’s Gabba and the pitch is being watered by the ground staff. Australia are one win away from being home and hosed themselves.
We’ll be back to OBO the third game of the series in Adelaide starting on 16th December.
All Ben Stokes wants for Christmas… is a Test match win in Australia.
Thanks for your company and comments, goodbye and toodle-oo.
Geoff Lemon has dipped his quill on ‘triumph of modesty’ and five wicket hauler - Michael Neser:
“Neser is a triumph of modesty. Where Nathan Lyon was spitting chips on live television over being left out for one Test match, Neser has been left out for years. This was his third match in four Australian summers, all of them day-night fixtures, while sitting on the bench through untold numbers of squads and camps and second XIs. He has always been good enough to play, but never enough to push past the four bigger, taller, flashier quicks. Through this frustration, at least publicly, he has never said a word.
So Neser knows about waiting for things to break his way, and set about doing exactly that on his first outing at his home ground. His singular quality is consistency, honed from a first-class debut in 2010 to his most high-profile moment today. His pitch map was more laser pointer than scatterplot. He hit the same length, gave no drives, no leg-side width to glance, and decked the ball subtly enough to draw mistakes.”
Simon Burnton is here at the Gabba and has written about the thorny issue of match preparation. This one will rumble and rumble.
“The England & Wales Cricket Board is ready to offer Australia their pick of warm-up facilities before the next Ashes series in 2027, in an attempt to secure similar treatment when England return in 2029-30 and avoid being forced into the kind of buildup that preceded the current series and has become the focus of intense criticism.
England’s preparations are under the microscope given their dismal start to this series, with the first Test lost inside two days and the second lost in four, with Australia’s winning margins eight wickets both times. “If I was an England supporter and had paid the money to come here, I’d be asking the ECB for a refund,” Ian Botham said on Sunday. “Because this team, for me, is not prepared.”
“Morning James” writes Henry L.
“I agree with everything that Simon McMahon has just written but looking forward – if England could just show the togetherness, grit, talent and bloody-mindedness to win one of remaining test matches, that would breathe life into English cricket. It’s so important that they do everything to compete from here on in.”
He’s not wrong.
A taste of the OBO mailbag:
“Even 90 more runs and England could have made a fight out of this...”
“Great to see that England’s preparation worked as efficiently here as it did in Perth. So fantastic that they didn’t play any cricket in the 11 days between the first and second Tests. We know it’s working for them, because Stokes said so.”
“Wait, how much better will Australia be when Cummins and Hazlewood and Lyon return?”
They are setting up for the presentation here at the Gabba, I’ll bring some live reaction as it comes.
“Like so much in life, Jim, it’s a case of what might have been for England. I don’t think there’s actually all that much between the teams, but Australia have just been, well, better, especially in the key moments. You can talk about Bazball and England’s approach and preparation all you like but in the end it’s irrelevant. Australia have just been better. Still, better to have loved and lost tried and failed than never to have tried at all, right?”
Impressively philosophical from Simon McMahon in the minutes after defeat.
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