Think Haseeb is worth giving another chance to over Sibley, but then Crawley is woefully.out of form too, who do you pick at 3?
The likes of Pope and Malan have been mentioned, though you're going on their red ball form from several weeks ago...
It seems like a quaint old world where red ball cricket continued through the height of the summer, and players could earn Test callups based on their run scoring in the county Championship...
Shore up? I wouldn't trust this lot with a Lilo! They are consistently poor at this level. I'm not sure if the different versions of the game that they all seem to be involved in is screwing them up? Certainly doesn't seem to be helping. They look nowhere near it mentally. Today reminded me of the dark days of the early to mid nineties. Shocking!
I have 2 tickets for next Thirsday at Leeds I can't use. £45 each (not Lords prices!). Does anybody want? I haad tickets for Thursday and Friday but can only make Friday now
Looking at the county averages, the player with the best average and most runs after playing a decent number of innings is Durham's David Beddingham, an England qualified Saffer. Div 2, but Durham runs are usually worth more. Sadly it seems he wants to play for SA.
I have 2 tickets for next Thirsday at Leeds I can't use. £45 each (not Lords prices!). Does anybody want? I haad tickets for Thursday and Friday but can only make Friday now
Root (to paraphrase) "I made a few mistakes tactically, could have managed that a bit differently, I'll learn from that and do better" Yeah right, cos you've clearly learned so much in 4.5 years at the helm. Congrats on your first innings but the rest was piss weak jank. It's not all down to him tho is it? Anderson (heresy alert) bowled really well first innings, first spell excepted when he was too short, too wide just to keep the score down. But 2nd innings he simply wasn't at it. When Shami & Bumrah were in, averaging 11 and 2 let's not forget, all that revenge laden bouncer stuff was pathetic childish and not even very well done; pointless too given the relatively easy pace of the wicket. Best "revenge" is bowling them out with fast straight accurate stuff they're simply not capable of keeping out but y'know Jimmy got a couple of medals so we're gonna be all aggressive and vengeful and that... wankers Jimmy's not the only senior player who got the hell out of Dodge yesterday morning. Bairstow and Buttler have seen and done enough in Test cricket to know they were pissing it away in pitiful fashion. Have they the balls to pull Jimmy and Root together and offer their twopenn'eth? Either they didn't pipe up or JR ain't got the maturity to listen, Jimmy's a grumpy sod at the best of times but when there's a test match to win there can be no sacred cows.
Yesterday ranks right down with the Headingley humiliation to that moderate West Indies side a coupla summers ago. This India side is streets ahead of those WI part-timers and they may have regularly taken wickets in the 80 odd overs they might have had but England ought to have been chasing 180 odd in 2.5 sessions and that should be no cause for alarm.
Talk of lack or preparation is a simplistic red herring. India's squad ain't played any more red ball cricket recently and they're doing OK in unfamiliar conditions to boot. They'd have been much closer to winning the first match if their over rate in the first innings hadn't been so dreadful. The factor most likely to prevent a 3 or 4 nil Indian victory will be the weather. Malan or Pope or Vince might be a tad more robust than Sibley but the rest of this test match summer is gonna be grim viewing
Root (to paraphrase) "I made a few mistakes tactically, could have managed that a bit differently, I'll learn from that and do better" Yeah right, cos you've clearly learned so much in 4.5 years at the helm. Congrats on your first innings but the rest was piss weak jank. It's not all down to him tho is it? Anderson (heresy alert) bowled really well first innings, first spell excepted when he was too short, too wide just to keep the score down. But 2nd innings he simply wasn't at it. When Shami & Bumrah were in, averaging 11 and 2 let's not forget, all that revenge laden bouncer stuff was pathetic childish and not even very well done; pointless too given the relatively easy pace of the wicket. Best "revenge" is bowling them out with fast straight accurate stuff they're simply not capable of keeping out but y'know Jimmy got a couple of medals so we're gonna be all aggressive and vengeful and that... wankers Jimmy's not the only senior player who got the hell out of Dodge yesterday morning. Bairstow and Buttler have seen and done enough in Test cricket to know they were pissing it away in pitiful fashion. Have they the balls to pull Jimmy and Root together and offer their twopenn'eth? Either they didn't pipe up or JR ain't got the maturity to listen, Jimmy's a grumpy sod at the best of times but when there's a test match to win there can be no sacred cows.
Yesterday ranks right down with the Headingley humiliation to that moderate West Indies side a coupla summers ago. This India side is streets ahead of those WI part-timers and they may have regularly taken wickets in the 80 odd overs they might have had but England ought to have been chasing 180 odd in 2.5 sessions and that should be no cause for alarm.
Talk of lack or preparation is a simplistic red herring. India's squad ain't played any more red ball cricket recently and they're doing OK in unfamiliar conditions to boot. They'd have been much closer to winning the first match if their over rate in the first innings hadn't been so dreadful. The factor most likely to prevent a 3 or 4 nil Indian victory will be the weather. Malan or Pope or Vince might be a tad more robust than Sibley but the rest of this test match summer is gonna be grim viewing
Yes, it was baffling what was going in yesterday morning. Whose idea were the tactics, did the other players agree with Root, did the 83 analysts working for England come up with the strategy or try to tell Root to change things during a drinks break or one of the endless breaks between overs teams have? Why didn't Silverwood send out a drink for one of the bowlers with an instruction?
And winding up India in the 3rd innings of a Test match is dubious anyway when we have to go out there and bat again against 4 very good pace bowlers. It's like bouncing Michael Holding, Curtley Ambrose or Waqar Younis and feeling smug about it.
And one look at the England scorecard shows 1 clean bowled, 3 lbws, 3 caught behinds and 2 caught at 1st slip. India may have roughed up the England players and given them the verbals, but the dismissals were from conventional cricket.
As much as I have been critical about the way Malan selfishly plays T20, the fact is that whilst only averaging 27.84 in his previous incarnation as a Test batsman, he did score 383 runs at 42.55 in the 2017/18 Ashes series in Australia which probably makes him, in the land of the blind, king!
I do question the logic of recalling a 33 year old with a test average of 27. Are there literally no decent Englishmen that bat 3?
Difficult to make an argument for anyone when they haven't played red ball for so long. But I think they do have one eye on the Ashes hence the recall of Malan. The other thing is that they probably don't want two relatively unexposed bats in the top three.
I said six months ago that there was no way we could go to Australia with Burns, Sibley and Crawley as our top three. The time to experiment really was at the beginning of the summer.
I do question the logic of recalling a 33 year old with a test average of 27. Are there literally no decent Englishmen that bat 3?
Difficult to make an argument for anyone when they haven't played red ball for so long. But I think they do have one eye on the Ashes hence the recall of Malan. The other thing is that they probably don't want two relatively unexposed bats in the top three.
I said six months ago that there was no way we could go to Australia with Burns, Sibley and Crawley as our top three. The time to experiment really was at the beginning of the summer.
one thing that Malan has which too many younger players lack, is a decent basic technique .. if your basic technique is poor, the painstaking work of video analysts allied to clever bowling will quickly find you out in 'red ball' cricket
Comments
Think Haseeb is worth giving another chance to over Sibley, but then Crawley is woefully.out of form too, who do you pick at 3?
It seems like a quaint old world where red ball cricket continued through the height of the summer, and players could earn Test callups based on their run scoring in the county Championship...
Bit late now though....
They are consistently poor at this level. I'm not sure if the different versions of the game that they all seem to be involved in is screwing them up? Certainly doesn't seem to be helping. They look nowhere near it mentally.
Today reminded me of the dark days of the early to mid nineties. Shocking!
I haad tickets for Thursday and Friday but can only make Friday now
Yeah right, cos you've clearly learned so much in 4.5 years at the helm. Congrats on your first innings but the rest was piss weak jank.
It's not all down to him tho is it?
Anderson (heresy alert) bowled really well first innings, first spell excepted when he was too short, too wide just to keep the score down. But 2nd innings he simply wasn't at it. When Shami & Bumrah were in, averaging 11 and 2 let's not forget, all that revenge laden bouncer stuff was pathetic childish and not even very well done; pointless too given the relatively easy pace of the wicket. Best "revenge" is bowling them out with fast straight accurate stuff they're simply not capable of keeping out but y'know Jimmy got a couple of medals so we're gonna be all aggressive and vengeful and that... wankers
Jimmy's not the only senior player who got the hell out of Dodge yesterday morning. Bairstow and Buttler have seen and done enough in Test cricket to know they were pissing it away in pitiful fashion. Have they the balls to pull Jimmy and Root together and offer their twopenn'eth? Either they didn't pipe up or JR ain't got the maturity to listen, Jimmy's a grumpy sod at the best of times but when there's a test match to win there can be no sacred cows.
Yesterday ranks right down with the Headingley humiliation to that moderate West Indies side a coupla summers ago. This India side is streets ahead of those WI part-timers and they may have regularly taken wickets in the 80 odd overs they might have had but England ought to have been chasing 180 odd in 2.5 sessions and that should be no cause for alarm.
Talk of lack or preparation is a simplistic red herring. India's squad ain't played any more red ball cricket recently and they're doing OK in unfamiliar conditions to boot. They'd have been much closer to winning the first match if their over rate in the first innings hadn't been so dreadful.
The factor most likely to prevent a 3 or 4 nil Indian victory will be the weather. Malan or Pope or Vince might be a tad more robust than Sibley but the rest of this test match summer is gonna be grim viewing
And winding up India in the 3rd innings of a Test match is dubious anyway when we have to go out there and bat again against 4 very good pace bowlers. It's like bouncing Michael Holding, Curtley Ambrose or Waqar Younis and feeling smug about it.
And one look at the England scorecard shows 1 clean bowled, 3 lbws, 3 caught behinds and 2 caught at 1st slip. India may have roughed up the England players and given them the verbals, but the dismissals were from conventional cricket.
Mark Stoneman has joined Middlesex on a 3 year deal. Yet another of the top three England have tried (and rejected) in recent years
Not something I thought I would be saying a few weeks ago.
I said six months ago that there was no way we could go to Australia with Burns, Sibley and Crawley as our top three. The time to experiment really was at the beginning of the summer.