The cricket thread

NorthernGooner · August 2019

RandallFlagg said:

Shane Warne on commentary, I could punch his hair weaved, plastic surgery ridden, botox filled head. He was talking complete bollocks earlier. He thinks he's such a playboy, drooling over Isa Guha with the occasional smarmy comment.

It's an awful thought isn't it Flaggers...... he has got form. He's probably got her back to his hotel room about now with a nice Margaret River chardonnay on ice ready to flip her his 'wrong 'un'.

Stuckfast · August 2019

Well, I am Moeen Ali's staunchest defender but unless he produces something special with the bat, even I think he probably needs to be dropped after that bowling performance. Eww.

scrumhalf · August 2019

Not the greatest start...

earwighoney · August 2019

Another umpiring howler from Joel Wilson.

It's quite incredible how poor a test match he's had.

crunchman · August 2019

Wilson has been awful. I'd rather having Billy Bowden being annoying.

camf · August 2019

The Aussies must be scratching their heads by now, wondering how on earth they're going to get Jason Roy out.

Heartfeltdawn · August 2019

Stuckfast said:

Well, I am Moeen Ali's staunchest defender but unless he produces something special with the bat, even I think he probably needs to be dropped after that bowling performance. Eww.

Moeen has a lot of ability and he's been used poorly throughout his career. Fill a gap here, be our lead spinner here, get dumped there. I don't think the calendar this season has helped him one bit. No overs in the CC, 4 overs in the Blast, 4 overs against Ireland in the Test, and not much else. You can bowl in the nets as much as you want, it won't prepare you for going full tilt on a wicket where you are expected to run through a batting side.

scrumhalf · August 2019

Whoever agreed to an Ashes series in the same summer as the ODI world cup needs to have his head examined. To have any chance in the Ashes you need to have a decent run of red ball cricket to acclimatise.

And now Root's gone and we're four down for less than a hundred and it's not lunch yet.

According to TMS Roy has never batted longer than 3½ hours. I'd never have guessed.

crunchman · August 2019

With Root out, we are probably doomed.

The weather forecast is quite good for the rest of the day in Birmingham.

I can't see Buttler or Bairstow batting 4 hours. Stokes has it in him, but he's at a big disadvantage as a right hander against Lyon.

Dopesick · August 2019

97-7

All over in ten mins.

crunchman · August 2019

I suspect we doomed in this series unless Archer can turn things around.

Foakes and Leach must come in for the next test.

Bairstow is only averaging 22.9 in test cricket since the start of the 2018 home test summer. Foakes could do that, probably better, and he's a much better keeper.

Moeen is ok as a second spinner on a helpful pitch, but he's too flaky to rely on as your front line spinner. They also said on TMS or Sky the other day that Steve Smith's record against left armers is a lot worse than against off spinners.

Foakes will add a bit more adhesiveness to the batting, but we still have too many flaky one day players. Roy is not a top order test batsman. He has talent, but he should be batting 5 if he plays at all. He would be better off going back to county cricket to work on his game. I don't know much about Sibley or Crawley, but the least bad option is to bring one of them in. They don't have as much talent as Roy, but they are probably a less bad option - if we can't talk Cook out of retirement.

I don't like making wholesale changes that look like a panic reaction, but the problem is that they got the selection so wrong for the first match. That's not just hindsight. If you look at my previous posts, I've been banging the drum for Foakes for months, and also said ahead of this match that Leach should be playing.

RandallFlagg · August 2019

Chin up everyone. England have won 5 of the last 8 Ashes series, it was never going to be 5-0, we may go 0-2 down at Lords but all will come good in a 5th Test, day 5, last session thriller! Positive visualisation, see it and it will happen.

crunchman · August 2019

RandallFlagg said:

Chin up everyone. England have won 5 of the last 8 Ashes series, it was never going to be 5-0, we may go 0-2 down at Lords but all will come good in a 5th Test, day 5, last session thriller! Positive visualisation, see it and it will happen.

I bet you aren't confident enough of that to go down to the bookies and put £100 on it.

scrumhalf · August 2019

Poor, poor batting in the second innings.

Too many players not fit for. or to be, selected.

Heartfeltdawn · August 2019

crunchman said:

I suspect we doomed in this series unless Archer can turn things around.
Foakes and Leach must come in for the next test.
Bairstow is only averaging 22.9 in test cricket since the start of the 2018 home test summer. Foakes could do that, probably better, and he's a much better keeper.
Moeen is ok as a second spinner on a helpful pitch, but he's too flaky to rely on as your front line spinner. They also said on TMS or Sky the other day that Steve Smith's record against left armers is a lot worse than against off spinners.
Foakes will add a bit more adhesiveness to the batting, but we still have too many flaky one day players. Roy is not a top order test batsman. He has talent, but he should be batting 5 if he plays at all. He would be better off going back to county cricket to work on his game. I don't know much about Sibley or Crawley, but the least bad option is to bring one of them in. They don't have as much talent as Roy, but they are probably a less bad option - if we can't talk Cook out of retirement.
I don't like making wholesale changes that look like a panic reaction, but the problem is that they got the selection so wrong for the first match. That's not just hindsight. If you look at my previous posts, I've been banging the drum for Foakes for months, and also said ahead of this match that Leach should be playing.

One or two bowler won't turn around an uncertain opening pair and a failing middle order.

Our defeat here, Test failures, and WC win have all resulted from a fundamental change in the direction of English cricket. You can see the same in women's cricket as well as it's relevant to compare the men's game to the abject asskicking the women have just received from the Australians. The domestic game for both genders is failing and the Australian domestic game has moved a long way ahead of us.

RandallFlagg · August 2019

crunchman said:

RandallFlagg said:

Chin up everyone. England have won 5 of the last 8 Ashes series, it was never going to be 5-0, we may go 0-2 down at Lords but all will come good in a 5th Test, day 5, last session thriller! Positive visualisation, see it and it will happen.

I bet you aren't confident enough of that to go down to the bookies and put £100 on it.

I've paid £200 for tickets to the first day of the 4th Test at Old Trafford! I hope it's not 3-0 to Aus and the competition is already lost by then. Any Aussies want them?

I enjoyed watching this Test, regardless of result, to see a Test go to 5 days is a good thing, the result wasn't easy to call until around midday Sunday.

crunchman · August 2019

Heartfeltdawn said:

crunchman said:

I suspect we doomed in this series unless Archer can turn things around.
Foakes and Leach must come in for the next test.
Bairstow is only averaging 22.9 in test cricket since the start of the 2018 home test summer. Foakes could do that, probably better, and he's a much better keeper.
Moeen is ok as a second spinner on a helpful pitch, but he's too flaky to rely on as your front line spinner. They also said on TMS or Sky the other day that Steve Smith's record against left armers is a lot worse than against off spinners.
Foakes will add a bit more adhesiveness to the batting, but we still have too many flaky one day players. Roy is not a top order test batsman. He has talent, but he should be batting 5 if he plays at all. He would be better off going back to county cricket to work on his game. I don't know much about Sibley or Crawley, but the least bad option is to bring one of them in. They don't have as much talent as Roy, but they are probably a less bad option - if we can't talk Cook out of retirement.
I don't like making wholesale changes that look like a panic reaction, but the problem is that they got the selection so wrong for the first match. That's not just hindsight. If you look at my previous posts, I've been banging the drum for Foakes for months, and also said ahead of this match that Leach should be playing.

One or two bowler won't turn around an uncertain opening pair and a failing middle order.

Our defeat here, Test failures, and WC win have all resulted from a fundamental change in the direction of English cricket. You can see the same in women's cricket as well as it's relevant to compare the men's game to the abject asskicking the women have just received from the Australians. The domestic game for both genders is failing and the Australian domestic game has moved a long way ahead of us.

I don't disagree. I did say we have too many flaky one day players.

There is nothing we can do about that in the short term, and the ECB seems to lack the will to do anything about it long term.

We need to put out the best team we can though, and we didn't in this test.

The Aussie batting is fragile - if you can get rid of Smith. Picking better bowlers and a better keeper will help a bit. Like I said, we are probably doomed anyway, but we may have been able to bowl the Aussies out for 250 second time around with Leach in the side instead of Moeen. With Leach there, even if he didn't bowl the Aussies out, he would probably have managed to go at less than 4.5 an over and keep the Aussies from declaring last night. It might not have made much difference in the end, but we made it worse by picking Moeen. Leach might have contributed more with the bat as well.

Foakes would almost certainly have made more runs (and taken longer about it) than Bairstow, and given away less byes. He's also less likely to miss a crucial stumping. He's not singlehandedly going to win matches, but he does improve the team.

Fixing it long term is a bigger issue, but there is no point in shooting ourselves in the foot by not picking our best team.

Heartfeltdawn · August 2019

crunchman said:

I don't disagree. I did say we have too many flaky one day players.
There is nothing we can do about that in the short term, and the ECB seems to lack the will to do anything about it long term.
We need to put out the best team we can though, and we didn't in this test.
The Aussie batting is fragile - if you can get rid of Smith. Picking better bowlers and a better keeper will help a bit. Like I said, we are probably doomed anyway, but we may have been able to bowl the Aussies out for 250 second time around with Leach in the side instead of Moeen. With Leach there, even if he didn't bowl the Aussies out, he would probably have managed to go at less than 4.5 an over and keep the Aussies from declaring last night. It might not have made much difference in the end, but we made it worse by picking Moeen. Leach might have contributed more with the bat as well.
Foakes would almost certainly have made more runs (and taken longer about it) than Bairstow, and given away less byes. He's also less likely to miss a crucial stumping. He's not singlehandedly going to win matches, but he does improve the team.
Fixing it long term is a bigger issue, but there is no point in shooting ourselves in the foot by not picking our best team.

The problem is that 'our best team' might not be that much stronger. We aren't the Australia A team circa 1999 with a wealth of people who could come in and drag us up again.

The ECB is in a hole. The drive to get the Hundred on free to air telly is the admission that moving to Sky did a lot to fuck up cricket's visibility with the general public (still remarkable to me how we can go from cricket being given the greatest amount of coverage in my lifetime in this country in 2005 to being a fucking trickle years later. The viewing figures for the World Cup win and reaction to that prove this without a shadow of a doubt: hide shit away on pay TV and you will suffer. This is why MOTD is so important to the Premier League). Cricket needs that broadcast visibility yet the ECB can't afford to lose the Sky money.

With the World Cup won, one objective has been achieved. The next is The Hundred. It's a huge gamble but one the ECB are willing to take. Actually turning away from this and focusing on domestic cricket and how to make the Test team better is simply not on the cards.

England will now be terrified of batting last during this series. I'm fully up for Australia bowling first on Day 1 at Lords.

As a side note, some appreciation for this guy is needed as he retires from Test cricket. Right up there with the very best to play the game in my book.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/49241635

crunchman · August 2019

Heartfeltdawn said:

As a side note, some appreciation for this guy is needed as he retires from Test cricket. Right up there with the very best to play the game in my book.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/49241635

Great player. Best fast bowler of the last 20 years for me. I know Anderson (and Broad) have more wickets but Steyn was definitely a better bowler.

Heartfeltdawn · August 2019

Jimmy is a fine bowler but Steyn is next level, up there with McGrath and Marshall and the like.

NorthernGooner · August 2019

A big problem going forward is that few youngsters even play the game. I live in a leafy Cheshire village with a High School down the road with about 3 acres of grassed sports area. It even has an all weather cricket wicket laid. I've never seen it being used. All the kids seem to play is rounders in the summer and 5 a side soccer. The school seems to play no competitive matches against other schools at any sport. I think unless the kids parents are playing club cricket they either don't want to or have no exposure to the game.

shrinkwrap · August 2019

NorthernGooner said:

All the kids seem to play is rounders in the summer and 5 a side soccer.

I suppose that's why the ECB are so keen on the 100 - they are in a self fulfilling mindset.

At least Edgbaston looked packed.

RandallFlagg · August 2019

I've been reading some of the articles and comments on the BBC cricket pages, there's panic on the streets, England written off, sweeping changes needed to the team selection, everyone is an expert selector now, Jimmy Anderson ruled out means we lose 0-5, deep rooted issues in the ECB's strategy etc...etc...etc.

Yes there are issues in the teams strengths and it appears that the current Aussie team are several percentage points better than the England team and may well retain the Ashes but I'm sure England will hold a good account of themselves overall.

Despite winning the CWC, England are not the best team in the world but they can win crucial games at crucial times and with a bit of scrappy luck with the weather, pitch conditions, umpire's decisions and just a little brilliance here and there may scrape some results.

There's time to turn this around and it's a little early to write them off just yet.

crunchman · August 2019

RandallFlagg said:

There's time to turn this around and it's a little early to write them off just yet.

It will take something special to turn it around from here. Looking at the frailties of the batting, it will take something special from Root and Stokes for us to get enough runs.

The worrying thing is that Starc didn't play. Given how awful we normally are against left armers, that might saved us from a bigger humiliation, although Siddle's batting was important in the first innings.

The Aussie batting is fragile if Smith fails, so it's not impossible, but it's highly unlikely. We do need to pick our best team though, which we didn't in this match.

RandallFlagg · August 2019

crunchman said:

RandallFlagg said:

There's time to turn this around and it's a little early to write them off just yet.

It will take something special to turn it around from here. Looking at the frailties of the batting, it will take something special from Root and Stokes for us to get enough runs.

The worrying thing is that Starc didn't play. Given how awful we normally are against left armers, that might saved us from a bigger humiliation, although Siddle's batting was important in the first innings.

The Aussie batting is fragile if Smith fails, so it's not impossible, but it's highly unlikely. We do need to pick our best team though, which we didn't in this match.

Just like it would take something special to avoid going out at the group stage of the world cup?

A little cup half full optimism goes a long way, probably in many aspects of UK life at the moment.

octatonic · August 2019

Heartfeltdawn · August 2019

RandallFlagg said:

crunchman said:
It will take something special to turn it around from here. Looking at the frailties of the batting, it will take something special from Root and Stokes for us to get enough runs.

The worrying thing is that Starc didn't play. Given how awful we normally are against left armers, that might saved us from a bigger humiliation, although Siddle's batting was important in the first innings.

The Aussie batting is fragile if Smith fails, so it's not impossible, but it's highly unlikely. We do need to pick our best team though, which we didn't in this match.

Just like it would take something special to avoid going out at the group stage of the world cup?
A little cup half full optimism goes a long way, probably in many aspects of UK life at the moment.

You keep your sunny uplands and evidence-free optimism for the Brexit thread

The ECB tore up the FC schedule and made winning the World Cup the absolute number one objective. Test and T20 form didn't matter a toss. Had we gone out in the group stages, it would have represented perhaps the greatest concentrated English cricketing failure ever given the resources and scheduling and sacrifices made chasing that big ol' trophy.

Australia right now:

Their wicketkeeper is better than ours
Their spinner is better than ours
Their opening partnership is better than ours
Their talisman batsman is better than ours and they've got two of them as opposed to our one.
Their middle order is better than ours
Their pace battery, both selected and in reserve, is better than ours
Their coach is better than ours
Their domestic structure across both genders is better than ours

Their beer is still shit though.

RandallFlagg · August 2019

Heartfeltdawn said:

You keep your sunny uplands and evidence-free optimism for the Brexit thread

Optimism doesn't require evidence it's simply a mental attitude that improves your well being and health and makes for a happier life.

octatonic · August 2019

Heartfeltdawn said:

RandallFlagg said:

crunchman said:
It will take something special to turn it around from here. Looking at the frailties of the batting, it will take something special from Root and Stokes for us to get enough runs.

The worrying thing is that Starc didn't play. Given how awful we normally are against left armers, that might saved us from a bigger humiliation, although Siddle's batting was important in the first innings.

The Aussie batting is fragile if Smith fails, so it's not impossible, but it's highly unlikely. We do need to pick our best team though, which we didn't in this match.

Just like it would take something special to avoid going out at the group stage of the world cup?
A little cup half full optimism goes a long way, probably in many aspects of UK life at the moment.

You keep your sunny uplands and evidence-free optimism for the Brexit thread

The ECB tore up the FC schedule and made winning the World Cup the absolute number one objective. Test and T20 form didn't matter a toss. Had we gone out in the group stages, it would have represented perhaps the greatest concentrated English cricketing failure ever given the resources and scheduling and sacrifices made chasing that big ol' trophy.

Australia right now:

Their wicketkeeper is better than ours
Their spinner is better than ours
Their opening partnership is better than ours
Their talisman batsman is better than ours and they've got two of them as opposed to our one.
Their middle order is better than ours
Their pace battery, both selected and in reserve, is better than ours
Their coach is better than ours
Their domestic structure across both genders is better than ours

Their beer is still shit though.

We have bigger dicks too.

Heartfeltdawn · August 2019

octatonic said:
We have bigger dicks too.

http://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Shane+Watson+2011+ICC+World+Cup+Australia+7JhRDud1S41l.jpg

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