Smith is becoming an excellent young player, his innings today was magnificent, once again redink, get off what ever drugs it is that you're on, you have no clue.
I still feel, long term he's going to be fantastic at 6. Not a fan of bailey, never have been, he's not test
Grade, never will be.
England bowled too short. In prior post I mentioned the key to success on the WACA is pitching 1m further up, I thought England's experienced attack fell for the Perth trap, too short.
I watched Anderson closely. While i still maintain he 'paces' himself if conditions/match situation aren't quite to his liking, my prior comments about him lacking guts are off the mark. The poor bugger is absolutely flat out exhausted. I'm convinced he's completely fatigued. This is dangerous for a quick bowler, he is vulnerable to injury. If he does get hurt, heads should roll in the team managemt, they've already sacrificed a good player who wasn't fit for duty.
Australia were fortunate, pretty clear they wanted to come hard at England but very poor shot selection rewarded some mediocre bowling.
I like Cook, but reality is that as a tactician, he's pretty 1 dimensional, he's a lead by example type, and he typically sets a fine example to his team, but in the field, he doesn't have control of that team, the team aren't buying in to the plan, and the plans no good in the first place. At times today, looked like there were 7 captains out there.
Getting pretty sick of England's pathetic over rate. Yes it was hot today, the over rate has been tardy in prior matches too.
The pitch will quicken up tomorrow, by lunch it should be really flying through......
As always, can't say whether it is a possible match winning position untill both teams have batted, but with 320 on the board, shouldn't loose.