{"id":314235,"date":"2023-07-06T21:50:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-06T21:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=314235"},"modified":"2023-07-07T00:00:43","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T00:00:43","slug":"simple-problem-thats-losing-england-the-ashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=314235","title":{"rendered":"'Simple' problem that's 'losing England the Ashes'"},"content":{"rendered":"

England<\/a> could have bowled Australia<\/a> out cheaply in the first innings of the third Ashes Test if not for ill-discipline and wayward strategy, reckon two cricket greats.<\/p>\n

Australia was against the wall at Headingley at 4-85 when Mitchell Marsh<\/a> made his way to the crease.<\/p>\n

Marsh, a late inclusion for Cameron Green<\/a>, was dropped early by former England captain Joe Root<\/a>. Had that been taken, Australia would have been 5-98.<\/p>\n

WATCH:<\/strong> Carey drowned in boos by savage English crowd\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Top umpire tears down England's fragile protests<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> 'Someone forgot': Incredible blunder allowed Dog to walk<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Instead, the ring-in made the most of his second chance and scored a century at nearly a run a ball to give Australia a fighting chance.<\/p>\n

\"England's<\/p>\n

England dropped four catches on the first day, something former Australian fast bowler Glenn McGrath believes the home side will rue the most.<\/p>\n

"England will be happy to bowl Australia out for 263 but I think it could have been so much better," he said on BBC Sport's Test Match Daily<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Every ball of the Ashes will be live, free and exclusive on<\/strong><\/em> 9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, and if you miss any of the action you can find full highlights and exclusive replays after every day's play<\/strong><\/em> here<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

"I reckon, if they took all their catches, they would have knocked Australia over for 120 and be in a far better position."<\/p>\n

They say catches win matches, and for England the series might already have been 2-0 in their favour if they had clung onto more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Wicketkeeper<\/p>\n

Ex-England captain Michael Vaughan echoed McGrath's sentiment that fielding has been their Achilles heel, having dropped 14 so far across the three Tests.<\/p>\n

"Someone, rightfully, will be writing an article about how catching is losing England the Ashes," said Vaughan.<\/p>\n

"In the first Test, they would have won that game. Obviously, at Lord's, they missed opportunities and didn't bat with any kind of sense, the first innings in particular.<\/p>\n

"Today, I mean, drop catches happen, you're going to see dropped catches, that's just the nature of the game that we play.<\/p>\n

"When you see simple dropped catches \u2013 I'm no person to speak about catching, I used to drop many, but I used to hide myself and make sure I wasn't in the catching positions \u2013 but the people that are in the catching positions in the cordon and the keeper, they've got to be taking those chances.<\/p>\n

"One down the leg side, Jonny Bairstow off Travis Head, that's as easy as they come. It really is. Joe Root, straight in, twice. Joe Root has got a safe pair of hands.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Root<\/p>\n

"I don't know what Australia would have been bowled out for, but I'm sure it would have been around 160, 170. There is a huge difference. It's 100 runs in the first innings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"Now, England are near-on 200 runs behind. They've only got seven wickets left. Let's see how hard it is for England to get up to what Australia got in the first innings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"They should be thinking about already being pretty much near parity if they had caught all their chances today.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"They probably would have been 150 by now, you don't know how many wickets would have been down, but this is the game, this is why Ashes cricket, in particular, is the key.<\/p>\n

"It's all about dealing with the pressure, preparing properly, being sharp at the right moments."<\/p>\n

\"Chris<\/p>\n

Mark Wood was the star of the show for England and the fly in the ointment for Australia, taking 5-34 on his return to the Test team.<\/p>\n

Having been 4-85, the visitors put on an epic stand before a flurry of wickets fell in quick succession. Australia was 4-240 before losing six wickets for just 23 runs.<\/p>\n

But England might have rolled through the tail a lot quicker had captain Ben Stokes brought Wood back on earlier, said Vaughan.<\/p>\n

"I thought in the afternoon session when Marsh was going, I think he only bowled three overs," said Vaughan of Wood, who took four of the last six wickets.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/juniorwaugh349\/status\/1676964033260584962<\/a>https:\/\/twitter.com\/juniorwaugh349\/status\/1677039255389093889<\/a><\/p>\n

"I was kind of looking down going, 'Is he injured? Why isn't he bowling?' And then we saw him after tea and he blew the Australians away.<\/p>\n

"So I think Ben (Stokes) might look at that afternoon session, particularly to Mitchell Marsh, where he didn't put his strike bowler on, the impact bowler, the point of difference bowler on, when that partnership was really firing."<\/p>\n

England proceeded to lose three wickets for 68 runs to trail Australia by 195 at stumps on day one.<\/p>\n

Zak Crawley top-scored with 33 before he was caught by David Warner off Marsh's bowling.<\/p>\n

Ben Duckett went for just two runs while Harry Brook scored three \u2013 both falling to Pat Cummins in the same over.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

England could have bowled Australia out cheaply in the first innings of the third Ashes Test if not for ill-discipline and wayward strategy, reckon two […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":314240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314235"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=314235"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314245,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314235\/revisions\/314245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/314240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=314235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=314235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=314235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}