OneGuyFromBarlick

For many Test Cricket is really only England v Australia and the winter test series is due to Commence with Australia Hosting.
It always seems to me that Australian grounds are larger than most UK venues.
The tour starts , possibly saving air mileage in Perth , Western Australia. Traditionally the ground of the WACCA- Western Australia Cricket Club for 2025 a new venue - the city ground , seating 60,000 and with a light roof provides the location. Conditions , humidity and wind will be different as the season heads toward mis-summer in the southern hemisphere.
Following locations are normally Sydney , Melbourne, Adelaide, and Brisbane.
Many of us will have families in one of the cities and support thus divided. The English team has played a different type of test cricket in recent years so could be interesting in a long line of competition for the right to claim the Ashes trophy.

Well that was odd, for a fast pacy wicket apparently and a English batting line up that hits - or misses - every ball trying to score rather than defending for the duration
England 172: Brook 52, Pope 46; Starc 7-58. A Fast Aussie bowler thus taking a tidy haul

But England have bowlers too
Australia 123-9: Stokes 5-23
So unless on the morning of day 2 the Australian tail hang on this looks like England are into bat within 36 hours of starting the game with a bit of a lead. Will strategy change ? Will the test all be over in 3 days ?

I should have posted the records created on the first day.

The second barely made it a full day with Australia taking one session to win.
Australia 132 adding just 9 to the overnight score
England created 164 (Boland 4-33) which might have looked reasonable with a pver 200 lead for the Australians to match. However Englands last 9 wickets amassed only 99 runs and the pace bowling of day one , as perhaps it looked, lacked if not fire then a technique not to be scored off
Australia got the required 205-2 (Head 123, Labuschagne 51*) winning by eight wickets; lead series 1-0
At 847 balls bowled, this was the shortest completed Ashes Test since 1888
As a team, England’s two innings lasted 67.3 overs. Not since 1904 have they ever been bowled out twice so quickly. As a whole, the Test was the ninth shortest in history.
The first two-day Ashes Test since 1921 and Head dismantled the England attack with the second-fastest Ashes hundred of all time, made off only 69 balls.
Zak Crawley was caught and bowled by Starc and out for the second time in 11 deliveries to become only the fourth England opener to return an Ashes pair
Starc became the first Australian bowler to take a 10-wicket haul in an Ashes Test since Shane Warne 20 years ago.
But there was a change, for the 2nd innings Left-hander Head, who has opened in the past, was moved up from number five in the first innings, going from playing mid innings strengthener to play a natural game against tough opposition

I wonder what Sir Geoffrey thinks of it all.

I liked the pace of it all when it took the team five weeks to get to Australia by boat.

Those were the days David!