The cricket thread

guitars4you

Can't work out why we have 3 wicket keepers - Each can do a decent job with the bat, when they are there as an all-rounder to bat and keep - Not so sure they can do a dedicated role as a batsman - IMO it upsets the balance of the side

Broad should still be front line attack with Jimmy - Not to many years left in them both - With Stokes and Curran as 3 + 4th seamers 

2 spinners is a luxury these days, but if you can't get to day 4 or 5 then the benefit Rashid brings to the table is minimal

We are struggling to find 1 + 2 with the bat - Root at 4 is okay, but the rest of the batting line up is effectively a blend of all-rounders - On the day each is fine, but that is to hit n miss

Not a lot of time to get this right before the summer

crunchman

guitars4you said:

Can't work out why we have 3 wicket keepers - Each can do a decent job with the bat, when they are there as an all-rounder to bat and keep - Not so sure they can do a dedicated role as a batsman - IMO it upsets the balance of the side

Foakes needs to play because he is the best keeper, and he can bat as well.

If we had some competent top order batsmen you would leave out one of Buttler and Bairstow, but they are probably better batsmen than most of the specialist batsmen.   Bairstow isn't really suited to 3, but I'm not convinced there is anyone around who will do a better job.

The big problem with the balance of the team in this match is that we misread the pitch and went in with two spinners.  If we had Broad in for Rashid then it would look a lot better balanced.

guitars4you

crunchman said:

guitars4you said:

Can't work out why we have 3 wicket keepers - Each can do a decent job with the bat, when they are there as an all-rounder to bat and keep - Not so sure they can do a dedicated role as a batsman - IMO it upsets the balance of the side

If we had some competent top order batsmen you would leave out one of Buttler and Bairstow, but they are probably better batsmen than most of the specialist batsmen.   Bairstow isn't really suited to 3, but I'm not convinced there is anyone around who will do a better job.

agree with that and herein lies the problem

They've tried Stokes at 3 hoping he'd be the next J Kallis - Yet the balance of the side normally has the all rounder at 6 - Yet Foakes can bat there, yet they currently play Butler  - And I'm sure Curran could bet further up than 8, when he often comes in desperately trying to put some credibility on the score board, but runs out of partners

Not sure what the answer is - Certainly some bodge up, with what we have

crunchman

guitars4you said:

Not sure what the answer is - Certainly some bodge up, with what we have

I know what the answer isn't - to devalue the first class County Championship, and move it to the margins of the season, while all the players concentrate on pyjama cricket.

Oops!

guitars4you

wasn't as though they were facing Holding, Marshall and Garner either - the pitch did not look like it was loaded with pot holes either - 77 was a total disgrace - But it comes on top of 50 odd against NZ less than 12 months ago

Heartfeltdawn

crunchman said:

Not good.  Mitchell Starc must be licking his lips.

Since the start of the SA series last year and incorporating Sandpapergate and including the current Test against Sri Lanka, Starc has taken 31 wickets at 34.83 in 10 Tests. Rub off the South Africa Tests and it's a lousy 19 wickets in 7 Tests at 35.10. He was comfortably poor with the new ball against India. 

As for England... pisspoor selection. Jack Leach shouldn't have been dropped after being top wicket taker in Sri Lanka. You wouldn't dump a highest run scorer in that way so don't do it to bowlers. Rashid thus far has been astoundingly anonymous. A few folk claiming he's a match winner: when? 

Broad's non-selection was shite before play began. Picking a little skiddy left-armer in Curran for Barbados was predictably bad (I say that having played on that track years ago. Spinners and big tall deck hitters were fine: the wee English touch the surface seamers were hammered mercilessly). 

Then the batting. It's as you'd expect with the lack of decent practice time and a lottery for the top order. 

axisus

Well that was a shocker. I thought that those days were well behind us. Embarrassing.

scrumhalf

We're reaping the "benefits" of over-exposure to one-day cricket. We no longer produce batsmen capable of spending half a day at the crease as a matter of course.

We've got some admirable biff-bang merchants, but how many top-class test batsmen do we have who can produce the goods more often than not?

Joe Root.

scrumhalf

<sobs>

earwighoney

Something which I think is a huge issue in test cricket which rarely gets as much emphasis placed upon it as much I believe it should be is winning the toss. 

Joe Root managed to win every toss for the India and Sri Lanka series and aside from one pitch, there was never much doubt to what the team would do if they won the toss.  IMO, test pitches are largely favouring whoever wins the toss in the conditions are optimal for one particular innings be it with the ball or bat (generally the team that bats first). 

I watched a fair amount of the Australia India series and whichever team won the toss, won the test match.  

I'm sure @Heartfeltdawn has some insights towards how important winning the toss is in contemporary test cricket.

shrinkwrap

Yeah, but nice to see a resurgent Windies - Cricket needs them.

scrumhalf

What a shower of shit.

Our spinners do sod-all, their part-time spinner rips through our batters.

Heartfeltdawn

earwighoney said:

Something which I think is a huge issue in test cricket which rarely gets as much emphasis placed upon it as much I believe it should be is winning the toss. 

Joe Root managed to win every toss for the India and Sri Lanka series and aside from one pitch, there was never much doubt to what the team would do if they won the toss.  IMO, test pitches are largely favouring whoever wins the toss in the conditions are optimal for one particular innings be it with the ball or bat (generally the team that bats first). 

I watched a fair amount of the Australia India series and whichever team won the toss, won the test match.  

I'm sure @Heartfeltdawn has some insights towards how important winning the toss is in contemporary test cricket.

Ric Finlay certainly does. I'm more in the line of thinking that the psychological effect of the toss can be just as important as getting first dibs on the pitch. 

https://twitter.com/RicFinlay/status/1021389599589818368

Personally I don't think the pitches have been the primary issue when it comes to toss winning and match winning. Batting is poorer full stop: even more so when going overseas. Finlay thows up a remarkable stat about Australia's summer this year which has been lacking in Aussie tons. 

https://twitter.com/RicFinlay/status/1088750951022743552

For someone who grew up with the Australia dominance starting from 1989, it's almost beyond comprehension that the batsmen are that poor now. 

I can't think anyone could claim that the Barbados Test was decided by the toss. When a side scores 600 in the third innings after rattling someone out for 77, there's clearly something else at work. That to me is a lack of match practice. It's incredible in a sport full of monitoring and science and training that nobody stands up and says "Lack of warm-up games fuck the Test game". 

scrumhalf

Heartfeltdawn said:

For someone who grew up with the Australia dominance starting from 1989, it's almost beyond comprehension that the batsmen are that poor now. 

I don't think so. The longer form of the game isn't fashionable enough. The mentality to sit in there and sell your wicket dearly is almost alien in England. I'm one of many who bemoan the way the balance between test/county championship and one-day cricket has skewed in recent years.

Heartfeltdawn

scrumhalf said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

For someone who grew up with the Australia dominance starting from 1989, it's almost beyond comprehension that the batsmen are that poor now. 

I don't think so. The longer form of the game isn't fashionable enough. The mentality to sit in there and sell your wicket dearly is almost alien in England. I'm one of many who bemoan the way the balance between test/county championship and one-day cricket has skewed in recent years.

Indeed within England but seeing the slump in Australia is even more magnified. In my lifetime we've never had a situation where England could put out an A side that would beat most international sides. Australia did. Their list of Sheffield Shield run scorers who didn't play for Australia in that era is terrifying. 

But then again we live in an age now where Roston Chase is made to look like he's bowling on a minefield. 

Heartfeltdawn

Oh, and the day was improved by virtue of being successful in the Lords ballot. Two tickets for the Mound Stand on day 1 in August works for me. 

scrumhalf

Heartfeltdawn said:

Oh, and the day was improved by virtue of being successful in the Lords ballot. Two tickets for the Mound Stand on day 1 in August works for me. 

I just checked and it's the first day of the test, so you're okay. If you had tickets for the back end I wouldn't be that certain the match wouldn't be over!

crunchman

scrumhalf said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

Oh, and the day was improved by virtue of being successful in the Lords ballot. Two tickets for the Mound Stand on day 1 in August works for me. 

I just checked and it's the first day of the test, so you're okay. If you had tickets for the back end I wouldn't be that certain the match wouldn't be over!

They will probably prepare a batting paradise to make sure it goes the distance.  Anderson will have to bowl 100 overs and be wrecked for the rest of the series.

earwighoney

Heartfeltdawn said: 

Ric Finlay certainly does. I'm more in the line of thinking that the psychological effect of the toss can be just as important as getting first dibs on the pitch. 

https://twitter.com/RicFinlay/status/1021389599589818368

Personally I don't think the pitches have been the primary issue when it comes to toss winning and match winning. Batting is poorer full stop: even more so when going overseas. Finlay thows up a remarkable stat about Australia's summer this year which has been lacking in Aussie tons. 

https://twitter.com/RicFinlay/status/1088750951022743552

For someone who grew up with the Australia dominance starting from 1989, it's almost beyond comprehension that the batsmen are that poor now. 

I can't think anyone could claim that the Barbados Test was decided by the toss. When a side scores 600 in the third innings after rattling someone out for 77, there's clearly something else at work. That to me is a lack of match practice. It's incredible in a sport full of monitoring and science and training that nobody stands up and says "Lack of warm-up games fuck the Test game". 

The lack of warm up games for tours are sadly part of the modern game.  The cricket schedule is far too bloated to actually allow teams adequate preparation. 

My suggestion of winning the toss being an important part of influencing the game's outcome wasn't to exempt England's performance but it was to suggest it was a factor.  IMO, England have been in a somewhat unusual position of having won 8 consecutive tosses and for the majority of the time rarely being in a position where they were chasing the game.

Yep, I heard the stat about Australian batting when I was watching the Australia v India series.  Did you watch any of that series?  Harris looked pretty decent at the crease but just couldn't convert his starts, the rest of the team's batting seemed very fragile at best.  A few comments here and there have suggested the BBL has not had the best impact for domestic red ball /Shield cricket.  It seems the standard of cricket in Indian railways is better than the standard of Australian domestic cricket... I imagine once Smith etc return they'll recover with the bat. 
 
Back to England, IMO the selection of the XI seemed a bit odd.  Selection of Rashid over Leach for the second spinner to begin with, but I'm not sure whether a second spinner was needed in the first place.  As for batting they seem to not really truly acknowledge how important the no.3 position for batting is.  Maybe a cliche but I was always under the mindset that it was pivotal to have a player with a technique with an adequate amount of defensive work and enough attacking intent to keep things ticking over.  Looking at the English batting order, I'm unconvinced by Bairstow at 3 and for a lot of of the batsmen the positions in the order seems more about trying to get in as many batsmen as possible opposed to have the right batsmen in the right order, which isn't to say there aren't benefits to this approach clearly it does work from time to time as it does allow having a lot of batsmen in the XI. 

sixstringsupplies

I'm so wound up with this England team. I work hard all week (as many do) and then look forward to a beer and watching cricket, my main passion in life, Utter garbage. They deserve to lose this series 3-0.