The cricket thread

crunchman · March 2021

Heartfeltdawn said:

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!

Families seem to be hard on each other when umpiring, or have grudges. The level I played at, most of the time the umpires were from the batting team. There were very few LBWs given, but it was the same for both sides. Nobody ever got given out on the front foot. I was batting with our best batsman once, while his younger brother was umpiring. He gave a bowler the charge (a long way down) and his brother gave him out LBW. Either he had a grudge with his brother, or he never wanted to get roped into umpiring again!

Heartfeltdawn · March 2021

crunchman said:

Families seem to be hard on each other when umpiring, or have grudges. The level I played at, most of the time the umpires were from the batting team. There were very few LBWs given, but it was the same for both sides. Nobody ever got given out on the front foot. I was batting with our best batsman once, while his younger brother was umpiring. He gave a bowler the charge (a long way down) and his brother gave him out LBW. Either he had a grudge with his brother, or he never wanted to get roped into umpiring again!

My brother was a nightmare and we only ever played in three games together. First time we ever batted together, he came out on strike, I told him to play himself in and not do anything stupid. He taps it to very short midwicket and calls for the run. I turned my back on him. End of innings

Two years later, we batted together. He ran me out without me facing a ball. Sod.

Year after that was the finest hour though. We were playing in a u-16 club game and the oppo had one chap in there I'd faced at youth county level. Lovely guy, he was on Somerset's books at the time and we ended up at uni together. I bowled like an absolute legend for no wickets and sod all runs, whilst my friend took the other bowlers apart. In the end, they brought my brother on. He'd given it the big mouth before the game, saying how he was going to outbowl me.

We were on the left-hand wicket as pictured below. That first and only over to my Somerset friend went 0 then 2 and then three consecutive balls dropped on leg stump ended up in the top area of the large tree at the top of the pavilion. I'd started giggling after the second six. The third didn't help matters. The last ball was a horrible full toss that was dispatched over the car park and I was forced to sit down on the outfield due to hysterics.

We never played together after that.

Image: https://planningsphere.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/hinton-charterhouse-cricket-pavilion-202012-01.jpg

Heartfeltdawn · March 2021

Ashes bolter:

Australia gave Riley Meredith a T20 debut. 150kph, picked up Tim Seifert and then gets Kane Williamson LBW early doors. The guy is unfinished but damn he does have some pace. Reminds me of Kasprowicz with the way he bowls.

crunchman · March 2021

Heartfeltdawn said:

Ashes bolter:

Australia gave Riley Meredith a T20 debut. 150kph, picked up Tim Seifert and then gets Kane Williamson LBW early doors. The guy is unfinished but damn he does have some pace. Reminds me of Kasprowicz with the way he bowls.

The Aussie quick bowling is going to be good anyway. Cummins is in his prime. Starc and Hazlewood are not young, but they have 4 years on Stuart Broad. They probably won't be declining too much yet.

Heartfeltdawn · March 2021

crunchman said:
The Aussie quick bowling is going to be good anyway. Cummins is in his prime. Starc and Hazlewood are not young, but they have 4 years on Stuart Broad. They probably won't be declining too much yet.

They suffered against India through not having a rotation policy during a short rapid fire series and all the seamers were well cooked by the time that crucial last innings came around. Cummins and Hazlewood are steady quicks and there are people who could come in for them like Michael Neser.

Starc's a bit more erratic but has that real "When he's hot, he's hot" ability. Meredith is a bit more in that realm. Raw but he's got some wheels to him. Ashton Agar's brother is similar.

Speaking of the Agars and the talk of sibling rivalry on the pitch, I hadn't seen this before. Ooooops.

guitars4you · March 2021

A bit of a freaky dismissal for Pope and nearly a similar freaky dismissal for Lawrence

Stuckfast · March 2021

Nothing freaky about an inadequate England batting performance sadly.

guitars4you · March 2021

Stuckfast said:

Nothing freaky about an inadequate England batting performance sadly.

Yes getting to the point I stop watching this match - 1 bad innings okay, but the last 5 shows signs of a 'disease'

Stuckfast · March 2021

I guess we have to wait until India have batted to know for sure, but that doesn't look like a 205 all out pitch. Especially given that we basically picked eight batters.

Heartfeltdawn · March 2021

Team talk this morning:

"Hi Jack, Joe here again. You know that whole seam bowler heavy attack last Test? We've decided to forget that approach now that we've turned up at a wicket giving assistance to the seamers. This is what we're gonna do: pack the line up with batting, give you 200 to bowl with, make sure that our two seamers are the old guy and someone who has barely bowled all series and is currently suffering from the shits, and we're gonna pair you with that guy who bowled utter gash in the second innings of the Test we won, meaning we had to drop him and bring back the guy we had pretty much given up on and probably definitely nearly will give up on now.

Any questions?"

Stuckfast · March 2021

At least the old guy can still put it on the spot... five maidens on the trot now.

crunchman · March 2021

Stuckfast said:

At least the old guy can still put it on the spot... five maidens on the trot now.

He can't bowl all day though. The balance of the team is wrong.

scrumhalf · March 2021

I still think that Bess needs a couple of years of county cricket (hwever little bowling that might entail) before he can come near the Test team. HE's too inconsistent, I could no more see him tying an end up than I could see us winning this one.

Heartfeltdawn · March 2021

Stuckfast said:

At least the old guy can still put it on the spot... five maidens on the trot now.

And that's the value of him. He's still got it. Good thing we didn't send Chris Woakes home when we finally got a track this winter that suited him.

Jimmy was testing that ankle a bit. How good could it all go: Jim pulls up lame, Stokes is still bowling with a cork up his arse, Bess is offering whatever the Indian culinary equivalent of pies is...

crunchman · March 2021

scrumhalf said:

I still think that Bess needs a couple of years of county cricket (hwever little bowling that might entail) before he can come near the Test team. HE's too inconsistent, I could no more see him tying an end up than I could see us winning this one.

Do we have anyone better though?

Root is ok as a part timer, but you don't want him bowling 30 overs a day.

Moeen bowls a lot of full tosses and half trackers as well. He's nearly 34 and I don't see him fixing that at this point of his career.

I don't think that any of the other young spinners in the county game are any better than Bess.

There is a left field option (if I'm allowed to borrow a baseball phrase). One of the commentators said Stokes was bowling some passable spin in the nets. Maybe he should work on that. Sobers used to bowl fast and spin. It would balance the team nicely. It would be easier on his knees as well.

scrumhalf · March 2021

In days gone by they used to say that if you needed a fast bowler just whistle down a mine. That changed to finding a West Indian with antecedents that fit the rules.

Maybe we need to use the rules to find an Indian spinner who might be similarly "qualified".

Stuckfast · March 2021

They say Virdi and Moriarty are both very promising, but this probably wasn't the time to throw them into the Test team and risk another Kerrigan episode.

Bess's over this evening was all over the place. A no ball, two rank half-trackers and a couple of pretty good deliveries.

Yes I'd like to see Stokes bowl spin too. Apparently he turns it square.

Stuckfast · March 2021

scrumhalf said:

Maybe we need to use the rules to find an Indian spinner who might be similarly "qualified".

Not Indian, but Simon Harmer is now qualified to play for England. There'd up uproar if he was picked though, and rightly so.

Mind you South Africa fielded Imran Tahir...

Heartfeltdawn · March 2021

scrumhalf said:

I still think that Bess needs a couple of years of county cricket (hwever little bowling that might entail) before he can come near the Test team. HE's too inconsistent, I could no more see him tying an end up than I could see us winning this one.

He's got a busy little action in that he ambles up and then goes through the action really quickly, lots of arms and everything.

When something that is explosive like that gets out of sync, you end up with the full mixture: rank shit, some good balls, wickets taken and runs conceded, which has been his pattern really for 2020 and the winter tours. We even had a no-ball in there for good measure.

There's no discernable changes to the action and delivery, the body angles all look very similar to how he was bowling in South Africa when he took five wickets. Perhaps he should follow the lead of the other spinner in the side and work on the approach to the wicket, get a bit more momentum in there.

Stuckfast said:

They say Virdi and Moriarty are both very promising, but this probably wasn't the time to throw them into the Test team and risk another Kerrigan episode.

Virdi's the one to watch. Moriarty's only played two FC games, both at the Oval, on helpful wickets. The video below is worth a watch as it ably demonstrates some of the problems we have with slow bowling in this country. The fifth wicket down from the start which I think is Nick Gubbins of Middlesex and one of the worst reverse sweep shots in the history of willow on leather.

Sadly we don't have more wickets like Taunton or the Oval.

guitars4you · March 2021

Some fight back going on - Not seen it yet but apparently Stokes delivery to Rohit was a beauty

crunchman · March 2021

guitars4you said:

Some fight back going on - Not seen it yet but apparently Stokes delivery to Rohit was a beauty

Really good. Set him up well with several balls going away, and brought that one back in, with quite big movement.

The decision did favour England. It was umpire's call on whether he was hit outside the line, and on the ball going over the top of the stumps. If I was the batsman I wouldn't have been over happy.

guitars4you · March 2021

crunchman said:

guitars4you said:

Some fight back going on - Not seen it yet but apparently Stokes delivery to Rohit was a beauty

Really good. Set him up well with several balls going away, and brought that one back in, with quite big movement.

The decision did favour England. It was umpire's call on whether he was hit outside the line, and on the ball going over the top of the stumps. If I was the batsman I wouldn't have been over happy.

seen it now - As good as Waqar at his best

Stuckfast · March 2021

Yeah I think the umpire gave that one just as a reward for it being such a good ball!

scrumhalf · March 2021

Indian batting - England bowling.
Pant v pants?

crunchman · March 2021

scrumhalf said:

Indian batting - England spin bowling.
Pant v pants?

FTFY

Anderson and Stokes have both bowled very well.

Heartfeltdawn · March 2021

Pant versus two part time spinners and a new ball taken by two tired seamers.

And MV's farting on abotu Bess being ruined by England. Crap, mate. I know he's a Yorkie now but have some objectivity for once. He bowled shite last year in England and got wickets bowling shite against the worst Sri Lankan side since the days pre-Ranatunga and some lucky snags against India.

I think some of the article and the problems of 2019 apply very much now and that the real reason Bess was dropped was less to do with on-field matters than his psychological state off-field.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/dom-bess-reveals-mental-health-struggles-1220194

scrumhalf · March 2021

How many catches have there been from rebounds off fielders?

Looks like another early finish is on the cards.

zepp76 · March 2021

Root just took a ball to the, um, root and balls! Cracking shot!

scrumhalf · March 2021

I'm wondering what Bairstow offers the England team that Joe Denly doesn't.

guitars4you · March 2021

Wrap it up anyway you want to - Strip it back, exam the issues and chat about it for hours - But either way and this is pure garbage from the team - Plenty of reasons and discussion points raised but certainly very disappointing

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