The cricket thread

Heartfeltdawn

sixstringsupplies said:

@Heartfeltdawn can you do your country a service and apply for the ECB CEO job in 2022? Harrison will surely be forced out before then: https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/the-ashes-202122-england-could-field-under-strength-ashes-squad-as-ecb-resist-postponement-1278049

Or director of cricket, whatever the top job is!

Me as England CEO? My online history would rule me out immediately. Ollie Robinson looks like an angel compared to my sewer mouth. 

Plus the ladies would hate me for talking about the ticket sales for their games. 

Heartfeltdawn

Incidentally, keen observers might have seen George Dobell hand in his notice this week with Cricinfo. Doesn't take a genius to link his reporting of the Indian cancellation to that decision. 

earwighoney

Heartfeltdawn said:

Incidentally, keen observers might have seen George Dobell hand in his notice this week with Cricinfo. Doesn't take a genius to link his reporting of the Indian cancellation to that decision. 

I had a look on the cancellation and didn't see anything too radical, but he was brutal on the 100.

I imagine the ECB have had enough and are pulling some strings?

Heartfeltdawn

Oh, and the story about the understrength squad.... firstly, I apologise for the rapid fire posting. My attention span is absolutely fucked after my second Pfizer jab this morning. I'm glad it's come on quicker than jab 1 and hope it will leave just as quickly. 

I sympathise with the players who understandably do not want to be cooped up:

"And with some players away for the best part of four months (the IPL being followed by the T20 World Cup and the Ashes), they are understandably reluctant not to see their families for the entire period."

That said, the schedules have been fucking nuts for years and something like this was always going to happen. It's rather a mirror for what happened with Liverpool after they won the Champions League and fielded the youth side at home and the full time away at the same time. Administrators arrange this shit, the money on offer gets the players and agents onside, and only when the clashes happen do some people wake up to it all. 

If we field a weakened side, then the money for the TV rights will be lower and that'll damage ECB finances considerably. 

"As things stand, no broadcast partner has been announced to show the Ashes in the UK, though BT Sport are understood to be the likely home of the series. The prospect of a one-sided contest is unlikely to have enticed especially attractive bids."

I somehow doubt that the financial plan for 2021-22 would have featured an away Ashes series bringing in significantly less income than usual. That'll eat into the Hundred profits... 

crunchman

Sad news for the quality of TV commentary:

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/michael-holding-to-retire-from-cricket-commentary-1278084

scrumhalf

Holding was always in line for the axe once Sky started their cull of older commentators, which is a pity as he is top-notch as both a commentator and, from reading and hearing his words, a bloke.

It's always amused me that someone so terrifying as a bowler could be such an immaculate gentleman after retiring from the game. 

Sky have a good team of commentators but I think that this weakens it. 

scrumhalf

Kent win the T20!!

Look out for Jordan Cox's assist, one of the greatest pieces of fielding you will ever see. 

chris78

scrumhalf said:

Kent win the T20!!

Look out for Jordan Cox's assist, one of the greatest pieces of fielding you will ever see. 

I had the pleasure of going and it’s my 4th finals day.
Sod the hundred, it’s the best day out at cricket in the summer. 2 semi finals and a final, a really high standard of cricket, sometimes over 1,000 runs, 30-40 wickets in a day. Crazy value for £89.
Im a Kent fan so it was super special.
Jordan Cox’s fielding was silly, but it was a special innings too from the young man under pressure. 

Here’s the catch for anyone who missed it https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/cricket/58612343

guitars4you

scrumhalf said:

Kent win the T20!!

Look out for Jordan Cox's assist, one of the greatest pieces of fielding you will ever see. 

saw that and yes an incredible piece of action

Stuckfast

I was a bit baffled by the decision to disallow the other boundary catch though. AFAIK the rules just state that the fielder must not come into contact with the boundary or the ground outside the boundary. No mention of coming into contact with another player who is in contact with the boundary!

scrumhalf

I can understand the non-catch, just, although the fielder (was it DBD?) would have had to have had some amazing skill to be deliberately in that position at that time. 

Anyway, he was out a couple of balls later and we won, so ya-boo stinky-poo to the umpires.

Stuckfast

Warwickshire deserved winners of the County Championship after a brilliant last round of games. You've got to feel for Lancs though, having beaten Hampshire by one wicket and then watched Somerset give it away at Edgbaston.

There will be a few beers drunk in this corner of Yorkshire tonight I suspect as Warks captain Will Rhodes is a local boy...

Stuckfast

Mo Ali has retired from Test cricket. At least he didn't wait til halfway through an Ashes series like Swann did. Wonder which spinners they'll take to Aus now? I'm guessing Leach and Parkinson plus the least underwhelming off-spinner they can find.

Nitefly

Given the Aussie PM's stance on players' families (no special treatment re Covid restrictions), I wonder if the Ashes will go ahead?

crunchman

Stuckfast said:

Mo Ali has retired from Test cricket. At least he didn't wait til halfway through an Ashes series like Swann did. Wonder which spinners they'll take to Aus now? I'm guessing Leach and Parkinson plus the least underwhelming off-spinner they can find.

He's a bit deluded.  There's a piece on Cricinfo where he says he could have batted like Stokes given the opportunity.  He doesn't have Stokes's technique, and I never saw Stokes get tied in knots as soon as a moderately fast bowler bowled short.

At least it will stop the selectors picking him.

chris78

Mo will have to go down in the "didn't quite fulfil his potential" club. He got found out by the short ball and was never the same batsman after that. He was a wicket taking spinner, but in a country that believes that spinners shouldn't turn the ball and should go at 2 an over, that's never going to work.
Bat av 28, bowl av 36. Swap them around and you've got a fine player. With those stats, he looks a bit "bits and pieces."
Top bloke though, absolutely top bloke.

Heartfeltdawn

Stuckfast said:

Mo Ali has retired from Test cricket. At least he didn't wait til halfway through an Ashes series like Swann did. Wonder which spinners they'll take to Aus now? I'm guessing Leach and Parkinson plus the least underwhelming off-spinner they can find.

For his sake of his career, I hope it won't be Parkinson because the last two leggies to debut down under never went beyond their debut Tests... 

sixstringsupplies

So the Ashes squad has been announced....

I am surprised Buttler is going he is obviously happy enough with the COVID regulations and allowances for family travel.

Personally I would have picked Parkinson over Dom Bess and tried to find space for Saj Mahmood.

Otherwise....it seems to be our strongest squad from those fit and available. 

I think Australia are pretty shit anyway so we could be in for a competitive series, but their bowling attack is stronger than ours.

Heartfeltdawn

The BBC headline:

England name strong squad for Test tour to Australia

Points for optimism. Root averages 50.15: the next highest is Hammed at 35.90. Our reserve batsmen are Crawley and Lawrence. Our keepers picked over specialist keepers average low 30s. We have no out and out quick bowler. Our talisman is shit in the second innings. Our spinners haven't played since the winter. 

Prize for outright shit goes to Andrew Miller from Cricinfo with a piece on the tour selection winners and losers:

"Dom Bess
It's been a rocky road for Bess in the past year. His anguish in India in the spring was palpable, as he became a rather unfortunate fall guy for England's wider failings on spinning surfaces at Chennai and Ahmedabad - despite never looking at his best, he had fronted up with 17 wickets in England's three consecutive wins in Asia, after all, including a five-for at Galle in his first outing of the winter. He never came close to a recall this summer despite being included in a handful of squads later in the summer, but then neither did his former Somerset spin-twin Jack Leach, as England chose to field a seam-only attack for their first three Tests, until an abortive return for Moeen Ali against India. But now, with Moeen retired, Bess has an unlikely chance to reassert his status as England's No. 1 spinner - Australia is an unforgiving venue for such a comeback, particularly as a fingerspinner. But England admire his all-round package, including a compact and combative batting technique in the lower-middle order. In the absence of Stokes, Moeen, Sam Curran et al, the need for de facto allrounders may yet tip the scales in his favour."

Number 1 spinner. "His all round package". Dear god, we've entered a time loop and we're picking the slow bowler based on whether he can bat. 

An honest article would read "In the absence of our one true world-class allrounder, one retiring and pissing about in Test cricket this year, and the left-armer who's a bit shite overseas on the whole, the need to prop up our inconsistent batting may yet tip the balance in favour of a guy whose bowling fell apart in India so we think he'll do fine touring a place where even great spinners have struggled". 

I hope we get trashed this winter. It'd be the perfect finale to a summer where the administrators have demonstrated how fucked they are and how much they are prepared to ruin the game in order to chase their 100 dreams. 

sixstringsupplies

I was trying to be optimistic Mr @Heartfeltdawn ; But yes, 5-0 on the cards, from a very average Australia team. Says it all really.