Bit late catching up with the end of this thread but it was frustrating to read..pages and pages of people whinging that Smith had done the wrong thing not enforcing the follow on, everyone knew better because we let them back into the game,
Games over and then cue everyone (pretty much the same people) complaining that we wont get through the series with just the three quicks.
Thats the whole Point!
Keep this bowling unit intact, Australia wins the series and if long enough we win 5-0. Its as simple as that. This pommie batting line up is not capable of withstanding them and THAT is the reason Smith didnt enforce the follow on. Three great but historically fragile bowlers. The risk he ran was taht the poms could get in and then the bowler have to churn out long overs damaging the chances at the end of the series..
Australia won, bowlers churned out the minimum possible overs over the longest possible time, go to Perth fresh.
2/3 of the way there. Looked ugly but good result
Cant disagree with a lot of what you have said, however
Had Smith enforced the follow on the bowlers would have only bowled 20 odd overs before having a full nights rest. So really not much difference to what they had anyway, even if we scored more runs its not like the conditions were hot or the pitch was a deadless road.
Poms would have been shitting bricks had they been forced to follow on. This is the trick Smith missed. We would have gotten at least a couple of wickets, probably more. You could see them get a new lease of life when we chose to bat again. 4/50 wasn't it?
Lastly to the main point I want to make here, If we have the mentality of "resting" the bowlers during a test match, WHEN the conditions present themselves as best for bowling in the cool of an evening , then we will get our pants pulled down in a test soon enough. Pat Cummins bowled his ass off in the heat of India and pulled through ok.
