What the hell happened. Fell asleep when Warner and Khawaja were still in.
Well done England, deserved victors fo this series, Bell has surprised me coming off a long run of poor form, particularly when he's never really shown an ability to step it up against us before, but he batted really well all series (with another test to go as well).
Disappointing as hell tbh. I think we've been the better side for much of the third and fourth tests, but don't have anything to show for it (other than some positive signs about our lineup I guess).
I think we lost this test in our first batting innings tbh. We bowled well both innings again (not so much Siddle and Bird second innings) but after a great first innings bowling performance to be 4/70 odd was just not good enough, and despite the recovery we still only gave ourselves a small lead. Bresnan being given yesterday would've been interesting as well (not a bad decision, just genuinely one that could've gone either way).
I really hope we take good lessons from the last two tests. In Manchester we lost momentum when KP and Bell were scoring runs against Starc at will, and they eventually got too close to us for us to win (thanks to weather). In the first innings here there were periods where Trott and Cook looked absolutely set but, crucially, the bowling attack didnt give them anything, and on an unresponsive pitch they still couldnt get the scoring rate up. That constant pressure eventually lead to running through them pretty well thanks to good bowling from all.
I hope we go into the return series with some idea of what our best lineup is though, this has let us down big time this series (with Lehmann fresh in the job having to chop and change). Still huge question marks over Khawaja and Smith (although im happy for both to be given a bit of time). Warner batted well second innings, needs to keep that up. If his body can hold together Watson at six works as well.
FWIW I think our competitiveness in the first test has been over stated, we should've been smashed and two unexpectedly huge 10th wicket partnerships and we nearly pulled off a miracle. We didnt play particularly well. We've played very well for much of the last two tests though.
