The Cricket Thread

[SargeantMeatCurtains]

Dawid Malan now gone and I should hope that that's his final contribution in an England shirt. He isn't good enough and never has been.

England's middle order is a huge, huge problem. Stokes, Bairstow and Buttler need to score 250 runs here for England to stand any chance.

To have India 100-5 to now being 70-4 with only a 83 run lead is disgraceful.

 

[SargeantMeatCurtains]

The dismissals are so disgraceful, man. Remind me again who the home team is here? We're being undone by our own tactics ffs.

 

[Spurs_Bear]

My word...even by our standards this is pish.

 

[SargeantMeatCurtains]

There needs to be huge, huge changes to this team.

Trevor Bayliss needs to go now, not at the end of his contract, now. He should've gone a year ago.

Joe Root needs to be stripped of the captaincy. He isn't a leader, he's just a very good batsmen.

A decision needs to be made on Cook.

Haseeb Hameed needs to return to the test side. We need an opener who will only stubbornly play at bad balls. I'm sick to death of watching players lose their wickets in idiotic fashion by reaching at balls nowhere near their bodies.

Failing Hameed, promote Bairstow to open.

Stuart Broad needs to go. His amazing spells are growing more and more few and far between and when he's out of form, he's absolute dog shit.

I'd love to see Ollie Pope be given a chance too. He looks excellent.

 

[mpickard2087]

I'm not even sure there are solutions to this, any ones that there possibly are (things I've mentioned before many times, so wont again) would require a long-term plan and development, and putting the red ball game ahead of the money/white ball stuff for a change, and so would be shied away from. I expect the ECB/powers that be to just go for the easy option - they'll probably just go to the likes of Morgan/Roy/Hales etc, try to hit the ball harder and attack even more, and probably push for 4 day matches which just have one innings each day where teams just have a dash - and give up on attempting proper test cricket altogether.

Whatever happens in the rest of this match, whether there is a miracle or the expected, this is just shit. And it's the same mistakes most of the time.

A start would be removing coach and captain, but if they're serious about red ball cricket they have to tackle the issues.

 

[SargeantMeatCurtains]

I think we just need to accept that our golden age in cricket has come and gone. Were no longer the best and i'd argue that were currently outside of the top 5 in the world. India, Pakistan, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia are all arguably better than us right now.

It's never going to happen, but the team i'd personally like to see in the future is:
Cook, Hameed, Root, Bairstow (c), Stokes, Morgan, Pope, Curran, Rashid, Woakes, Anderson.

God forbid what we'll do when Anderson retires. I hope Jamie Porter gets given a chance soon.

 

[SargeantMeatCurtains]

Buttler gone reaching for one nowhere near him lmfao

 

[nattydredd]

I joked to myself at 10.00am that this match could be all over today...at this rate it's gonna be over by tea.

This "effort" by our batsmen is totally unacceptable. One more game with this lot to redeem themselves, and if that fails..roll some heads.

 

[bc205]

 

[SargeantMeatCurtains]

Had we caught Kohli on 21, our lead would now be 234 and we’d likely win this game.

 

[mpickard2087]

Here are a couple of thoughts, brace yourselves......

Root is a No.5 batsman. Wonderful talent, but hasn't got the temperament to bat a whole day and grind the opposition into the dust and anchor an innings. Needs four hardnosed batsmen at the top of the order who can grind (but that opens another can of worms, where are they?).

To further my never ending belief that the one day and test stuff should be separate as possible, Bairstow's test batting has got much worse since he got into the one day team.

Buttler is our star white ball player. Just let him focus on that and smashing the ball out of stadiums FFS. He has no idea what he is doing in test cricket, even lower in the order, and how to construct innings.

People like Stokes and Broad (and it has to be said, increasingly, Cook), and their inconsistency, need to stop being indulged. Turning up for a session or two a series isn't what senior players do.

(Cue last innings heroics that make me look silly hopefully........)

Oh, and the media piss me off more and more - both BBC and SKY. There are a rare few that will call out this mediocrity, may even stick the boot in themselves when it's so obviously been crap, but most of them are just arse lickers and try to be best mates with the team and are offering no forensic analysis - downplay the crap, and then overblowing the win/performance when we do steamroller someone in home conditions.

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

We've somehow regressed into 1980's England. It'll all click in the occasional test match but that's about it.

The collapsables by Pixar, coming soon to a cricket ground near you.

 

[stonecolddeanaustin]

Well I'm going to go against the grain and say I think this game is a long way from being over. 150 could be enough based on what I was watching in the half hour before lunch.

 

[southlondonyiddo]

Our Test side has been on the slide for a long time now

How Root ever got the gig in the first place amazes me. Almost makes Corbyn look like a leader of men! Its not as if hes got a brilliant cricketing brain. Should be just concentrating on batting and for me your best bat bats at no4.

If none of the 'guaranteed' starters has what it takes to skipper this side then bring in the best combo of player & county captain there is and give him the job

Bayliss has done a great job with the one day sides but for Test Cricket he should have gone ages ago. Far too comfortable and comes out with the same old rubbish after every win or defeat

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

TBF if we'd held our catches we would probably be in a great position to win. But we didn't and we can't score runs. One partnership in two innings. Root shone brightly for a short while after being made captain but he's not been the same for quite a while and I've never been a fan of his style of captaincy. But it's too hot to think of how we go forward, if indeed there is a way.

I think the best thing that can happen right now is for Habeeb to start scoring some runs.

 

[mpickard2087]

Well I'm going to go against the grain and say I think this game is a long way from being over. 150 could be enough based on what I was watching in the half hour before lunch.

I hope we do manage to turn it around, these two are fighting as I type..... But Jimmy and the bowlers have been bailing us out for years now and worked miracles. It just papers over the cracks, particularly on the batting side - we see this on away tours where we are lucky to even win a game.

I think the standards of Test Cricket nowadays across the board are mediocre, which keeps us competitive, but England do a great job of representing that mediocrity.

 

[stonecolddeanaustin]

I hope we do manage to turn it around, these two are fighting as I type..... But Jimmy and the bowlers have been bailing us out for years now and worked miracles. It just papers over the cracks, particularly on the batting side - we see this on away tours where we are lucky to even win a game.

I think the standards of Test Cricket nowadays across the board are mediocre, which keeps us competitive, but England do a great job of representing that mediocrity.

Yeah, the art of test cricket, in particular being able to dig in when it really matters has gone. T-20 and the money involved in that has seen to that and similarly seen to the death of the great bowlers. Who wants to be a bowler now when the most important version of the sport (financially at least) makes up its own rules to encourage the bowler being smacked around the park.

Anyway, this is for another conversation entirely. I still think we're in with a good chance here. We're not the only team in test cricket that can't face up to adversity anymore.

 

[SargeantMeatCurtains]

Taking the players off for bad light when we’re in the midst of a heat wave.

Just so happens to be at a time where our tail Enders have their eyes in and the Indian bowling attack is in need of a break.

I smell a conspiracy

 

[southlondonyiddo]

Ashwin bowling too quick!!!!

Bad light stopped play lol

Couldn’t make it up

 

[Anurag Jo]

England have got a player in Sam Curran.