Cricket
#361
Re: Cricket
Ok... So let's be a little controversial.
England deserved to have lost and should have. Why?
Because, in rugby,and any number of other 'team' games, there are 'specialists' whose job it is to perform specialised tasks.
We don't expect goalkeepers in soccer to bound up the field to score the winning goal. They could but that isn't what they're there for.
So when Stokes, rated as an all rounder, has to do the business because those whose job it was to secure victory failed so emphatically demonstrates what a shambles of a batting lineup the england squad has.
It's long past time that england selectors sacked themselves en masse and made way for others who might, just might, be able to do a better job in picking the very best because it's about time that doing their job was put before choosing what wine to drink with lunch.
But they'll get in yet another case of bubbly, lauding Stokes, and his equally laudable tail end partners, as part of their plan all along and give themselves a collective pat on the back saying 'Didn't we do a good job picking Stokes' instead of 'Who picked these wastes of space we put into bat first?'.
England deserved to have lost and should have. Why?
Because, in rugby,and any number of other 'team' games, there are 'specialists' whose job it is to perform specialised tasks.
We don't expect goalkeepers in soccer to bound up the field to score the winning goal. They could but that isn't what they're there for.
So when Stokes, rated as an all rounder, has to do the business because those whose job it was to secure victory failed so emphatically demonstrates what a shambles of a batting lineup the england squad has.
It's long past time that england selectors sacked themselves en masse and made way for others who might, just might, be able to do a better job in picking the very best because it's about time that doing their job was put before choosing what wine to drink with lunch.
But they'll get in yet another case of bubbly, lauding Stokes, and his equally laudable tail end partners, as part of their plan all along and give themselves a collective pat on the back saying 'Didn't we do a good job picking Stokes' instead of 'Who picked these wastes of space we put into bat first?'.
Are there better batsman out there than what is picked? If so then who are they?
#362
Re: Cricket
Wow! Did you see that this morning Oink? Not the shite Spurs performance but Stokesy before it?
I wasn't a fan of DAZN but now I have test cricket again I'm warming up to it.
That Ben Stokes performance was the finest by an England player in my 31 years of watching Cricket. England's best win since 2005.
I couldn't believe how quickly Stokesy rattled off the last 70 odd runs either. What a player and what a performance!
Check out Stokes' reverse sweep 6 at 3mins17secs!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrIe...0RmUD8KPVPGyXk
I wasn't a fan of DAZN but now I have test cricket again I'm warming up to it.
That Ben Stokes performance was the finest by an England player in my 31 years of watching Cricket. England's best win since 2005.
I couldn't believe how quickly Stokesy rattled off the last 70 odd runs either. What a player and what a performance!
Check out Stokes' reverse sweep 6 at 3mins17secs!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrIe...0RmUD8KPVPGyXk
#363
Re: Cricket
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results, and it applies to selectors as much as to wine drinkers.
How do you know whether there are better players on the test match stage if you don't give them a go.
All out for 67 speaks for itself.
#365
Re: Cricket
Of course, Tavaré wouldn't get in to the side today. The growth of the limited overs game and the slogfest of T20 mean that his style of quietly determined blocking has fallen completely out of favour. Few Test matches now last to stumps on day 4 unless the weather intervenes. Call me old-fashoined, but I can't help feeling the loss of the attritional, almost chess-like, defensive battles between batsman and bowler have diminished the 5-day game.
#366
Re: Cricket
I haven't a clue who's out there... but there's that niggle that pokes me in the ribs at night when for the umpteenth time I've told myself not to have drunk that last glass of wine.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results, and it applies to selectors as much as to wine drinkers.
How do you know whether there are better players on the test match stage if you don't give them a go.
All out for 67 speaks for itself.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results, and it applies to selectors as much as to wine drinkers.
How do you know whether there are better players on the test match stage if you don't give them a go.
All out for 67 speaks for itself.
We should sort out the batting order for a start, and play Roy down the order, move Denly to open & let Root bat at 4.
Stokes scoring a ton is not a surprise, his technique is up there with Root & far superior to a lot of the specialist bats. The fact he is asked to bowl forces him down the order to have a rest
#367
Re: Cricket
Yes, why? You'd have more of a case if you'd mentioned the review that Australia wasted on an obvious 'not out' and then couldn't use one when it was more important.
But that really makes no sense. In football it's the attackers job to score goals and the defenders job to defend them.
Did the fact that Mane failed to score for Liverpool at the weekend while centre back Matip did mean that Liverpool's strikers are a shambles? And the same for Arsenal with shambolic forwards failing to score while a defensive player did?
And in this particular match in which the earlier batsmen failed, two of them scored 77 and 50 while for Australia, two of theirs only scored 8 each in the first innings and the first two only got 19 and 0 in the second innings. It seems that opening or specialist batsmen for both teams didn't do very well.
The informed narrative part way through this match was that there were no better batsmen to choose from because, and not for the first time, focus has been on the limited overs game for which a different style is necessitated.
Because, in rugby,and any number of other 'team' games, there are 'specialists' whose job it is to perform specialised tasks.
We don't expect goalkeepers in soccer to bound up the field to score the winning goal. They could but that isn't what they're there for.
So when Stokes, rated as an all rounder, has to do the business because those whose job it was to secure victory failed so emphatically demonstrates what a shambles of a batting lineup the england squad has.
We don't expect goalkeepers in soccer to bound up the field to score the winning goal. They could but that isn't what they're there for.
So when Stokes, rated as an all rounder, has to do the business because those whose job it was to secure victory failed so emphatically demonstrates what a shambles of a batting lineup the england squad has.
Did the fact that Mane failed to score for Liverpool at the weekend while centre back Matip did mean that Liverpool's strikers are a shambles? And the same for Arsenal with shambolic forwards failing to score while a defensive player did?
And in this particular match in which the earlier batsmen failed, two of them scored 77 and 50 while for Australia, two of theirs only scored 8 each in the first innings and the first two only got 19 and 0 in the second innings. It seems that opening or specialist batsmen for both teams didn't do very well.
It's long past time that england selectors sacked themselves en masse and made way for others who might, just might, be able to do a better job in picking the very best because it's about time that doing their job was put before choosing what wine to drink with lunch.
#368
Re: Cricket
Surely the primary task of batsmen is to ensure that they simply don't throw the game away and that they have the secondary task of racking up runs to ensure a win if at all possible.
I think that this policy has escaped those devising strategy and simply gambling the game away in an attempt to score runs as quickly as possible surely makes an inevitability of what we witnessed early on in the last test.
I might not know much about test cricket but I recognise that test cricket is a different game than the 1 day knockabout and players should be selected on that basis.
#369
#370
Re: Cricket
#371
Re: Cricket
I make no pretense to knowing much about cricket but, like the local GP who can't quite pick a good diagnosis, I can recognise symptoms of a problem and it's plain in this case that a score of 67 betrays a lack of appreciation and technique. You might have thought that having lost the first 2 wickets for 10, and a 3rd for 20 then subsequent batsmen would have sought to halt the slide. Either this wasn't appreciated or the skill level's too low. .
But having lost the first 2 wickets for 10, then 20, then 34, 45 etc those same players in the second innings, having lost 2 wickets cheaply again - 15 runs - then added 126 runs, 18 and 86. They did exactly what you said they failed to do.
And in the first test, having lost the fifrst wicket cheaply, they then added 132
It's not like what your describing is unique to one team either. Apparently there have been over 50 test innings scoring fewer than England.
You can't just dismiss everything on one performance. Yes, 67 is poor. But the same 11 then got 362 and they did that when the pressure was really on. In the shambolic innings of 67 there were 10 players who failed to get to double figures. 8 Australians also failed to do that.
Sometimes things just go wrong.
#372
Re: Cricket
Or the opposition bowling was actually rather good. You know, it's what they're for.
But having lost the first 2 wickets for 10, then 20, then 34, 45 etc those same players in the second innings, having lost 2 wickets cheaply again - 15 runs - then added 126 runs, 18 and 86. They did exactly what you said they failed to do.
And in the first test, having lost the fifrst wicket cheaply, they then added 132
It's not like what your describing is unique to one team either. Apparently there have been over 50 test innings scoring fewer than England.
You can't just dismiss everything on one performance. Yes, 67 is poor. But the same 11 then got 362 and they did that when the pressure was really on. In the shambolic innings of 67 there were 10 players who failed to get to double figures. 8 Australians also failed to do that.
Sometimes things just go wrong.
But having lost the first 2 wickets for 10, then 20, then 34, 45 etc those same players in the second innings, having lost 2 wickets cheaply again - 15 runs - then added 126 runs, 18 and 86. They did exactly what you said they failed to do.
And in the first test, having lost the fifrst wicket cheaply, they then added 132
It's not like what your describing is unique to one team either. Apparently there have been over 50 test innings scoring fewer than England.
You can't just dismiss everything on one performance. Yes, 67 is poor. But the same 11 then got 362 and they did that when the pressure was really on. In the shambolic innings of 67 there were 10 players who failed to get to double figures. 8 Australians also failed to do that.
Sometimes things just go wrong.
I also agree that sometimes the bowlers perform well and batsmen badly, but is that a good enough excuse for a poor performance?
World champions perform consistently well. They arrange their lives to ensure that this will be the case. I wonder to what extent the social aspects of cricket interfere with performance.
I strongly suspect that other countries probably suffer the same malaise.
Has cricket become a too comfortable way of life? If so, beware the lean, hungry and dedicated also-rans who've been derided until now, if that is they'll be let into the club.
#374
Re: Cricket
Excellent photo. A quick Google brings up the Getty library source with a caption listing the England team celebrating Underwood's dismissal of John Inverarity at The Oval in 1968. From L to R: Illingworth, Graveney, Edrich, Dexter, Cowdrey, Underwood, Knott, Snow, Brown, Milburn and D'Oliveira.
I'm trying to work out where they were all fielding. It's a bit hard to work out because of the foreshortening from that camera angle. Inverarity, Wikipedia tells me, was a right-hand bat but left-arm-orthodox bowler. So Underwood has been bowling left-arm round the wicket into the sticky rough stuff in front of leg stump. Illingworth is standing in the gully, Graveney and Cowdrey at slip (3 and 1, I'd guess), Edrich at silly point, Dexter at short extra cover or possibly silly mid-off; the on-side field is a little more difficult to decipher. Snow as silly mid-on, Brown at short leg, Milburn at backward short leg and d'Oliveira at leg gully in for the wrong'un? I can't imagine a Test today where you'd have all 9 fielders that close around the bat, and only two in front of square. It was really a very different game back then.
I'm trying to work out where they were all fielding. It's a bit hard to work out because of the foreshortening from that camera angle. Inverarity, Wikipedia tells me, was a right-hand bat but left-arm-orthodox bowler. So Underwood has been bowling left-arm round the wicket into the sticky rough stuff in front of leg stump. Illingworth is standing in the gully, Graveney and Cowdrey at slip (3 and 1, I'd guess), Edrich at silly point, Dexter at short extra cover or possibly silly mid-off; the on-side field is a little more difficult to decipher. Snow as silly mid-on, Brown at short leg, Milburn at backward short leg and d'Oliveira at leg gully in for the wrong'un? I can't imagine a Test today where you'd have all 9 fielders that close around the bat, and only two in front of square. It was really a very different game back then.