The International Cricket Thread 2018

[taylorsworkrate]

Jofra Archer would make a massive difference to the bowling attack, and it's only the ECB's own rules that prevent him from being selected.

A guy with an English father who has committed to playing for England. Time for the ECB to rethink

[PaulWinch again]

Billings just is not good enough.

[tomd2103]

Hales and Billings were the problem today (for me).

Hales makes lots of silly mistakes but gets away with it if he's scoring at 150% and taking the game away from people but he's not that player right now. He's one of the senior players in this squad but he's made 2 terrible decisions today.

Billings is just poor, I just can't see how anyone can have watched him this season and thought he was anywhere near the ODI team, he's averaging about 5 for 2018, it's just bizarre that he's still involved.

With the ball ( don't think we were terrible but, Willey just doesn't offer enough threat if he doesn't get early wickets, Plunkett has no variation so once a batsman picks him he gets very expensive and Wood, in my opinion, flatters to deceive, he's got something about him but it just doesn't translate into match winning performances.

What the day as a whole shows is that were number one on the back of a core group of about 12-13 players.  Once we start having to pick outside that we look a lot weaker.

Pretty embarrassing defeat, but not massively alarming in the grand scheme of things for England (brilliant for Scotland though and congrats to them).  I think what today showed. is that the one thing the ODI side is missing in their armoury is that wily, medium pacer who can rein things in a bit in the middle overs using a bit of nous (Mullaney from Notts being a good example).  You don’t always need one these days, but they are handy to have in the squad for certain conditions, particularly in this country and if Stokes is out then maybe we look at that option.  Buttler, Stokes and Woakes have to come back into the side, with Hales / Roy, Billings and Wiley probably going out, so some big players still to return. 

[paul_e]

Hales and Billings were the problem today (for me).

Hales makes lots of silly mistakes but gets away with it if he's scoring at 150% and taking the game away from people but he's not that player right now. He's one of the senior players in this squad but he's made 2 terrible decisions today.

Billings is just poor, I just can't see how anyone can have watched him this season and thought he was anywhere near the ODI team, he's averaging about 5 for 2018, it's just bizarre that he's still involved.

With the ball ( don't think we were terrible but, Willey just doesn't offer enough threat if he doesn't get early wickets, Plunkett has no variation so once a batsman picks him he gets very expensive and Wood, in my opinion, flatters to deceive, he's got something about him but it just doesn't translate into match winning performances.

What the day as a whole shows is that were number one on the back of a core group of about 12-13 players.  Once we start having to pick outside that we look a lot weaker.

Pretty embarrassing defeat, but not massively alarming in the grand scheme of things for England (brilliant for Scotland though and congrats to them).  I think what today showed. is that the one thing the ODI side is missing in their armoury is that wily, medium pacer who can rein things in a bit in the middle overs using a bit of nous (Mullaney from Notts being a good example).  You don’t always need one these days, but they are handy to have in the squad for certain conditions, particularly in this country and if Stokes is out then maybe we look at that option.  Buttler, Stokes and Woakes have to come back into the side, with Hales / Roy, Billings and Wiley probably going out, so some big players still to return. 

I agree that a 2nd part-timer (to back up Root) would be useful, especially if we're picking 2 spinners in the main bowling attack but once the 3 mentioned are back there's really not much space in the team. If we can add 3-4 decent backup options I'd be happy because we're not far away from being a fantastic side if we can plug those gaps. If they'd ignore the silly rule that's stopping Archer being called up then even better, real pace and offers a lot with the bat, he'd replace Plunkett for me, which leaves Wood, Woakes, Archer, Stokes, Rashid and Ali which is a very strong bowling attack and has 2 genuine top order batsmen and 3 all-rounders so only Wood as a real tail-ender.

[UK Redsox]

Jofra Archer would make a massive difference to the bowling attack, and it's only the ECB's own rules that prevent him from being selected.

A guy with an English father who has committed to playing for England. Time for the ECB to rethink

Per BBC yesterday

They are having a rethink and are considering dropping the time to 4 years, which would make Archer eligible for WC2019

However, Morgan has apparently dismissed out of hand the possibility of selecting him. That seems an inappropriate statement for the captain to make.
If Archer is eligible and is better than players in the squad, then he should play.

I'd certainly prefer to see Archer bowling in the World Cup than witness whatever Willey was trying to do yesterday.

[paul_e]

Jofra Archer would make a massive difference to the bowling attack, and it's only the ECB's own rules that prevent him from being selected.

A guy with an English father who has committed to playing for England. Time for the ECB to rethink

Per BBC yesterday

They are having a rethink and are considering dropping the time to 4 years, which would make Archer eligible for WC2019

However, Morgan has apparently dismissed out of hand the possibility of selecting him. That seems an inappropriate statement for the captain to make.
If Archer is eligible and is better than players in the squad, then he should play.

I'd certainly prefer to see Archer bowling in the World Cup than witness whatever Willey was trying to do yesterday.

I'd prefer them  to remove stupid arbitrary rules like this and to look at them on a case by case basis, Archer has an English father and has made it clear that he considers himself as English when it comes to international cricket, to be blunt that makes him more suitable than the captain who's made that comment.  One of the arguments would be that having set rules makes things clearer but I don't know how often anyone is looking for loopholes in such a niche anyway.

[paul_e]

Strong start by England, Willey got the early wicket that he always threatens and Moeen is bowling superbly in his early overs, getting just enough grip in the surface to be dangerous. They also have a pretty long looking tail so another 1-2 wickets soon and they'll be under huge pressure.

[cdbearsfan]

Five down already.

Imagine how many wickets Scotland would have taken by now.

[paul_e]

This is a much better performance, my slight concern is how things will change once Ali and Rashid are bowled out.

[Villan For Life]

This is a much better performance, my slight concern is how things will change once Ali and Rashid are bowled out.

So far they’ve gone after Root. Maxwell has 21 off his last 7 balls.

Time for Plunkett.

[paul_e]

In the end that's a really good performance with the ball, we rarely let them get goingand they nver properly recovered from the brilliant 14-15 over spell by the spinners.

[PaulWinch again]

Not the best of starts.

[paul_e]

Not the best of starts.

decent recovery from Morgan and Root so far though, if this pair can see off another 7-8 overs then I reckon this is in the bag.

[Villan For Life]

Root seems to play with much more freedom in white ball Cricket. I think the pressure of test captaincy is affecting him.

[paul_e]

Root seems to play with much more freedom in white ball Cricket. I think the pressure of test captaincy is affecting him.

Not just captaincy, it's that we're so reliant on him for runs as well, in this format he trusts the other players a lot more and looks much more relaxed. This partnership is a great example, he's happily nurdling around because he knows Morgan wil lscore at a decent nick and if either of them are out we have Buttler and Moeen coming in who can easily score at 150%+. The mitigating factor is that this is a low target but he's been playing like this for 18 months in lots of different situations.