They looked like they were in a rush to get home. No chance of them ever playing for pride.
You can sympathise with the players wanting to get away as soon as possible because this tour has been a shambles from start to finish but some of those latter wickets today were an absolute disgrace. It was almost like they were deliberately getting dismissed to wrap the game up tonight and get home early which is an absolutely appalling attitude.
Perhaps they were hoping to share a flight with Novak Djokovic
I wrote a recently about comments concerning the height of the stumps, especially in Australia .. the idea being that the bounce from the pitches made hitting the stumps very difficult .. NOT for the Aussies in England's second Hobart innings though, .. six England batsmen were bowled, including Root who was bowled by a grass trimmer that was so low it almost was a root .. Perhaps England will start a petition to make the stumps lower and thinner as well as to blindfold the keeper, slips and gully fielders
England's tour ended as it started, complete disaster .. the reasons why and potential improvements have been well aired on here .. how many changes will be made before the Windies trip I wonder .. I won't hold my breath
Easily the worst England side I have seen since at least the 90’s. The very sad thing is there is little hope for any improvement in the near or even longer future with the contempt shown by the ECB to the longer form of the game.
Don’t worry, we will improve. By sending our players to go play in other country’s longer format competitions. That’s what Harrison says.
Sort of alright in theory. Only a couple of problems: which Sheffield Shield side (there are only 6) is sufficiently hard up for red ball cricketers that they're going to be recruiting any northern hemisphere players? Which English county players are likely to be good enough to even be considered worthy of a place? Scott Boland is a fair measure of the standard of Shield cricketer. Does nothing exceptional with the cricket ball, he just does good things with it, at a reasonable pace and does it over and over again, for 8, 10 overs at a time - not curling out magic balls or launching 90mpg+ bombs. Incidentally, he's now the most sought after overseas bowler among the English counties.
Well if one thing is clear from this tour, we have to build around Bairstow’s batting yeah?
To be fair, if Bairstow at the moment looks a lot better Test player than Pope, whose technique has done completely awry
Sadly I have to agree with you regarding Pope. I still believe he will go on to have a long and successful career with England. But on this tour he has looked absolutely shot. Go back to Surrey and regain his form and confidence hopefully because at the moment he has neither.
Well if one thing is clear from this tour, we have to build around Bairstow’s batting yeah?
To be fair, if Bairstow at the moment looks a lot better Test player than Pope, whose technique has done completely awry
Sadly I have to agree with you regarding Pope. I still believe he will go on to have a long and successful career with England. But on this tour he has looked absolutely shot. Go back to Surrey and regain his form and confidence hopefully because at the moment he has neither.
Cook and Butcher hit the nail on the head. Why is he taking an off stump guard like so many youngsters are being encouraged to do? Allegedly because you know that the ball outside your eye line is a "leave" but it brings all sorts of implications with it. White ball and playing on a road like The Oval makes it almost understandable but against anywhere that the ball is doing anything, he will be LBW or bowled if and when he misses a straight one trying to work it to leg
Well if one thing is clear from this tour, we have to build around Bairstow’s batting yeah?
To be fair, if Bairstow at the moment looks a lot better Test player than Pope, whose technique has done completely awry
Sadly I have to agree with you regarding Pope. I still believe he will go on to have a long and successful career with England. But on this tour he has looked absolutely shot. Go back to Surrey and regain his form and confidence hopefully because at the moment he has neither.
Cook and Butcher hit the nail on the head. Why is he taking an off stump guard like so many youngsters are being encouraged to do? Allegedly because you know that the ball outside your eye line is a "leave" but it brings all sorts of implications with it. White ball and playing on a road like The Oval makes it almost understandable but against anywhere that the ball is doing anything, he will be LBW or bowled if and when he misses a straight one trying to work it to leg
Still vulnerable outside the off side and also vulnerable to being bowled behind his legs
Well if one thing is clear from this tour, we have to build around Bairstow’s batting yeah?
To be fair, if Bairstow at the moment looks a lot better Test player than Pope, whose technique has done completely awry
Sadly I have to agree with you regarding Pope. I still believe he will go on to have a long and successful career with England. But on this tour he has looked absolutely shot. Go back to Surrey and regain his form and confidence hopefully because at the moment he has neither.
Cook and Butcher hit the nail on the head. Why is he taking an off stump guard like so many youngsters are being encouraged to do? Allegedly because you know that the ball outside your eye line is a "leave" but it brings all sorts of implications with it. White ball and playing on a road like The Oval makes it almost understandable but against anywhere that the ball is doing anything, he will be LBW or bowled if and when he misses a straight one trying to work it to leg
Still vulnerable outside the off side and also vulnerable to being bowled behind his legs
When did he start playing this way?
I don't know but Hameed did the same thing at Lancs but when he went to Notts, Moores got him to go back to taking middle. Which worked for a while. Hameed's issue seems to be his low hands on bouncy tracks coupled with a distinct lack of confidence and self belief. He never goes out and looks as if he's ready to assert himself whereas Crawley does. And Crawley's issue is one that playing white ball causes which is playing too much through mid wicket when hitting it down the ground with the full face of the bat showing is a far safer option.
Technical issues such as these make it so difficult to understand how these batsmen get as far as they do in the game. Ramprakash summed it up when he talked about Buttler:
In that net session, I suggested I should throw him a few balls and he should play each ball on its merits. He seemed to not quite understand that concept. It led me to think there is so much premeditation in one-day cricket that some players who come through and excel in that format never adapt to the ebb and flow of Test cricket.
Well if one thing is clear from this tour, we have to build around Bairstow’s batting yeah?
To be fair, if Bairstow at the moment looks a lot better Test player than Pope, whose technique has done completely awry
Sadly I have to agree with you regarding Pope. I still believe he will go on to have a long and successful career with England. But on this tour he has looked absolutely shot. Go back to Surrey and regain his form and confidence hopefully because at the moment he has neither.
Cook and Butcher hit the nail on the head. Why is he taking an off stump guard like so many youngsters are being encouraged to do? Allegedly because you know that the ball outside your eye line is a "leave" but it brings all sorts of implications with it. White ball and playing on a road like The Oval makes it almost understandable but against anywhere that the ball is doing anything, he will be LBW or bowled if and when he misses a straight one trying to work it to leg
I don’t think it’s too much of an issue if you take off and stay there. Or if you take middle and have a trigger that takes you into line with off stump.That puts your eye in line of off stump and enables you to leave anything outside the eye line. It will restrict some scoring shots , but if you leave them in the locker you should be ok. Smith and Marnus do this pretty well.
If you watch our guys they appear to be taking off and then moving outside the off stump, leaving the stumps completely exposed which sort of defeats the object.
Can’t believe this is game on England odds on in this test for first time on tour ….
my 3-1 series prediction is back on !!!
Did you have money on it?
Nah , I gave up gambling years back , I’m 100% the worst in the world .
Did anyone have 4-0?
I would have bet on 4-0, as I had no confidence in an undercooked and struggling England side who've been rubbish since spring 2021, but thought the rain would have helped us somewhere to save a game
Well if one thing is clear from this tour, we have to build around Bairstow’s batting yeah?
To be fair, if Bairstow at the moment looks a lot better Test player than Pope, whose technique has done completely awry
Sadly I have to agree with you regarding Pope. I still believe he will go on to have a long and successful career with England. But on this tour he has looked absolutely shot. Go back to Surrey and regain his form and confidence hopefully because at the moment he has neither.
Cook and Butcher hit the nail on the head. Why is he taking an off stump guard like so many youngsters are being encouraged to do? Allegedly because you know that the ball outside your eye line is a "leave" but it brings all sorts of implications with it. White ball and playing on a road like The Oval makes it almost understandable but against anywhere that the ball is doing anything, he will be LBW or bowled if and when he misses a straight one trying to work it to leg
I don’t think it’s too much of an issue if you take off and stay there. Or if you take middle and have a trigger that takes you into line with off stump.That puts your eye in line of off stump and enables you to leave anything outside the eye line. It will restrict some scoring shots , but if you leave them in the locker you should be ok. Smith and Marnus do this pretty well.
If you watch our guys they appear to be taking off and then moving outside the off stump, leaving the stumps completely exposed which sort of defeats the object.
Point taken and I think you are right so far as the trigger taking them too far. My son triggers to take himself on middle but his issue, occasionally, is that he allows his head to go too far outside the line of the off stump so ends up playing across his pads. At least he is aware of this and touch wood it will become as thing of the past
As you say their two top bats cover all three but even they have issues sometimes as per Labushagne's dismissal in this Test. The other thing we probably have to remember about those two is how much effort they put into honing that skill. They both, by all accounts, even do it in the corridors of the hotels they stay in as well as shadow batting in front of the mirrors in their rooms!
Meanwhile our white ball teams continue to thrive. The U19s have bowled Bangladesh out for 97. Though even they are fallible given that they had the opposition 51-9. The number 11 was top scorer with 33 not out!!!
Said it before, will say it again....ECB is chasing the £'s with the increase in white ball cricket and the effective downgrading of 4 day cricket, which has been pushed to the extremes of the English season....May and September. The ludicrous 100 series needs to be scrapped and focus should be placed of 4 day cricket, so our players can hone their skills, I fear without a change of focus and test win (just a match) in Aussie is many light years away!!
I reckon Silverwood will get the boot, but England's problems in test cricket run far deeper than that.
Big changes are needed in the county game if we want to be a successful test side. Sadly, I think the ECB are too obsessed with the limited overs formats to do anything about the test side
I reckon Silverwood will get the boot, but England's problems in test cricket run far deeper than that.
Big changes are needed in the county game if we want to be a successful test side. Sadly, I think the ECB are too obsessed with the limited overs formats to do anything about the test side
Root wants Siverwood to stay .. probably cos Sillywood does everything Root tells him to do
Can’t believe this is game on England odds on in this test for first time on tour ….
my 3-1 series prediction is back on !!!
Did you have money on it?
Nah , I gave up gambling years back , I’m 100% the worst in the world .
Did anyone have 4-0?
I did, both with Betfair and a mate who has tried to welch this morning. I saw weather helping us out at some point.
If my heart had ruled my head I'd have gone 3-1 but the moment Broad and Anderson were left out of that first test which was the only one I thought we had a chance to win without rain helping us I gave that up
Ian Botham had it right when he spoke to David Gower earlier, play red ball throughout the season rather than squishing it in.
White ball, specifically T20 is fun but is like a demo that gets people to buy the game. Its accessible and enables lads and families who don't really care for cricket to have a reason to go to St Lawrence and see some wild thrashing but test cricket is the antidote to that, for a few years England were bringing batsmen in (Pieterson primarily) who were playing one day shots in tests and seeing McGrath get smacked for six at Old Trafford was a glorious thing however the game in England is now dominated with these players who can clonk it but can't take a guard properly, understand how to see when a trap is being set by someone like Starc, no concept of protecting a wicket and worryingly how often did any of them go full one day mode and try to counter attack apart from Bairstow and maybe for a short time Stokes?
If I were Chris Silverwood I'd be trawling the South African academies again
I reckon Silverwood will get the boot, but England's problems in test cricket run far deeper than that.
Big changes are needed in the county game if we want to be a successful test side. Sadly, I think the ECB are too obsessed with the limited overs formats to do anything about the test side
Root wants Siverwood to stay .. probably cos Sillywood does everything Root tells him to do
A bizarre decision by Giles to make Silverwood all powerful instead of having separate selectors and coach. The coach should be someone you approach when you have problems, not the person who may then drop you from the squad next week.
Can’t believe this is game on England odds on in this test for first time on tour ….
my 3-1 series prediction is back on !!!
Did you have money on it?
Nah , I gave up gambling years back , I’m 100% the worst in the world .
Did anyone have 4-0?
I did, both with Betfair and a mate who has tried to welch this morning. I saw weather helping us out at some point.
If my heart had ruled my head I'd have gone 3-1 but the moment Broad and Anderson were left out of that first test which was the only one I thought we had a chance to win without rain helping us I gave that up
Ian Botham had it right when he spoke to David Gower earlier, play red ball throughout the season rather than squishing it in.
White ball, specifically T20 is fun but is like a demo that gets people to buy the game. Its accessible and enables lads and families who don't really care for cricket to have a reason to go to St Lawrence and see some wild thrashing but test cricket is the antidote to that, for a few years England were bringing batsmen in (Pieterson primarily) who were playing one day shots in tests and seeing McGrath get smacked for six at Old Trafford was a glorious thing however the game in England is now dominated with these players who can clonk it but can't take a guard properly, understand how to see when a trap is being set by someone like Starc, no concept of protecting a wicket and worryingly how often did any of them go full one day mode and try to counter attack apart from Bairstow and maybe for a short time Stokes?
If I were Chris Silverwood I'd be trawling the South African academies again
I think T20 has it's place, its still the Hundred that is the problem, no need to introduce it as well as the T20. Both are not needed and the T20 is so much better than the doctored cricket that is the Hundred
I reckon Silverwood will get the boot, but England's problems in test cricket run far deeper than that.
Big changes are needed in the county game if we want to be a successful test side. Sadly, I think the ECB are too obsessed with the limited overs formats to do anything about the test side
Root wants Siverwood to stay .. probably cos Sillywood does everything Root tells him to do
If that’s the case, they should both go.
Can't see an alternative to Root. But some of his captaincy decisions/tactics and is a bit odd maybe he could do with being able to concentrate on his own form?
I can't see him being a good enough red ball batsman to be a long term player in the side BUT if Billings keeps his place in the side for West Indies series, does well and becomes established as England's Test keeper, he would be in a good position to take over as captain, seeing that he actually is a current county captain, speaks well and has less of the baggage of Stokes
Comments
Perhaps England will start a petition to make the stumps lower and thinner as well as to blindfold the keeper, slips and gully fielders
England's tour ended as it started, complete disaster .. the reasons why and potential improvements have been well aired on here .. how many changes will be made before the Windies trip I wonder .. I won't hold my breath
Only a couple of problems: which Sheffield Shield side (there are only 6) is sufficiently hard up for red ball cricketers that they're going to be recruiting any northern hemisphere players? Which English county players are likely to be good enough to even be considered worthy of a place?
Scott Boland is a fair measure of the standard of Shield cricketer. Does nothing exceptional with the cricket ball, he just does good things with it, at a reasonable pace and does it over and over again, for 8, 10 overs at a time - not curling out magic balls or launching 90mpg+ bombs. Incidentally, he's now the most sought after overseas bowler among the English counties.
Kent Rules OK.
I still believe he will go on to have a long and successful career with England.
But on this tour he has looked absolutely shot.
Go back to Surrey and regain his form and confidence hopefully because at the moment he has neither.
When did he start playing this way?
Frightening really......
Technical issues such as these make it so difficult to understand how these batsmen get as far as they do in the game. Ramprakash summed it up when he talked about Buttler:
In that net session, I suggested I should throw him a few balls and he should play each ball on its merits. He seemed to not quite understand that concept. It led me to think there is so much premeditation in one-day cricket that some players who come through and excel in that format never adapt to the ebb and flow of Test cricket.
Did anyone have 4-0?
As you say their two top bats cover all three but even they have issues sometimes as per Labushagne's dismissal in this Test. The other thing we probably have to remember about those two is how much effort they put into honing that skill. They both, by all accounts, even do it in the corridors of the hotels they stay in as well as shadow batting in front of the mirrors in their rooms!
England's problems in test cricket run far deeper than that.
Big changes are needed in the county game if we want to be a successful test side. Sadly, I think the ECB are too obsessed with the limited overs formats to do anything about the test side
If my heart had ruled my head I'd have gone 3-1 but the moment Broad and Anderson were left out of that first test which was the only one I thought we had a chance to win without rain helping us I gave that up
Ian Botham had it right when he spoke to David Gower earlier, play red ball throughout the season rather than squishing it in.
White ball, specifically T20 is fun but is like a demo that gets people to buy the game. Its accessible and enables lads and families who don't really care for cricket to have a reason to go to St Lawrence and see some wild thrashing but test cricket is the antidote to that, for a few years England were bringing batsmen in (Pieterson primarily) who were playing one day shots in tests and seeing McGrath get smacked for six at Old Trafford was a glorious thing however the game in England is now dominated with these players who can clonk it but can't take a guard properly, understand how to see when a trap is being set by someone like Starc, no concept of protecting a wicket and worryingly how often did any of them go full one day mode and try to counter attack apart from Bairstow and maybe for a short time Stokes?
If I were Chris Silverwood I'd be trawling the South African academies again