The decision to bat in these conditions is biting us in the posterior!
I agree, but assume they believe it will take spin. Looks an excellent cricket pitch overall.
A lot of pressure on the rookie Bess that being the case. Denly (2-219 in Tests) can at times be a bit of a "pie chucker" that the Windies will try to get after whereas Root has been a legitimate alternative/addition - in the final Test against South Africa Root returned figures of 29-13-87-4 when Bess (5-51 in 1st innings) had 22-11-36-1
The decision to bat in these conditions is biting us in the posterior!
I agree, but assume they believe it will take spin. Looks an excellent cricket pitch overall.
A lot of pressure on the rookie Bess that being the case. Denly (2-219 in Tests) can at times be a bit of a "pie chucker" that the Windies will try to get after whereas Root has been a legitimate alternative/addition - in the final Test against South Africa Root returned figures of 29-13-87-4 when Bess (5-51 in 1st innings) had 22-11-36-1
England's seamers should also enjoy bowling on this.
Pope is a classy bat and will, hopefully, be in our Test side for years to come. He will be our number 3 eventually but important to let him progress for a little while at least where he is
"Let's bat on a warm damp dark day, cos tomorrow's gonna be the same then there's 3 days of sunshine." 😕 ok skip that makes sense🤪 I'll be kind, boyish enthusiasm got the better of Stokes with that decision. With Jimmy's skill England would be batting by now, WIndies wouldn't have got the ball off the square unless somebody got one off the shoulder of the bat over Jos's head off Jofra. At least Joe Denly got a snorter. He'll keep his place for OT too, cos captain cretin insists on hiding himself down at number 4.
Pope is a classy bat and will, hopefully, be in our Test side for years to come. He will be our number 3 eventually but important to let him progress for a little while at least where he is
I've taken full responsibility for his dismissal and tweeted him an apology
"Let's bat on a warm damp dark day, cos tomorrow's gonna be the same then there's 3 days of sunshine." 😕 ok skip that makes sense🤪 I'll be kind, boyish enthusiasm got the better of Stokes with that decision. With Jimmy's skill England would be batting by now, WIndies wouldn't have got the ball off the square unless somebody got one off the shoulder of the bat over Jos's head off Jofra. At least Joe Denly got a snorter. He'll keep his place for OT too, cos captain cretin insists on hiding himself down at number 4.
Not if he doesn't get runs in the 2nd innings and Crawley does - its a straight shoot out between the two of them
"Let's bat on a warm damp dark day, cos tomorrow's gonna be the same then there's 3 days of sunshine." 😕 ok skip that makes sense🤪 I'll be kind, boyish enthusiasm got the better of Stokes with that decision. With Jimmy's skill England would be batting by now, WIndies wouldn't have got the ball off the square unless somebody got one off the shoulder of the bat over Jos's head off Jofra. At least Joe Denly got a snorter. He'll keep his place for OT too, cos captain cretin insists on hiding himself down at number 4.
Not if he doesn't get runs in the 2nd innings and Crawley does - its a straight shoot out between the two of them
If Sibley fails again, and the Kent duo make runs, his place will come into the equation too
"Let's bat on a warm damp dark day, cos tomorrow's gonna be the same then there's 3 days of sunshine." 😕 ok skip that makes sense🤪 I'll be kind, boyish enthusiasm got the better of Stokes with that decision. With Jimmy's skill England would be batting by now, WIndies wouldn't have got the ball off the square unless somebody got one off the shoulder of the bat over Jos's head off Jofra. At least Joe Denly got a snorter. He'll keep his place for OT too, cos captain cretin insists on hiding himself down at number 4.
Yeah I thought it was a bit of a no brainer to bowl first to be honest with you.
"Let's bat on a warm damp dark day, cos tomorrow's gonna be the same then there's 3 days of sunshine." 😕 ok skip that makes sense🤪 I'll be kind, boyish enthusiasm got the better of Stokes with that decision. With Jimmy's skill England would be batting by now, WIndies wouldn't have got the ball off the square unless somebody got one off the shoulder of the bat over Jos's head off Jofra. At least Joe Denly got a snorter. He'll keep his place for OT too, cos captain cretin insists on hiding himself down at number 4.
Yeah I thought it was a bit of a no brainer to bowl first to be honest with you.
And to pick more "English" style bowlers too, i.e. the likes of Woakes and Broad, rather than the pace attack we went for
"Let's bat on a warm damp dark day, cos tomorrow's gonna be the same then there's 3 days of sunshine." 😕 ok skip that makes sense🤪 I'll be kind, boyish enthusiasm got the better of Stokes with that decision. With Jimmy's skill England would be batting by now, WIndies wouldn't have got the ball off the square unless somebody got one off the shoulder of the bat over Jos's head off Jofra. At least Joe Denly got a snorter. He'll keep his place for OT too, cos captain cretin insists on hiding himself down at number 4.
Not if he doesn't get runs in the 2nd innings and Crawley does - its a straight shoot out between the two of them
If Sibley fails again, and the Kent duo make runs, his place will come into the equation too
I very much doubt that - Sibley has the comfort of averaging almost 40 in Test cricket (Denly less than 30), a First Class average of 41.52 (Denly 36.50) and he hit two centuries for the Young Lions in Australia.
Denly was always going to be a "stop gap" and it is just a question of how long he was going to last for. He is 10 years older than Sibley and 12 older than Crawley. He occupies the crease at Test level but never actually dominates and no hundreds in 27 innings isn't going to keep him in the side. A centruy in his 28th might but that will be at the expense of Crawley whose time will come again anyway no doubt.
Denly simply made the mistake of starting his career when England were number 1 in the world and had a shitload of world class players, maybe in another life he would’ve been an England regular and up to speed on test cricket by now, but I agree I don’t think he’s quite good enough for test cricket.
"Let's bat on a warm damp dark day, cos tomorrow's gonna be the same then there's 3 days of sunshine." 😕 ok skip that makes sense🤪 I'll be kind, boyish enthusiasm got the better of Stokes with that decision. With Jimmy's skill England would be batting by now, WIndies wouldn't have got the ball off the square unless somebody got one off the shoulder of the bat over Jos's head off Jofra. At least Joe Denly got a snorter. He'll keep his place for OT too, cos captain cretin insists on hiding himself down at number 4.
Not if he doesn't get runs in the 2nd innings and Crawley does - its a straight shoot out between the two of them
If Sibley fails again, and the Kent duo make runs, his place will come into the equation too
I very much doubt that - Sibley has the comfort of averaging almost 40 in Test cricket (Denly less than 30), a First Class average of 41.52 (Denly 36.50) and he hit two centuries for the Young Lions in Australia.
Denly was always going to be a "stop gap" and it is just a question of how long he was going to last for. He is 10 years older than Sibley and 12 older than Crawley. He occupies the crease at Test level but never actually dominates and no hundreds in 27 innings isn't going to keep him in the side. A centruy in his 28th might but that will be at the expense of Crawley whose time will come again anyway no doubt.
If Sibley gets another duck or low score, and Denly and Crawley both make 50s, it will be a touch call to leave one of them out
Bit disappointed with Crawleys shot .if bat had come down straight he would have hit it ..hope it's a fault he can iron out
Agree that it was disappointing but believe it was possibly shot selection rather than a technical issue. In his head he should have been thinking "play in the V" as much as possible especially early on. He chose to clip a ball where his front foot was virtually outside off stump and only showing the edge of the bat to the bowler in the process. As you say, had he played straight and offered the full face of the bat, the ball would have gone through mid on - ironically an area where there wouldn't have been a fielder and the shot would probably him resulted in a boundary.
Denly has that technical fault, on the other hand, of planting that front foot and leaving a massive gap at times and this seems far more ingrained and not something that, at the age of 34, he will possibly find easy to rectify.
These batsmen have got where they have got by scoring a certain number of runs. Not necessarily "enough" runs and Test cricket is so much a different animal to County First Class cricket let alone the limited over game. The former isn't a good enough preparation nowadays for Test cricket because counties do not face the best bowlers in the world as they would have done 30 or so years ago. The latter game leads batsmen down roads where they can freely score runs because very often there isn't even one slip let alone four of them and it is all about run rates - infinitely better to get 25 off 12 balls than 40 off 40. And counties are, from a financial perspective, under more pressure to produce a successful white ball side than a red one hence the constant emphasis on "scenario batting" - first power play, middle overs, last 10 overs etc etc.
"Let's bat on a warm damp dark day, cos tomorrow's gonna be the same then there's 3 days of sunshine." 😕 ok skip that makes sense🤪 I'll be kind, boyish enthusiasm got the better of Stokes with that decision. With Jimmy's skill England would be batting by now, WIndies wouldn't have got the ball off the square unless somebody got one off the shoulder of the bat over Jos's head off Jofra. At least Joe Denly got a snorter. He'll keep his place for OT too, cos captain cretin insists on hiding himself down at number 4.
Not if he doesn't get runs in the 2nd innings and Crawley does - its a straight shoot out between the two of them
If Sibley fails again, and the Kent duo make runs, his place will come into the equation too
I very much doubt that - Sibley has the comfort of averaging almost 40 in Test cricket (Denly less than 30), a First Class average of 41.52 (Denly 36.50) and he hit two centuries for the Young Lions in Australia.
Denly was always going to be a "stop gap" and it is just a question of how long he was going to last for. He is 10 years older than Sibley and 12 older than Crawley. He occupies the crease at Test level but never actually dominates and no hundreds in 27 innings isn't going to keep him in the side. A centruy in his 28th might but that will be at the expense of Crawley whose time will come again anyway no doubt.
If Sibley gets another duck or low score, and Denly and Crawley both make 50s, it will be a touch call to leave one of them out
From a Kent perspective I really hope you are right. Denly's last three Tests have resulted in scores of 1,3 and 18 so he will definitely need a 50 at the very least.
Holder the number one all rounder at present in Test cricket - 55 wickets and averaging over 50 with the bat in his last 10 Tests. Even worse, he seems a thoroughly decent human being and the Mrs fancies him too!!!!
Holder the number one all rounder at present in Test cricket - 55 wickets and averaging over 50 with the bat in his last 10 Tests. Even worse, he seems a thoroughly decent human being and the Mrs fancies him too!!!!
Comments
I'll be kind, boyish enthusiasm got the better of Stokes with that decision.
With Jimmy's skill England would be batting by now, WIndies wouldn't have got the ball off the square unless somebody got one off the shoulder of the bat over Jos's head off Jofra.
At least Joe Denly got a snorter. He'll keep his place for OT too, cos captain cretin insists on hiding himself down at number 4.
Denly was always going to be a "stop gap" and it is just a question of how long he was going to last for. He is 10 years older than Sibley and 12 older than Crawley. He occupies the crease at Test level but never actually dominates and no hundreds in 27 innings isn't going to keep him in the side. A centruy in his 28th might but that will be at the expense of Crawley whose time will come again anyway no doubt.
.if bat had come down straight he would have hit it ..hope it's a fault he can iron out
Weird to see England with such a long tail, when normally we would have the likes of Curran, Moeen or Woakes at 8/9
Denly has that technical fault, on the other hand, of planting that front foot and leaving a massive gap at times and this seems far more ingrained and not something that, at the age of 34, he will possibly find easy to rectify.
These batsmen have got where they have got by scoring a certain number of runs. Not necessarily "enough" runs and Test cricket is so much a different animal to County First Class cricket let alone the limited over game. The former isn't a good enough preparation nowadays for Test cricket because counties do not face the best bowlers in the world as they would have done 30 or so years ago. The latter game leads batsmen down roads where they can freely score runs because very often there isn't even one slip let alone four of them and it is all about run rates - infinitely better to get 25 off 12 balls than 40 off 40. And counties are, from a financial perspective, under more pressure to produce a successful white ball side than a red one hence the constant emphasis on "scenario batting" - first power play, middle overs, last 10 overs etc etc.