I agree. But how has Woakes been this season? His record in this country is astounding, and give him green seamers at Edgbaston and Lords and he could be a real handful, with Root to attack the lefties.
But the damnable Convicts are sadly looking good with both bat and ball against my boys atm. And they have an all-rounder now when we might not get any overs out of the skipper. If you think how hard they've been to beat when we've had Both/Freddie/Stokes and they haven't had one, with the boot on the other foot, we could be screwed.
I still worry about Zak, so it would have been hard even with a fully fit Stokes and Leach. JL may have gone for 38 runs a wicket since Bazball started but he's taken 45 wickets and we reckon we can knock off 380 runs every time, so he's been great for us.
Basically, we need all the batsmen to fire to some degree, we need Stokes to be able to bowl with the old ball and get it reversing and we need a Mo fairytale ending. Or Harold Larwood and no helmets.
Yup. Ollie will be up for his first Ashes at home. Margate boy to boot. {I live here now.}
If we had a fit Joffra {and Stokes and JL} I'd be happier. Root broke his shiny new toy, didn't he, with that 42 over game. Waited all my life for Eng to get a pwoppa WI quick and won {lost} Ashes and won {one} WC later and he's just a fading memory.
How do you get TMS in Europe? I've been spending a lot of time on the Right Bank in Paris {4th Arrondissement} since I hooked back up with my mate from Les Nomads sound system in 2017 and used to pop down to the river to check the BBC live text. But you couldn't listen to TMS on the page over there like you can in Blighty.
The pause button on TMS on the BBC sport page is great cos I can now sync it up to the dodgy stream as long as it doesn't buffer very often.
For the WC final, cos it was on CH4, I was able to watch on 4OD with TMS in sync. My beloved came in with about 5 or so overs left and actually stayed to watch it all with me - I think Agnew et al on TMS gave her a new insight cos the commentary is so much better than telly.
Yup, they didn't have Bumrah and Pant and stupidly didn't play Ashwin. But the Aussies batted and bowled very well, unfortunately. Though Ganpati willing, Mo will get revenge for the Godless Convicts calling him Osama.
Though why wouldn't you play Ravi Ashwin? No.1 test bowler in the world and getting on for 500 test wickets at under 24 while {Gerald the} Lyon's come in at over 31. {And RA's batting average is almost 27.}
Imagine if we could get Axar Patel? Can barely get a game for India despite averaging just over 17 with the ball and over 36 with the bat.
Were he English, he could be one of our all-time greats. Him at 8, Archer and Robinson at 9 and 10. And Sunni Gavaskar to open for us, just for the anti-Bazball lols.