Ashes Third Test, Headingley

Australia lead the series 1-0 after winning the first Test at Edgbaston and drawing at Lord's.

The Aussies will be without former captain and the best batsman in the world after Steve Smith was ruled out with concussion following a Jofra Archer bouncer that struck him on the neck in his first innings at Lord's.

Marnus Labuschagne is expected to fill Smith's spot like he did at Lord's when he entered the fray as Test cricket's first ever concussion substitute where he scored an admirable 59 runs, helping to steer Australia to a draw on the final day.

It's expected that Peter Siddle will drop out of the side to allow for the return of James Pattinson who was rested for the second Test. Mitchell Starc seems destined to remain on drinks duty.

England meanwhile are expected to name an unchanged 11 although they may tinker with the make up of the batting order. Joe Root has struggled at first drop, while Jason Roy has failed to make the switch from opening in the ODI team to becoming a Test opener. Root is expected to move down to four with Joe Denly jumping into the number three position.

Many are talking about the effect of Jofra Archer's entry into Test cricket. Interestingly, his debut performance lands him as just the 312th best bowler on debut with overall figures of 5/91. He need only look across at his opponents in Pat Cummins (7/117) and Josh Hazlewood (7/142) who had better debut figures.

The Headingley pitch is rumoured to be a slow deck that will crumble and break up towards the end of the match. An interesting decision by the ground staff there given Australia's Nathan Lyon has been collecting wickets for fun and spun the English into knots in the first Test.

As always the toss will be important and Tim Paine will be hoping his luck continues. This will likely be a bat first pitch because no one will be looking to bat last on a decaying deck.

Play starts at 8pm AEST tonight so get your picture-in-picture going or set up a second screen to make sure you don't miss the first ball while watching the Eels belt the Dogs.

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LB replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"Breaks my heart not seeing him at Parra coaching again. Wish he was at least coaching our NSW Cup team."
1 minute ago
LB replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"To be fair FMP, Chief was in favour in letting Gutho go early. Mainly due to his hatred of BA, he linked Gutho to that too and wanted all traces of BA gone. That is not me being smart allic either i am actually serious that is a reason he was in…"
2 minutes ago
Cʜɪᴇғy Mclovin replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"also this guy should be at Parramatta.   A Parramatta man"
5 minutes ago
Cʜɪᴇғy Mclovin replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"So now you're back tracking.  Let's just agree to disagree and get on with it"
11 minutes ago
fake midget pseudoachondroplasia replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"Don't have time to go through all your wrong predictions, you delete blogs anyway when proven wrong like your recent blog about Sua being a bad signing at 28 years old.
Even if you didn't mention Gutho making them better I bet you compared Saints…"
19 minutes ago
fake midget pseudoachondroplasia replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"Of course they wouldn't, but as soon as he has a good game for saints, it will be mentioned how the front office stuffed up signing him. "
24 minutes ago
Coryn Hughes replied to Angry Eel's discussion Hypothetical Question
"The front office screwed it because they got caught cheating that was the bigger issue.Foran unfortunately his body was at the end of it by the time he got to us and the mental state hurt him also."
27 minutes ago
Poupou Escobar replied to Angry Eel's discussion Hypothetical Question
"The front office didn't screw that, Kieran Foran did. Unless you're talking about the salary cap cheating, in which case, we wouldn't have signed all those players without it."
29 minutes ago
Blue Eel replied to Angry Eel's discussion Hypothetical Question
"Throw in a Micheal Jennings, Hindmarsh,Vella and Dylan Brown. Yep."
1 hour ago
Cʜɪᴇғy Mclovin replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"I reckon they'll retire Gutherson and someone said they'll offer him something in coaching. "
1 hour ago
Michael W. replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"I wouldn't sign him for 1yr, he is way overrated, imo."
1 hour ago
EA replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"If dragons can fix their outside backs and get a good coach, I recon they will challenge for the 8 next year. Gutho and Holmes at centre is cooked. Atkinson and Metcalf in the halves with Reed and LKT still developing. Drinkwater at fullback. Liddle…"
1 hour ago
Coryn Hughes replied to Angry Eel's discussion Hypothetical Question
"Not be me.
I really thought in 2016 when we signed Kieran Foran that was our circuit breaker with him in the mix with the team he had around him I thought we would have been top 4 for that year and many years after that.How cruel it was the front…"
1 hour ago
Cʜɪᴇғy Mclovin replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"Nope. That's false.  I've always been in favour of letting Gutherson go early.  
You should be called fake news midget 
Gp and find where I said they'd be better with Gutherson genius.  "
2 hours ago
fake midget pseudoachondroplasia replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"Chief, you also said dragons would be better then us when they recruited Cook, Gutho and Holmes when we relied on younger players so how did that turn out for you.  You don't have a very good record with predictions and your credibility on…"
2 hours ago
Nightmare Off-Season replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"Good points, LB. "
2 hours ago
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