The cricket thread

iseverynamegone

Great ball to get him out. Wish you could say the same for the rest of them. 

mikeyrob73

Superb ball that removed Stokes, not much you can do with that. 

menamestom

Does this mean England probably need to beat India and NZ to qualify for the Semi Finals?

mikeyrob73

menamestom said:

Does this mean England probably need to beat India and NZ to qualify for the Semi Finals?

Yup

sixstringsupplies

Yeah, and I can see Pakistan beating NZ tomorrow to make it even tenser. I still have faith...more annoyed that i cleared my schedule to watch that. I’m now slightly tipsy and a backlog of orders to clear tomorrow. 

SouthpawMark

I blame Ashley Giles. 

RandallFlagg

It's like the Ghost of Cricket Past has returned to the England dressing room. It's not the bowling or fielding, despite being the team with the 2nd highest number of dropped catches, but always the batting, slashing away with reckless unnecessary shots. The top order just needed to be patient and let the overs tick over grabbing the singles and rotating the strike and unleash the fireworks in a controlled way once settled in.

On the optimistic side, Pakistan and Australia have both been perilously close to exiting the World Cup before and gone on to win. Morgan remains defiant saying they just have to win 2 games to get through. Those 2 games just happen to be against the only 2 unbeaten teams in the tournament!

Although possible, and it would be brilliant to see, I think it remains unlikely. England have dropped to 3rd favourites behind Australia and India to win on Betfair with odds of about 4/1, interesting that they are favoured ahead of New Zealand who are only tipped at nearly 7/1.

skippy76

Agreed, although at the ground it certainly felt like England were back in it when they took those 4 quick wickets.

Lets hope they step up against the Kiwis and have a win.

guitars4you

sixstringsupplies said:

Bairstow, Morgan and Buttler dismissals were shocking. 

Yes all 3 shots were to egotistical in such circumstances - The run rate was easily achievable - The issue was to stay in and accumulate - Get close then attack if needs be in the last 10/15 overs - I bet if we had accumulated on a 4 or 5 run rate/per over, with wickets to spare, then the Aussies would have felt the pressure

RandallFlagg

guitars4you said:

sixstringsupplies said:

Bairstow, Morgan and Buttler dismissals were shocking. 

Yes all 3 shots were to egotistical in such circumstances - The run rate was easily achievable - The issue was to stay in and accumulate - Get close then attack if needs be in the last 10/15 overs - I bet if we had accumulated on a 4 or 5 run rate/per over, with wickets to spare, then the Aussies would have felt the pressure

100% agree. If we all can see it and know it why the hell doesn't someone tell them to wake up? We need Sir Alex Ferguson to give them one of his half time pep talks.

crunchman

RandallFlagg said:

guitars4you said:

sixstringsupplies said:

Bairstow, Morgan and Buttler dismissals were shocking. 

Yes all 3 shots were to egotistical in such circumstances - The run rate was easily achievable - The issue was to stay in and accumulate - Get close then attack if needs be in the last 10/15 overs - I bet if we had accumulated on a 4 or 5 run rate/per over, with wickets to spare, then the Aussies would have felt the pressure

100% agree. If we all can see it and know it why the hell doesn't someone tell them to wake up? We need Sir Alex Ferguson to give them one of his half time pep talks.

Not sure they have the technique to deal with short balls without pulling/hooking.  That's why Morgan is no longer in the test team, and Bairstow and Buttler have to be hidden down at 5, 6, 7 in the order.

RandallFlagg

A short ball can be safely be left time after time if you can get out the way quick enough. Bowlers soon tire of it. This was their undoing in the Ashes down under a few years ago, I remember seeing Stokes jumping up in the air trying to get his bat on top of the short ball from Mitchell Johnson and getting in all sorts of a pickle as they felt the need to get bat on ball. Just duck it.

crunchman

RandallFlagg said:

A short ball can be safely be left time after time if you can get out the way quick enough. Bowlers soon tire of it. This was their undoing in the Ashes down under a few years ago, I remember seeing Stokes jumping up in the air trying to get his bat on top of the short ball from Mitchell Johnson and getting in all sorts of a pickle as they felt the need to get bat on ball. Just duck it.

They don't though.  They seem to be compulsive hookers.  Not sure if they are in the Hilditch league (showing my age) but they aren't far short.

guitars4you

Think it was the Bairstow wicket - One of the Aussie commentators showed a close up of the build up to it - Finch had the deep fielder move further round the boundary - Ball was delivered to entice Bairstow and he totally fell into a premeditated trap

I know it is easy to say wow when all goes well, like Morgan's innings a match or two ago - But they need to adapt to conditions and the situation - The run rate in this case, was far more accommodating to  chase down - Just pick them of without taking any risk

The wicket of Vince and you have to accept such good deliveries - But don't gift them your own wicket as per Butler, Morgan and Bairstow

Yet we moan about the run chase and the failing of the top 5-6-7 batsmen - Yet in this instance the bowlers appear to have been let of the hook - Yet they barely tested Finch + Warner - Granted a couple of half chances, but very rarely did we trouble them - Yes we have pace, but at times we don't ask enough questions - To one dimensional - Certainly didn't pitch it up enough

crunchman

guitars4you said:

The wicket of Vince and you have to accept such good deliveries - But don't gift them your own wicket as per Butler, Morgan and Bairstow

Vince wasn't blameless.  Yes the ball swung, but he had a gap between bat and pad that you could have driven a double decker through.  He doesn't need to be going for an expansive drive like that second ball.

scrumhalf

The problem is that this sort of gung-ho batting has been successful in two-team ODI series where, if we're bing honest, nobody gives a crap if it goes wrong in one game out of three or four.

This. however, is an entirely different competition and should require a different (or at least adjusted) mindset.

I said it ages ago but there isn't enough variation in our bowling attack, and what we have there isn't performing that well. When did we last consistently keep decent opposition to small totals?

crunchman

New Zealand not helping us out.  48 for 4 at just over 3 an over.

scrumhalf

Great fighback by the Kiwis, and they've got an early wicket as well.

RandallFlagg

Pakistan are pushing on, could have a game on here

guitars4you

The CWC is starting to come to life now  - That table is starting to compress a bit around positions 4/5/6 and even NZ aren't through yet - So few dead rubber games to come yet - Interesting

Pakistan + Sri Lanka both play before we play India, so possible that we could be down in 6th before the next match - A plus point for us is a better run rate if level on points -