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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Angry Eel replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"He's had enough time. It's constantly 1 step forward 2 steps back. The club has resources, we need to recruit the best talent off the field also. I don't care where they get a general manager from. It could be NFL or EPL for all I care but he has to…"
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The Captain replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"He was playing the Storm (who are playing terribly) with both Grant and Munster out - and the Storms second half was shockingly bad.
Credit where it's due, he played very well as did Kiraz and Galvin. I wouldn't pay $1m for any of them though."
39 minutes ago
Poppa replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"Can i suggest you guys watch last night.....Christ I cannot believe you would not look at this gift horse....offer him 1m before someone else does!"
1 hour ago
Poppa replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"Richard you say he offers nothing attack, use his game against Storm last night, he plays for us we dont lose the game against Storm."
1 hour ago
Angry Eel replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"You say paying a million for a centre is not smart cap management but your thinking is too narrow and is conventional thinking. Our overarching goal is obviously to build a premiership team within the confines of the cap. Conventional thinking is to…"
1 hour ago
Mallee57 replied to Roy tannous's discussion Is this the bench moving foward
"Funny how they've put the offloads and short passing away as you say and yet they're making far more errors than they did last year. So perhaps they need to rethink their current strategy as it's not working"
1 hour ago
Poppa replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"Yehez, I was agreeing with you and then you fcuked it up with your lack pof rationality.
1. Burtonnis an organiser, did you see how he managed that win last night for the dogs.
2. He will cost us best part of a million in an environment when his…"
1 hour ago
Mallee57 replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"Can't see it happening as he seems quite happy at the Bulldogs and his contribution last night against the Raiders didn't give any indication he wasn't happy at the bulldogs. "
1 hour ago
Poppa replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"LB, I am maturing slowly, my wife thinks too slowly......she wants to see a body of evidence."
1 hour ago
Adam Magrath replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"What makes either of them a failure? I'm after something more concrete than your opinion or that of some journalist. If you've got a set of performance criteria that they have failed to meet let's hear it."
1 hour ago
Angry Eel replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"Yes we got him for a steal but it wasn't really my point. JAC is an elite rep player that's played origin and for Aus and he had an immediate impact on Russell. We have offloaded highly paid players and filtered through some good juniors and decent…"
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Adam Magrath replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"The fox was on a fairly minimal type contract, big difference to the figures being touted for other players "
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Adam Magrath replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"Just for clarification, I'm not taking aim at you or your comments. I'm saying that managing a playing roster isn't as easy as some suggest, there's a lot of moving pieces at any one time. 
I wholeheartedly agree with your take on juniors, there's…"
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Coryn Hughes replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"It is when the market is so competitive and you have a half that's in the latter part of his career and the kicker you've got nothing that looks like nrl quality in your outside back ranks.
We are so devoid there.I mean at one point way back when…"
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LB replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"Right though the thing is paying close to a mil for a Centre is not smart cap management unless it is a once in a generation talent. Farnworth it is too much but also he is the best Centre in the world so it is easier to swallow. 
At the same time,…"
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Bear replied to Fiddy's discussion Burton to Eels?
"Lorenzo is at the present time a myth, might be great, might be good, might not be. Before we talk about losing him if Burton comes, how about we throw him in the mix and actually see. I can hear the deluge of "we've lost another superstar" whining…"
2 hours ago
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