The cricket thread

Jalapeno

Why do I bother getting interested in England test matches ?

crunchman

That was actually the highest opeing partnership of the series!

scrumhalf

Denly sacrificed to allow the Surrey man to keep his place. You can also argue that Root is at 3 for the same reason.

Meanwhile the best current all-rounder not to have been capped has got an 88 and a five-fer in the first innings and has 2 of the three second innings wickets to have gone. Darren Stevens, what will we do without you next year? 

earwighoney

In other news, 

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/27593665/sri-lanka-cricket-reassess-security-pakistan-terror-threat

Could be a very big story to come.  It looked like Pakistan had addressed some of their security issues but maybe it was glossing over the reality. 

Does anyone know how the Test Championship will address the issue of India and Pakistan playing each other?  

Heartfeltdawn

earwighoney said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

skippy76 said:

Game on boys

England can take a back seat for the next two days until Somerset have beaten Yorkshire

Huge game. 

I really hope Somerset cross the line.  They've been the bridesmaids for far too long, a few close runs but never get over the line. 

I've not had a chance to see Tom Abell, what do you think of him HFD?  Any chance of playing test cricket at no.3?  There's little chance of it happening but in the test team England need to address the issue of another opener and a genuine no.3, so Root can drop back to 4, Stokes at 5 and so on. 

None at all in my view. Hildreth's been averaging over 40 for years and gotten nowhere, can't see them going for TA with a sub-32 average. He's a good county batsman and he's the right guy to captain this side but I don't think he's an international quality player. Banton (ODI) and Bartlett (Test) are the two who look the business. Give them another year before screwing them up please, England. 

Somerset aren't a million miles from the England team though. We haven't got a settled opening pair, we have a fill in number 3, the number 4 (Hildreth) has been a bit ouf ot form this season, we have a wealth of keeper-batsmen, the seam attack has made up for the batting deficiencies loads of times, and we've got Jack Leach

And now we're 9 wickets from victory thanks to Josh Davey getting Adam Lyth out. I wonder what Adam thinks about cricketing life. Must be an odd experience winning an Ashes series and ending his fledging Test career at the same time. 

crunchman

Heartfeltdawn said:

skippy76 said:

Game on boys

England can take a back seat for the next two days until Somerset have beaten Yorkshire

All being well, that will be over today.  Yorkshire 1 down already.

earwighoney

Heartfeltdawn said: 

 None at all in my view. Hildreth's been averaging over 40 for years and gotten nowhere, can't see them going for TA with a sub-32 average. He's a good county batsman and he's the right guy to captain this side but I don't think he's an international quality player. Banton (ODI) and Bartlett (Test) are the two who look the business. Give them another year before screwing them up please, England. 

Somerset aren't a million miles from the England team though. We haven't got a settled opening pair, we have a fill in number 3, the number 4 (Hildreth) has been a bit ouf ot form this season, we have a wealth of keeper-batsmen, the seam attack has made up for the batting deficiencies loads of times, and we've got Jack Leach

And now we're 9 wickets from victory thanks to Josh Davey getting Adam Lyth out. I wonder what Adam thinks about cricketing life. Must be an odd experience winning an Ashes series and ending his fledging Test career at the same time. 

Thanks for the info.  I'd heard great things about Banton but not much about Bartlett yet. 

Hildreth not being picked for England is one of the great failures of selection.

On the Saturday at the Old Trafford test match, there were a group of fans all dressed as Jack Leach including a 7 year old boy.  I'm not one to feel much sense of pride for the sport but that was a rare occasion, Jack Leach has become quite a fan's favourite in a short time. 

Adam Lyth's a weird player.  Of course he has flaws in his game, but I thought he was actually a pretty talented player.  IMO one of the great failures of England international cricket at test level more so than white ball, is they weren't always the best at helping players work through their technical failures at international level. 

guitars4you

crunchman said:

That was actually the highest opeing partnership of the series!

I saw that as well - amazing stat

sixstringsupplies

earwighoney said:

In other news, 

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/27593665/sri-lanka-cricket-reassess-security-pakistan-terror-threat

Could be a very big story to come.  It looked like Pakistan had addressed some of their security issues but maybe it was glossing over the reality. 

Does anyone know how the Test Championship will address the issue of India and Pakistan playing each other?  

Not all test matches between sides are part of the test championship. This ashes series is, as was the recently finished india v West Indies series. England tour to NZ is not part of the test championship, which is Barmy.

so i assume India and Pakistan don’t have to play each other. If they did, I imagine it would be a neutral ground. Who knows 

scrumhalf

Root's on his fourth life at the moment

Heartfeltdawn

earwighoney said:

Thanks for the info.  I'd heard great things about Banton but not much about Bartlett yet. 

Hildreth not being picked for England is one of the great failures of selection.

On the Saturday at the Old Trafford test match, there were a group of fans all dressed as Jack Leach including a 7 year old boy.  I'm not one to feel much sense of pride for the sport but that was a rare occasion, Jack Leach has become quite a fan's favourite in a short time. 

Adam Lyth's a weird player.  Of course he has flaws in his game, but I thought he was actually a pretty talented player.  IMO one of the great failures of England international cricket at test level more so than white ball, is they weren't always the best at helping players work through their technical failures at international level. 

Banton's got the plaudits for the T20 knocks and that will be where he goes into England first but Bartlett's got the better long game mindset. When you look at the averages right now for the CC they're very similar but it's the greater details that matter. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/teams/somerset/averages

No tons for Banton yet. He does have a bit of a giveaway tendency as happened yesterday when he nicked off to Maharaj in the last over before tea going for a big shot having reverse swept him for six (clearly a small boundary one side at Taunton, van der Merwe did it twice today). 5 half centuries and 0 tons to Bartlett's 3 tons, 3 centuries does tell a story. So too does a comparison of how many FC games they've played compared to short form. Bartlett hasn't yet played a T20 game which is very refreshing.

Barlett's played some really good innings under pressure. His maiden ton last year was against a Lancashire attack featuring Anderson and he was batting at 3, he scored another against Notts this year at Trent Bridge with Broad in the side, and his century against Surrey at Guildford on a damp track against the like of Morne Morkel. He's quite an upright player, good driver and very positive off the back foot. 

Jack Leach is a really honest down to earth guy. It does make me feel old though because I can remember him in the nets when he was a kid and I was playing for the away side at Taunton Deane. The same is true of Liam Dawson as he's a Wiltshire boy (and I won't forget the words his father called me when I bowled him in a league game with perhaps the biggest turning googly I ever bowled. It was like Murali's off break to Mark Butcher at the Oval and Dawson Sr couldn't believe it).

There's a real generational and geographical aspect to cricket for me now as Trescothick was the one everyone wanted to be when I was younger as he was a state school kid who made it, you got the chance to play against him every now and then in the league or a Sunday friendly, and he had this aura to him. Jon Lewis was in the age group a year ahead of me and he got snapped by Gloucestershire and he was inspiring for the same reasons. Then came the younger kids who were coming through as I stopped playing like Dawson and Vince who looked like they'd end up as professionals, and now there's a new crowd in like Banton and Bartlett. I like seeing the changes and the lines of succession. S'funny, one of my friends back home has just started pre-2020 season training as he wants to play league cricket again for the first time in years. It brings out those same pangs of wanting to bowl again in me and then I wake up this morning after a 10km run yesterday and have to stretch out for 10 minutes because the knees are shot and I can't walk properly

crunchman

Yorkshire 5 down.  Essex still 350 behind.

Heartfeltdawn

Essex seem to be focusing on as many batting points as possible from the outset and to take the draw. 

Heartfeltdawn

earwighoney said:

I have to say HFD, I did chuckle when I saw MM is coming in for the next test.  Great prediction. 

The joke is clearly on us now with the Stokes dismissal

And as Amy Lofthouse on the Beeb tweets... "Mitchell Marsh has got Ben Stokes out three times in four Tests. The only batsman he's dismissed more? Brendon McCullum. How?!"

RandallFlagg

Interesting stat from Andrew Samson on TMS:

In 142 Tests at The Oval, only three teams have won the toss, bowled, and won the match.

Heartfeltdawn

RandallFlagg said:

Interesting stat from Andrew Samson on TMS:

In 142 Tests at The Oval, only three teams have won the toss, bowled, and won the match.

It's a bloody odd decision. I think Paine was suckered by the cloud cover which was heavy this morning over central London. What is it with Australia and the Oval? That vital catch down in 2005, the mental decision not to play Hauritz in 2009 on a wicket that was clearly going to turn, and now a toss decision which goes totally against history. I think Tuffers sadi that Langer had one hell of a face on him when the toss decision was announced. One wonders if Tim Paine might go home with the Ashes and then find himself out of the Test side given that his keeping hasn't been great, his batting is so-so, and Steve Smith's runscoring has restored a bit of the lost credibility.  

skippy76

RandallFlagg said:

Interesting stat from Andrew Samson on TMS:

In 142 Tests at The Oval, only three teams have won the toss, bowled, and won the match.

Thats slightly worrying...

scrumhalf

Paine won't be the skipper for much longer after that decision.

Unless Smith scores 300 and we lose by an innings. 

scrumhalf

170-4, nobody to come is in any sort of form. We might struggle to get 300. That was a corker to dismiss Root. 

mikeyrob73

Standard Bairstow wasted review