The cricket thread

scrumhalf · February 2021

Yay!

There will be a fourth innings.

guitars4you · February 2021

obviously a new format - combine the new 100 game with a test match

Trying to recall when a test match finished in 2 days - Recall many 3 day matches

Hard to see why we went with 3 seamers when almost 100% all wickets gone to spin - And why we have such a poor tail

Stuckfast · February 2021

What the hell was that shot from Archer? That was dreadful.

guitars4you · February 2021

guitars4you said:

obviously a new format - combine the new 100 game with a test match

Trying to recall when a test match finished in 2 days - Recall many 3 day matches

Hard to see why we went with 3 seamers when almost 100% all wickets gone to spin - And why we have such a poor tail

just sussed it with this new 100 game - You have to leave a lead of less than 100 for the 4th innings

Stuckfast · February 2021

Gnaah. What's the betting Broad comes in and attempts a mighty hoick?

scrumhalf · February 2021

Stuckfast said:

Gnaah. What's the betting Broad comes in and attempts a mighty hoick?

And goes for a DRS.

Teetonetal · February 2021

Stuckfast said:

Gnaah. What's the betting Broad comes in and attempts a mighty hoick?

Might as well. Trying to play properly doesn't seem to work. Chance the arm, connect a couple of sixes and be a match winner

scrumhalf · February 2021

Seventeen wickets in just under two sessions. Not what you'd call a fair balance between bat and ball, even allowing for crappy batting.

guitars4you · February 2021

Cook just stated almost impossible to bat on that wicket - So surely if this was a county game there would be some fine/penalty points ????

Just had a message from a friend who is a big cricket fan - He said that had I noticed that when we bat, the umpires tend to give any LBW appeal as out, then up to us to refer and as we know that if it is only just hitting, the original decision stands - Yet when India bat they are not giving the same decision as such we refer and a marginal 'hitting' will not be out - Anyone else go with this

crunchman · February 2021

scrumhalf said:

Seventeen wickets in just under two sessions. Not what you'd call a fair balance between bat and ball, even allowing for crappy batting.

The Indian board won't like this. They will lose a lot of money with the game being over in 2 days.

There has to be balance. You don't want to go back to the days of "chief executive's pitches" that are impossible to get a result on but you do want a balance between bat and ball.

crunchman · February 2021

guitars4you said:

Cook just stated almost impossible to bat on that wicket - So surely if this was a county game there would be some fine/penalty points ????

Just had a message from a friend who is a big cricket fan - He said that had I noticed that when we bat, the umpires tend to give any LBW appeal as out, then up to us to refer and as we know that if it is only just hitting, the original decision stands - Yet when India bat they are not giving the same decision as such we refer and a marginal 'hitting' will not be out - Anyone else go with this

Umpires have always given home decisions. Maybe they need to reduce the size of the umpire's call area.

They need a faster frame rate on the cameras as well. It looked to me like Foakes got an edge, but the frame rate wasn't fast enough to be certain.

They also need cameras square to the wicket at a lower height, so you could see if there is daylight between foot and ground on a stumping.

guitars4you · February 2021

is it worth watching, just in case - Or assume something like 50 for 0

scrumhalf · February 2021

crunchman said:

scrumhalf said:

Seventeen wickets in just under two sessions. Not what you'd call a fair balance between bat and ball, even allowing for crappy batting.

The Indian board won't like this. They will lose a lot of money with the game being over in 2 days.

There has to be balance. You don't want to go back to the days of "chief executive's pitches" that are impossible to get a result on but you do want a balance between bat and ball.

I can't imagine that the bods at Channel 4 will be over the moon, either.

scrumhalf · February 2021

46 balls to knock off the 49 runs required without losing a wicket.

It's a funny old game.

Heartfeltdawn · February 2021

Ahmedabad? No, Ahmedawful.

Not always like this though....

-I still think day-night Tests are a shitty gimmick and need to end.

-The measure of how crap this wicket is is that we have two of the best quick bowlers in the world on display and they're bowled 11 overs between them in a 5-day game.

-Some people are claiming the bounce was true. Sure. If you discount the fact that you have balls rising to Pant and then going to him on the bounce from the very first over of the match. Might even recall Root getting one that popped into the gloves and needed some spray too.

-Now people are talking of us needing to play on wickets like that at county level. Good luck producing them in a climate and schedule like ours. We shouldn't produce tracks that turn like that from day 1. Give that to spin bowlers and you'll get all sorts of crap taking wickets for fun (like in Windies domestic cricket) and the batsmen suffer. It's the balanced approach that is needed.

axisus · February 2021

Well that was embarrassing .....

earwighoney · February 2021

Heartfeltdawn said:

Ahmedabad? No, Ahmedawful.

Not always like this though....

-I still think day-night Tests are a shitty gimmick and need to end.

-The measure of how crap this wicket is is that we have two of the best quick bowlers in the world on display and they're bowled 11 overs between them in a 5-day game.

A good point.

There have been some discussion of a lot of the dismissals all being to straight balls which didn't spin.

Aside from the pitch being a poor one, a lot of the batting technique was unsatisfactory for both teams. 21/30 wickets were from straight balls.

Legionreturns · February 2021

As much as it's generally accepted that you can produce a wicket which favours the home team, having one where any kind of pace bowler is redundant even in the first few overs of a new ball, and it turns like the Stig on the first morning, is just taking the piss.

England were crap, but by producing a pitch that negated pretty much any batting talent and all pace bowling, and means the game is over with 3.5 days of play still left is ludicrous and should result in a big fine.

guitars4you · February 2021

England lasted 476 balls across two innings - the fifth fewest in their Test history.
England scored less than 200 runs in the game for only the seventh time, and the third since 1904.
It is the eighth two-day Test since World War Two and England's first defeat inside two days since 1921
India completed the quickest Test win since 1935 not long into the final session.

Interesting info from the Beeb

crunchman · February 2021

earwighoney said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

Ahmedabad? No, Ahmedawful.

Not always like this though....

-I still think day-night Tests are a shitty gimmick and need to end.

-The measure of how crap this wicket is is that we have two of the best quick bowlers in the world on display and they're bowled 11 overs between them in a 5-day game.

A good point.

There have been some discussion of a lot of the dismissals all being to straight balls which didn't spin.

Aside from the pitch being a poor one, a lot of the batting technique was unsatisfactory for both teams. 21/30 wickets were from straight balls.

It's not as simple as that. Some balls were turning big, while others went straight on.

That was probably partly because of the pink ball. It has a lot more lacquer on it than a conventional red ball. If it lands on the seam, it's likely to grip and spin. If it lands on the lacquer, it skids straight on - and probably more so than with a conventional ball.

With a conventional ball, the surface of the ball that's been used and roughed up will grip more than a ball that is still covered in lacquer. It's still likely to to turn - just not as much. The variations in turn are likely to be less dramatic. In this game, you had one ball turning dramatically, and the next not turning at all. Batsmen were getting done by the straight ball because they were playing for the turn.

Unless they can actually get a pink ball that behaves like a proper cricket ball, then I think @Heartfeltdawn is right and they should do away with day/night tests. Either that, or with modern LED technology, it might be possible to light a ground so well that you could just play in whites with a proper ball without running up a ridiculous electricity bill.

sixstringsupplies · February 2021

I think Joe Root taking 5 for 8 sums it up.

A left arm dibbly dobbler (ok he is a decent bowler) but a left arm dibbly dobbler taking 11 wickets as an opening bowler...tells you all you need to know about the ball and the pitch.

I'm gutted though, I absolutely adore watching test cricket, anywhere, anytime, my alarm is set. To have it over in 2 days is annoying.

Never mind lads, we'll host them in the summer for 5 games on total greentops.

earwighoney · February 2021

crunchman said:

earwighoney said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

Ahmedabad? No, Ahmedawful.

Not always like this though....

-I still think day-night Tests are a shitty gimmick and need to end.

-The measure of how crap this wicket is is that we have two of the best quick bowlers in the world on display and they're bowled 11 overs between them in a 5-day game.

A good point.

There have been some discussion of a lot of the dismissals all being to straight balls which didn't spin.

Aside from the pitch being a poor one, a lot of the batting technique was unsatisfactory for both teams. 21/30 wickets were from straight balls.

It's not as simple as that. Some balls were turning big, while others went straight on.

That was probably partly because of the pink ball. It has a lot more lacquer on it than a conventional red ball. If it lands on the seam, it's likely to grip and spin. If it lands on the lacquer, it skids straight on - and probably more so than with a conventional ball.

With a conventional ball, the surface of the ball that's been used and roughed up will grip more than a ball that is still covered in lacquer. It's still likely to to turn - just not as much. The variations in turn are likely to be less dramatic. In this game, you had one ball turning dramatically, and the next not turning at all. Batsmen were getting done by the straight ball because they were playing for the turn.

Unless they can actually get a pink ball that behaves like a proper cricket ball, then I think @Heartfeltdawn is right and they should do away with day/night tests. Either that, or with modern LED technology, it might be possible to light a ground so well that you could just play in whites with a proper ball without running up a ridiculous electricity bill.

I'm in agreement, they had some analysis of Ben Foakes dismissal, when he'd set up for a ball that turned a lot then was out to one which didn't spin. Simon Hughes did some great analysis of the pink ball's lacquer.

But there was some very poor shot selection in there as well.

I'm with Andy, Pink Ball test matches are a gimmick as the ball behaves completely different to the red ball.

Heartfeltdawn · February 2021

earwighoney said:

There have been some discussion of a lot of the dismissals all being to straight balls which didn't spin.

It's one of my absolute pet hates because it's inaccurate and English commentators especially are atrocious at this "doesn't spin" thing. Weirdly Sunny Gavaskar is as well but he's a batsman and everyone knows batsmen aren't anywhere near as clever as bowlers.

*fishing*

Axar bowling around the wicket: if you drew a line from middle stump to middle stump, and then drew a line from Axar's left hand at the point of release to the batting crease, then you could see that Axar is bowling at an angle into the right hander. If he is going to get successful LBW decisions in his favour, then he has to turn it away from the right hander in order to get that ball to straight along the line of the stumps. Think of it as being no different to Wasim Akram to Allan Lamb in the 1992 WC Final. Left arm around, a ball that pitches outside of off stump, and moves away from the straight line you could draw from point of ball release.

What Axar did so well was to figure out that you have to bowl quicker on this pitch to get the rewards. Leach also bowled quicker but Axar bowled a few balls going from 85kph to just under 100kph. That variation in pace alone will lead to more variations in turn. Some will skid, some will not. Some will turn and rip, some will not. He comfortably outbowled Ashwin who tried to do a bit too much with the ball at times whilst Axar dropped it on the spot and let the pitch do its work.

God, I'm making myself dream of playing again

Heartfeltdawn · February 2021

sixstringsupplies said:

I think Joe Root taking 5 for 8 sums it up.

A left arm dibbly dobbler (ok he is a decent bowler) but a left arm dibbly dobbler taking 11 wickets as an opening bowler...tells you all you need to know about the ball and the pitch.

It tells you everything about the type of spin bowler who will wreak havoc on that wicket. Root has a lower arm than Leach and gets that ball more into the wicket. Root's closer to Axar than Leach in that regard.

One thing people have said: our batting in the first innings cost us. I don't think so. The crucial period of the whole game was the final two hours on day 1. India came into that session at 5/0 and ended it at 99/3. The five overs before dinner saw the variations in bounce from the new ball: this largely disappeared once the evening session kicked in. On a spinning track, Archer and Stokes were encouraged to bang it in. Release the pressure on the batsmen, increase the pressure on your sole outright spin bowler. That session was why we selected three outright seamers and that session showed us how wrong we got it. The swing disappeared, the up and down bounce disappeared, and the ball was harder to grip for the spinner compared to bowling in the day, as we saw this morning.

Stuckfast · March 2021

Some interesting analysis here:

https://cricketingview.substack.com/p/on-the-spinners-in-the-first-three

If those stats are accurate then the the contrast between the Indian spinners and ours in terms of accuracy is pretty stark. Nearly 20 percent of Bess's deliveries were over-pitched as against less than 1 percent of Axar's.

Wonder what the pitch will be like for the fourth Test, and who we'll play?

scrumhalf · March 2021

Our spinners bowl too many deliveries that release the pressure on the batsmen.

Simon Hughes wrote an interesting article in the Sunday Times about how DRS has effectively made the stumps bigger with the umpire's call margin, and how hawkeye has meant that the batsman can no longer just take a huge stride forward in the knowledge that no umpire would give him out LBW.

crunchman · March 2021

scrumhalf said:

Our spinners bowl too many deliveries that release the pressure on the batsmen.

Simon Hughes wrote an interesting article in the Sunday Times about how DRS has effectively made the stumps bigger with the umpire's call margin, and how hawkeye has meant that the batsman can no longer just take a huge stride forward in the knowledge that no umpire would give him out LBW.

I think the umpire should only give it when he is absolutely certain though. Someone like Dickie BIrd only used to give it when it was absolutely plumb. To my mind that is a better approach.

A lot of the ones that are given now are umpire's call where it is just clipping. To my mind, the umpire shouldn't be giving those, but when he does, the batsman has no way to overturn it. When the batsman does take a huge stride forward, it's normally going to be impossible for the umpire to be absolutely certain that it's going to hit the stumps. In that case he should give not out rather than guess. If Hawkeye has it just trimming the bails or clipping leg stump by a millimetre, then to my mind he shouldn't be giving it.

Heartfeltdawn · March 2021

Stuckfast said:

Some interesting analysis here:

https://cricketingview.substack.com/p/on-the-spinners-in-the-first-three

If those stats are accurate then the the contrast between the Indian spinners and ours in terms of accuracy is pretty stark. Nearly 20 percent of Bess's deliveries were over-pitched as against less than 1 percent of Axar's.

Wonder what the pitch will be like for the fourth Test, and who we'll play?

That's a really interesting piece.

1. Amount of turn per Test. I'm not sure I'd measure deviation in quite the same way. By using the vertical, I can't see how the author can make accurate comments over the amount of spin. Consider this: A left arm spinner bowling around the wicket could bowl wide on the crease, pitch it dead on the middle stump to middle stump line, get it to turn and hit middle stump dead on, and going by how I see the author calculating things, that would count as zero deviation. Think Leach to Rohit Sharma: zero deviation there? Not if you calculate the angle the ball is delivered from.

It should be reinforced that the first day at Chennai is not included in the data. In three Tests, day 1 at Chennai was easily the best day for batting and the amount of turn was low so the data is decidedly skewed by this.

2. Bounce

"The bounce has generally been consistent. Shooters have not been observed. The general variation evident in the plot below is explained by the differing amounts of overspin, pace, trajectory, flight and point of release (contrast, for instance, Patel’s high release with Nadeem or Bess or Moeen’s lower release). Some of the variation is also due to the age of the ball and the nature of the ball. The pink ball is built differently from the red one."

Shooters in my experience tend to come from cracks. You do get the odd half tracker that dies (think Carl Hooper to Nasser Hussain) but the glory days of a cracked WACA pitch and Ian Bishop getting Aussie batsmen bowled at ankle height are the norm. On tracks where the ball bursts through the surface with some hardness underneath, you will get the balls that bounce and bounce. On this aspect, the data looks totally right.

This high release thing: Axar Patel and Moeen Ali are within 1 cm of height. Murali Kartik already did an analysis of Moeen in this series and found his release point was actually higher than it was in 2016. Axar bowls with a roundarm action. His arms might be slightly longer than Moeen's but longer arms bowling round arm versus Moeen's arm which is right up vertical and not roundarm at all... they're pretty level. The rule of thumb: roundarm = more sidespin, higher arm = more overspin. The most famous example of roundarm legspin below. Sorry, Gatt

https://i.imgur.com/7fkiIxN.png

3. Length.

I've literally marked out a crease in the lounge with a tape measure measuring 6ft from the batting crease in order to figure out if bowling in this area is really considered 'overpitching' as the author states. Pish, I say. It's also relevant to say that balls that got wickets would be deemed as overpitched (think Ashwin's lovely flighted ball that got Stokes out) and that the slow bowler who has overpitched the most, namely the England skipper, got a MIchelle for naff all. It seems a very arbitrary measurement to me.

"The consequence of all this is evident in the rate of scoring. Ashwin has conceded 2.6 runs per over, Axar Patel 2.2 runs per over, and Nadeem 3.9. By comparison, Leach has gone for 3.2 runs per over, Moeen 3.7, Bess 3.7, and Root 3.2."

The rate of scoring doesn't necessarily reflect worse bowling. Moeen 1st innings and Bess 2nd innings, yes. They were erratic. But you also have to watch the sides when they bat. India are far better at getting the singles and rotating the strike. We aren't and that impacts the scoring rate.

In fairness to the author, his subsequent post does look at the respective batting approaches. We don't cash in on shit as well, we don't survive as well, and we don't rotate as well.

https://cricketingview.substack.com/p/more-on-the-spinners-in-the-first

Heartfeltdawn · March 2021

scrumhalf said:

Our spinners bowl too many deliveries that release the pressure on the batsmen.

Simon Hughes wrote an interesting article in the Sunday Times about how DRS has effectively made the stumps bigger with the umpire's call margin, and how hawkeye has meant that the batsman can no longer just take a huge stride forward in the knowledge that no umpire would give him out LBW.

Not entirely true. The 2.5m rule kicks in.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/world-cup-2011-icc-tweaks-2-5-metre-drs-rule-for-consistency-504570

So monster strides might save you.

But certainly playing from the crease is a lot harder for batsmen now with DRS. As a tall leggie in the 1990s, it was a rare umpire indeed who ever stuck the finger up when I appealed. One umpire in particular sticks in the memory bank. Bowled a googly to a right hander, he played back, got squared up and missed, and the ball lodged halfway up the stumps between his pads. I bellowed an appeal and got it turned down. Not out! Batsman laughed, reached down, and chucked the ball back to me. I gave the umpire a Paddington-esque stare to no avail.

Umpire was a good cricketer in his prime, Minor Counties level, nurdly batsman and offspinner. The spinners union didn't operate that day and neither did the family connection, for that umpire was my late grandfather!

Heartfeltdawn · March 2021

crunchman said:

A lot of the ones that are given now are umpire's call where it is just clipping. To my mind, the umpire shouldn't be giving those, but when he does, the batsman has no way to overturn it. When the batsman does take a huge stride forward, it's normally going to be impossible for the umpire to be absolutely certain that it's going to hit the stumps. In that case he should give not out rather than guess. If Hawkeye has it just trimming the bails or clipping leg stump by a millimetre, then to my mind he shouldn't be giving it.

Never forget poor Trent Copeland in Sri Lanka.

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