Cricket

[TheGayTent]

Ashes tickets sorted, train tickets booked today, and the convicts are in disarray.

Looking forward to the summer

[abdoujaparov]

Ashes tickets sorted, train tickets booked today, and the convicts are in disarray.

Looking forward to the summer

Which test you goin to?

[TheGayTent]

Trent Bridge

[abdoujaparov]

Trent Bridge

Me too. On the Saturday.

[TheGayTent]

Friday for me

[Gre]

I'm going to Lords on Saturday, my first time there for cricket. Judging by today, it might be more entertaining watching the rain

[TheGayTent]

I'm going to Lords on Saturday, my first time there for cricket. Judging by today, it might be more entertaining watching the rain

What have you been there for before? The archery?

[kaosmark2]

Had it on for the day, and the thing that really struck me was how slow the outfield was. Probably a bit exaggerated by the fact the last cricket I watched was NZ's pacey short boundaries, but so many balls seemed to fly off the bat but slow down incredibly. If those had been boundaries I wonder how people would be feeling about both the excitement and the scoreline.

Bell and Compton were both seriously stupid though. Idiotic moments happen, but Compton looked like he'd premeditated smacking the spinner first ball for a week.

Bell annoyed me more though. Not for his wicket so much as how much he let himself get bogged down until then. There was no effort to try and work a single off average balls to try and get the scoreboard flowing again like Root was doing and Trott had been. He either went for boundary-shots (which often ended up as 2s), or blocked. Obv. in Test cricket you don't go for singles that are barely there like in limited overs, but he should have tried to do something to escape the dot-ball pressure.

[TheGayTent]

Agree with some of that but don't think you're giving the NZ attack enough (any!) credit. Boult bowled beautifully, Martin was very economical, and they worked very well as a unit. Tying the batsmen down, not letting them score, and ultimately frustrating the England batsmen into losing concentration.

[kaosmark2]

Agree with some of that but don't think you're giving the NZ attack enough (any!) credit. Boult bowled beautifully, Martin was very economical, and they worked very well as a unit. Tying the batsmen down, not letting them score, and ultimately frustrating the England batsmen into losing concentration.

Yeah, I should have made clear in my post that NZ built the pressure on the England batsmen. I still think Bell could have done more to try and work his way out of it, but Boult was fantastic. I still don't rate Southee mind, he worked well in tandem with the other bowlers but he never looked threatening to me.

Martin in general was excellent, but his economy was boosted by the slow outfield meaning his bad balls were a lot harder to punish. Both in terms of racing away for 4, and because of the slow outfield McCullum could have a tighter field to choke the 1s and 2s more. Excellent captaincy.

[TheGayTent]

Need the tail to wag now...

[lharris92]

catch up on today's score and my god shawking

[TheGayTent]

Hat off to Jimmy - not many have taken 300 wickets for England.

[kaosmark2]

Credit to NZ, their bowlers have pitched it fuller and taken better advantage of the conditions, and Ross Taylor was far better at looking for gaps than our batsmen were.

Brilliant by Jimmy though, you don't get to 300 by relaxing and congratulating yourself after passing milestones and he continued to be fantastic right through the day.

[Gre]

What have you been there for before? The archery?

Yep! Looking forward to tomorrow, hope the weather holds and that I get to see both sides bat. The game is very much in the balance.

[lharris92]

top quality bowling after the match was in the balance.

[lharris92]

strange to bat so long, really thought we were going to make them follow on.

anyway lets hope they can get them all out before the weather catches up with the game.

[kaosmark2]

I think batting again was the right decision. Consider Swann's success and it's worth getting more footholds, worth giving the top order another chance to find form (which Cook and Trott did), and if it were the last test against the Aussies we wouldn't want to give them a sniff of a chance to win.

Good to get a wicket early again. Rutherford and Williamson is the partnership we'll probably have most trouble breaking though, all their batsmen further down are naturally aggressive and will struggle to try and play for time. I fancy another collapse after the next wicket falls.

Thoughts on Compton? I think it'd be harsh to drop him but Root's very much in form and I don't think there's much need for him to be further down the order much longer. Problem is that Bairstow seems to be improving and it's hard to see dropping him being more justifiable than dropping Compton. I wonder if KP might not be risked for the first test and they give one more game to the current lineup before changing, obviously he has to be given a spot once fully fit but if there are question marks about him maybe they'll postpone the decision.

[lharris92]

as you say, depends on KP's fitness. however if he is fit and you dropped Compton - who would open with Cook?

and yeah I can see why they decided to bat, but why on earth did they continue batting after lunch. should have declared at lunch and given an extra 30-40 minutes to bowling them out. if the weather reports are accurate then all of tomorrow could potentially be wiped out, and some play tonight possibly as well, so for them to continue batting after lunch was bemusing.

anyway looking good at the moment, just need another wicket or two quickly to get down to the tail end

[kaosmark2]

Root would. He's got to be promoted to opener at some point. I agree with the idea of giving a young player some experience in the middle order first, but ultimately he's an opening batsman and that's where he'll play long term. All Compton can really do is try to prolong it, or make the case play 3rd when Trott retires.

I didn't understand the decision to carry on after lunch either. My only guess is that they wanted to watch Bairstow bat for a few overs and see how he'd do.

Interesting the players that were able to get scores in NZ on their dead pitches and short boundaries but are failing here. Finn, Compton, most of NZ apart from Taylor.

Sounds like light is fading, difficult to see how it won't end up a draw if that's the case.

[lharris92]

least they won i suppose

[kaosmark2]

least they won i suppose

Bit harsh I think. Most things are pretty optimistic. Bear in mind the performances in NZ on their dead pitches with short boundaries and an unmoving ball, score-wise both times were trouncings. Most players are in form, only really Compton and Bell that aren't, or Broad's batting form which has been terrible for 18 months. I've still got my reservations about Trott's inability to accelerate when needed, and Bell's inability to find 1s and 2s, but mostly there's positives. By the time the new ball had died in the 4th innings both times there was no chance of a loss and it was just a matter of having enough time to win - neither Test reaching much over 3.5 days.

5 days to get 20 wickets against the Aussies looks like it should be doable, and there's enough form in the batting lineup to set decent scores. Just. Probably.

[TheGayTent]

Incredibly harsh on Trott. Also don't think there's any doubting Bell's ability to score 1s and 2s. He's just not quite in form - which I grant is slightly concerning.

Broad's batting at No.8 isn't really a worry either - besides which, if anything, he's coming back into form with the bat.

My main concerns are KP's fitness. KP's form if fit (he will be totally undercooked for the Ashes, which even for a player of his undoubted ability will be a very tough ask). Compton's form/ability. Root's technical ability and mental strength.

[lharris92]

Bit harsh I think. Most things are pretty optimistic. Bear in mind the performances in NZ on their dead pitches with short boundaries and an unmoving ball, score-wise both times were trouncings. Most players are in form, only really Compton and Bell that aren't, or Broad's batting form which has been terrible for 18 months. I've still got my reservations about Trott's inability to accelerate when needed, and Bell's inability to find 1s and 2s, but mostly there's positives. By the time the new ball had died in the 4th innings both times there was no chance of a loss and it was just a matter of having enough time to win - neither Test reaching much over 3.5 days.

5 days to get 20 wickets against the Aussies looks like it should be doable, and there's enough form in the batting lineup to set decent scores. Just. Probably.

oh don't get me wrong its just if they hadn't won then that decision not to declare a bit earlier/make them follow on would have been questioned.

what i meant from that was i got so bored waiting for it to start today i missed the first part, then couldn't be bothered listening to TMS to see if play would be resumed.

back to revision!

[kaosmark2]

Incredibly harsh on Trott. Also don't think there's any doubting Bell's ability to score 1s and 2s. He's just not quite in form - which I grant is slightly concerning.

Broad's batting at No.8 isn't really a worry either - besides which, if anything, he's coming back into form with the bat.

My main concerns are KP's fitness. KP's form if fit (he will be totally undercooked for the Ashes, which even for a player of his undoubted ability will be a very tough ask). Compton's form/ability. Root's technical ability and mental strength.

I'm harsh on Trott all the time. Despite the fact he's the most dependable no 3 we've had in years I still think Sunday evening's go-slow was utterly needless and an example of when his low strike rate impacts negatively on the team. Usually, at 3, steady accumulation is an excellent way to build a platform, but in the 2nd innings with bad weather looming he was too defensive. Cook's not a naturally aggressive player either but he had the right strike rate for the situation, no stupid shots but plenty of aggression. The middle order were more aggressive than usual: Bell and Root got out yesterday because of the need for the team to score quickly to set a platform, and they could have been slightly more circumspect (or not needed to have batted at all), had Trott got any runs the previous evening.

Bell's not in form, but the way he's not in form is interesting. He's playing the defensive shots well, he's knocking off the bad balls for 4, he's playing himself up to a score of 30-odd, but at some point while doing that, he'll get bogged down at one end for 20 minutes, then do something stupid in frustration and get himself out. Cook, Trott, Root, Bairstow and Prior have all been in those situations in recent months and then started playing for 1s and 2s, running those, and getting their score ticking over again. Bell's just retreated. It's a mental inability to do it rather than technical, but he's failing to work them and then he's either trying to get a boundary from nothing or having a concentration lapse in defense.

Broad's form with the bat up until about a year ago was a really useful bonus. He's (rightly) in the team for his bowling, but for about a year he's been batting like a no. 10/11, not a no.8 It's not just his lack of runs, it's that he can't stick around to let the middle order continue to score and it puts pressure on whichever batsman is remaining.

I agree about KP + Compton being the big concerns. My feeling is that I'd want KP to get at least one game in for Surrey first, even if that rules him out of the first test. I'd like Compton to get a bit longer in terms of a chance, but I'm starting to question the fact that the only scores he got were in incredibly batting-friendly conditions in NZ where a lot of batsmen who succeeded there have struggled everywhere else (most of NZ and Finn being new examples). I think Root's shown plenty of technical ability, but he's got out to the new ball twice and that's making me question his ability to mentally refocus and set himself for it.