There are no sufficient superlatives to describe Steve Smith. When I went  to bed well into the last session he was on 70.. having dragged us out of the mire with help from Sids. He musta then led a brutal assault on a tiring attack to finish unconconqued on almost 150. That knock shud move him back to #1 on rankings and keep him there. The man is a freak.

Siddle would be way down the pecking order if in Australia but both his long term county record, past performance in Ashes in England (albeit too late) and most recent county form means he simply has to play over Hazlewood. 

13 a day I heard!

Dunno how Sids has kept it up. Still a vegan,  gobbling up bananas every day?

Hazelwood at his best is better than siddle but he has had a bad run of form. Siddle has been great in England

He has confirmed Bancroft to open. He hasn't said who the third seamer is with Pattinson and Cummins. Wade has not been confirmed at 6, but I think will play.

Probably the man himself.  

Which of Paine’s masters had the brainwave to get the Aussies to shake hands with the opposition BEFORE they commence hostilities?

If Pattinson and Cummins play every test,
They are the most likely to tho CA has intimated there will be rotation to keep bowlers fresh for the short, packed schedule. I expect Patto and Cummins to play 4 matches..Hazlewood 3, Siddle 2 and Starc 2. Or thereabouts.

The new Aussie Mantra: 
Humility
Honesty
Professionalism
Confidence
Discipline

Root at #3 adds some solidity. Buttler and Stokes in the top six opens up an opportunity for our express men with the Dukes in hand. Neither have cast iron techniques.
So best case scenario. Paine wins toss bowls first unleashing Pattinson and Cummins on their rookie openers. with the aim to expose Root early against the new hard Dukes.

Langer is dragging out naming the eleven. 

Maybe there are a few more injury concerns that we don’t know about? 

wonder how we deal with Ali. Poor first class bowling average poor test bowling average but he's had some success against us in the past

do we attack? If you can hit spin out of the attack you can open up a test because the quicks wear out sooner. The danger though is if you are too agressive you bring them into the game

Curran is in the squad but most pundits agree he’s too low down the pecking order to get a start. I hope they’re all wrong

Ali has taken more Test wkts (apart from Jimmy) in the last yr so should start. Eng usually field at least one spinner.

So the press is expecting this line up - not my choice though
Burns
Roy 
Root
Denly
Stokes
Buttler
Bairstow
Woakes
Ali
Broad
Anderson

Then that bothers me. i'd like to see Ussie's stats batting #3 and #4. He does not move his feet all that much.. dangerous against the moving Dukes. Prefer him lower than #3 to be honest.

Smith will bat 4

This is looking more and more the X1.
Warner
Bancroft
Smith
Khawaja
Head
Wade
Paine
Cummins
Pattinson
Hazlewood/Siddle
Lyon.

Too many lefties for mine with Sam Curran in the Pommie attack.
Wud CA ever consider playing four quicks. Talk is the enemy will.

Has Curran not been picked for Edgbaston? Hell I have him as England's leading wicket taker elsewhere in a Ashes tipping competition.

Talk England will go in with four quicks. No spinner. Is this correct?

Boy is Langer dragging out naming the X1. Two locks so far Pattinson and Khawaja.

Thats a decent team since it includes the scary 3 (pattinson, cummins and lyon) and excludes mitch

still I wish Hazelwood would be replaced with siddle/tremain. I can live with hazelwood though

Rashid turned down his last red ball contract at Yorks.

M Vaughan argues you might as well bin Rory Burns and stick in Woakes who is just as likely to get 40 runs (his av in Tests in England)
Six bowlers is unnecessary though?
Jimmy, Broady, Stokes, Archer, Woakes & Ali.

I think Sam Curran is really unfortunate given his batting (big plus) and he did undoubtedly ‘swing the series’ vs India

As their best Root has to bat in the all important #3 spot. Good news for us if we knock off one of the openers early then Root will be exposed to the new hard ball earlier than wudda been the case. 

I also notioned Rashid being picked. Seems England selectors like ours dont pick wristies in Test cricket. I can not fathom that.

Following the most recent comments I’d expect the team to be 

Warner Bancroft Khawaja Smith Head Labuschagne/Wade Paine Pattinson Cummins Hazlewood Lyon 

Though as noted on here Hazlewood has really lacked rhythm and wickets recently. The best pace attack is probably Pattinson Cummins Siddle/Neser

If Pattinson and Cummins play every test, if Marsh plays zero and if Smith and Warner resturn to form I would say we probably win

That's 3 ifs though

Rashid has to all intents and purposes given up red ball cricket

As for Rooty the Torygraph now claims he’s relented and agreed to bat at three (Trevor B’s preference).
Burns, Roy, Root, Denly top four, really? Come on the middle order!!

Does Archer have the stamina for Test cricket?

We will have to wait and see. He operates pretty well in FC cricket -133 w- @23.

More questions raised than answered DC. Yes England have great depth in keeping.. what they need is great depth in opening. Since Cook left the scene the Pommies have struggled with their openers. The three vying for the spot are not specialist openers. Rory Burns is.. wait for it.. another keeper ..tho he does have a decent FC av @42. Roy is a specialist white baller @38 FC while Joe Denly the third condender is at least a middle order bat but averages a modest FC @36. Our opening quicks.. Cummins and hopefully Pattinson shud  target whoever they pick to open with plenty of short pacey stuff while the ball is hard. The major priority is having Root and the middle order exposed as early as poss..

Bird should have been selected but he was never going to play the same as Neser, token selection IMO. CA have this fascination with producing all-rounders, a good quality true all-rounder is James Hopes, never played tests for Australia. Neser would be the closest to that Hopes level of all rounder currently in Australia. Neser makes the state side with either bat or ball, but he has both so he's great to have around, leading the bowling attack and batting as well as someone like Patterson (Last year sheffield shield Neser batted at 43 Patterson 40). Neser is borderline on that step up to international level as a bowler but he will never push Pattinson nor Cummins out they're better, though Neser's batting is probably superior. Our all-rounder tag is M Marsh or Stoinis and to a lesser extent Labuchagne, OK for limited overs but their ability with ball or bat is not up to scratch, they don't make the side with either discipline but yet are chosen, yet Hopes never was?? Playing an all-rounder at 6 weakens our batting line up and I definitely would never ever, ever, play Neser at 6 so I don't see him as a better prospect as a bowler than Bird who has actually improved his batting. 

But if you were to base selection solely on recent performances, Neser didn't keep Bird out of the side, Hazlewood did! Hazlewood or Bird? much of a muchness, Bird is probably the more attacking bowler and his strike rate is the same at test level to Hazlewood, but has not been given anywhere near the opportunities that Hazlewood has. But at first class level Bird's Strike Rate kicks Hazlewood's arse (48 compared to Hazlewood's 55). Bird is the more attacking of the 2, plays in Tasmania the closest our grounds get to English conditions, and is currently bowling well, Hazlewood isn't, so I would have chosen Bird. The sole difference between the 2 is CA have invested 7-10 million dollars in Hazlewood over the last 5 years, but Bird may have been lucky to earn 1 million in that same period. Baggers will tell you I have been saying for 3 years now that Hazlewood's lack of wicket taking ability is not something that has just appeared it has been since around the last time we toured England. He has had 3 years to sort this out but there has been no improvement, actually it appears to be getting worse, when is enough enough? At first class level Hazlewood and Bird have bowled the same but there is a huge discrepancy between their wickets taken. Hazlewood 148 innings 290 wickets av 25 Bird 153 innings 348 wickets av 24. Is the selection of Hazlewood over Bird based on recent performances a rightful decision? I'd say No it has questions of bias but that is just my opinion which everyone is entitled to have.

But I can use the same argument for Tremain as well 108 innings 225 wickets @ 23 SR 45 beats Bird and smashes Hazlewood out of the ballpark. No bias in selections that I can see How about you?

But in saying that Hazlewood may do well against this particular England side that have been concentrating on the limited over format thus their recent loss against WI and poor first innings against Ireland. They will chase wide deliveries and Hazlewood specialises in bowling wide of off so a few slip catches may occur when other international test sides just let him pass through to keeper.

PS Bird was born in NSW so that may stop the cries of me being bias against NSW players.

Baggers where do our players who are not selected for shield cricket, ply their trade? Grade cricket! But it is a matter of perspective, for you where Sydney grade cricket has 20 teams, you're probably right there is a lot of rubbish playing to fill the teams and yes Div 2 County is probably better, but in other states where there are less teams you do have less rubbish and Div 2 county cricket is about the same maybe slightly better, but we're not talking Future League standard. Our Shield and Futures comp equates to English Div 1 County standard. Jason Sangha is a perfect example of how not to read too much into performances at these lower standards, setting the world on fire in the Sydney grade comp, the media and yourself stating how he's the next best thing for Australian cricket,  steps up to Shield level and the only record he broke was the most number of ducks in a season tying with the master batsmen Nick Winter and Joe Mennie with 5. 

Of course I'm not saying Labuchagne isn't a good shield player, good not great, but as a Queenslander looking solely at his batting his performances were worse than Burns, Hemphrey, Neser, Peirson, Heazlett, and throw Khawaja in as well, he just scrapes in with the 7th batting position at state level. So Labuchagne has been selected for his bowling as well which would be the reason why Holland has been sent home. Since when does Australia tour with only 1 spinner, they don't Labuchagne is the back up spinner.

But I do have a question for you, if selectors are saying that there is this importance in performances over at county level, then surely you would have no problem with Siddle playing instead of Hazlewood? Siddle in Division 1 county cricket where international represented players are playing such as Harmer, Patel, Kyle Abbott, Fidel Edwards, Morne Morkel (remember him the one that taught Starc and Hazlewood how to bowl in the last SA tour) Duanne Olivier, Overton, Ravi Ashwin, Sam Curran, Broad, and our own Pattinson then as one of the leading bowlers with 34 wickets @ 20 (compared to Pattinson's 8 wickets @ 30 or Hazlewood's 0/66 against Div 2 team Gloucestershire or 0/46 and 0/7 against Div 2 team Sussex ) surely Siddle should be an automatic selection for the first test. These important selection criteria only exist when they don't impact one of CA pets, otherwise they're thrown out the door.

Do you think Neser should have been selected instead of a bowler like Bird, Mike?