Nasser Hussain says the conditions shouldn’t conceal the fact that England’s bowlers had a day in Old Trafford.
Let us be truthful, England were bad now. But I believe you have to set it in a little bit of context, it’s been very, very difficult day for bowling. Any bowler who has performed in such windy conditions, it was icy cold will inform you’ve got tough it is to get into any type of rhythm.
A day like this was hard work and in addition, it seems a bit flat. The pitch is still an absolute belter and also after what occurred in the Headingley, everything is going to seem a little bit flat. You have gone from one extreme to the next.
Just the body language on a freezing cold day like this – and it was arctic cold out there – gamers do walk around with their hands in their pockets so it looks a bit flat, as you’ve got handwarmers on your pockets.
You need to give a bit of context to it but doesn’t eliminate the simple fact that I thought they were bad.
I believed it was incorrect that Jofra Archer bowled seven balls until the lunch break at Steve Smith, although a fantastic new-ball spell bowled.
That was the contest that was key and after Smith had been in, Joe Root had 2 options: to keep Archer going after he had bowled five overs and bowl him and go at him. Or take off him and put him back just before lunch, you’ve given a rest to him so you may request him to really steam in for three or even four overs of bitterness.
We got neither and that enabled Smith to settle and we know once he excels he is a rock to dislodge.
He has looked troubled at all but has there really been a time of sustained hostility in him? Has anyone gone around the wicket in him? Has anybody really targeted him? A small bit but not actually, and it is also a much better pitch to play with the ball on.
Smith said himself on vacation this morning since it goes through, that he was looking forward to batting on it, it is a little bit like a pitch. It’s not quick but you can expect the rebound so as it will go in brief, you can get out of the way if it.
Some of these other pitches within this series have been two-paced and you also do not know whether to duck or influence. I believe they’ve shifted their technique marginally too, Smith and Marnus Labuschagne were swaying to try and prevent Archer’s bouncers but since he nips the ball in the chunk was after them so what they’ve done now is duck out of their way, offside of it and allow the ball move.
As for me, I want to have why he was left out and a little more of an explanation on Chris Woakes. He’s a great cricketer and England might know something about his fitness, he’s going into the’red zone’ or his knee but, for me personally, a Woakes would maintain my hands. That is nothing from Craig Overton, he’s a good cricketer today and he has done.
The chunk for Labuschagne was a complete beauty, there’s not a great deal in the pitch and everything I’ve said about the conditions applies to Overton because it does to Archer and everyone else – .
I was surprised they didn’t possess the heavy bails at Old Trafford. I could not feel that, particularly up here and together using the forecast being exactly what it was.
I’ve played in many a game where they have called for the hefty bails and another evening I was watching my child play at the Essex league in which they took the bails off, as they did today, so I have seen it in club cricket although not in cricket before!
For a little while, conditions were appalling; it was freezing cold, blustery wind, the bails were falling off all of the time, crisp packets and in one stage there had been a beach ball blowing round the floor.
It was a very hard afternoon because you’ve got to be a true cricket lover along with a soul to accomplish this, and fair play into the audiences who stumbled through it and watched all of that.
See day two of the fourth Test between Australia and England on Sky Sports The Ashes from 10am.
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