The Cricket Thread 2013

[Villan For Life]

Glad we won, I think we got a bit fortunate as it could easily have rained all day. I hope moving forward Cook is a bit more positive with his decisions, as to get to the top I think we need to be a little less conservative. However some really good individual performances, notably Root, Cook and Swann and a much improved Finn means a good Test for us.

To be fair with an inexperienced batting line up it's understandable that we were a little conservative in our approach. Compton, Root and Bairstow have only a handful of caps between them and I think Cook tried to protect them a little.

Again, as I said on Sunday evening, I hope the comments about negativity don't all focus on Cook, he should have declared sooner but a lot of the issues were due to a very nervy performance from Compton and mind-numbing session from Trott.

I think Compton will be the one to make way for KP unfortunately, I just can't see him getting his form back in time for the 1st test as he's looked lost in all 4 innings this series.

I agree. His confidence is shot and he was noticeably nervous in England's second innings. If he gets that nervous against the Kiwis, what will he be like against the Crims who will undoubtedly play upon his fragile self-confidence?

He doesn't have a great deal of 1st class cricket between now and the start of the Ashes on 10th July either. Potentially, he has 2 county championship games for Somerset and 2 four-day freindlies, one for Somerset and one for an England XI.

Fingers crossed that KP is fit for the Ashes.

[LamBeast]

Comptons technique is not up to it,Root opens and KP at 5.This is a poor Australian side but we need to keep the foot on the throat.

[paul_e]

Comptons technique is not up to it,Root opens and KP at 5.This is a poor Australian side but we need to keep the foot on the throat.

KP at 4, Bell down to 5 but otherwise I agree, Root and Bairstow can't be dropped and we can't leave out KP if he's fit, regardless of anything else, he's a special player and we need him in the big games.

[paul_e]

Alec Stewart's view on the series - here

He, like me, gives Compton and Trott some stick over the slow batting on Sunday.

More importantly check the bowling stats, the averages for all 4 of them are stunning, we've been truly exceptional with the ball in this series.

[Dave Cooper please]

Might pop along to the Champions Trophy warm up match at Edgbaston tomorrow. Pakistan v Sri Lanka. £15 a ticket for International cricket, okay so it's a friendly but seems good value to me.

[PaulWinch again]

Might pop along to the Champions Trophy warm up match at Edgbaston tomorrow. Pakistan v Sri Lanka. £15 a ticket for International cricket, okay so it's a friendly but seems good value to me.

Yeah weather permitting it should be a good game.

[PaulWinch again]

It was slightly concerning as Jonathan Agnew eluded to that the England team seem to be a bit tetchy towards the media at the moment. It could indicate a bit of stress given the Ashes are coming up, I think they need to relax as a group. We're a better team than the Aussies and just need to play our game.

[Villan For Life]

It was slightly concerning as Jonathan Agnew eluded to that the England team seem to be a bit tetchy towards the media at the moment. It could indicate a bit of stress given the Ashes are coming up, I think they need to relax as a group. We're a better team than the Aussies and just need to play our game.

I was bored last night and watched the highlights on Five at 7pm followed by the Sky highlights at 8pm. The reaction of Flower, Cook & Root to the Five and Sky guys was open and amenable. Their reaction to Aggers which I heard in the TMS podcast was different. Maybe they have a problem with dear old Aunty or even with Aggers?

[PaulWinch again]

Yes possibly not sure why though.

[Dave Cooper please]

Probably purely down to the stick they were getting from the TMS commentators, almost to a man they were lambasting Cook for not enforcing the follow on and then not declaring earlier on TMS, whereas Sky were a lot easier on Cook's decision. Even after the win the TMS pundits were still having a go.

[cdbearsfan]

They still should've forced the follow-on though...

[Dave Cooper please]

They still should've forced the follow-on though...

Why? They won in less than 3 and a half days of actual playing time and gave most of the batsmen valuable time in the middle.
I'm not backing down here!

[cdbearsfan]

They ended up about ten minutes away from not beating New Zealand, who are shite (I think it started chucking it down again shortly after the tenth wicket fell).

Had they declared they would probably have skittled them and won on day four.

Of course, back in the day, just making sure of the series would've been enough and nobody would've criticised the decision, even if they only won the series one-nil.

If you want to get to the top of the Test Rankings though, you have to be looking to whitewash gash like New Zealand.

They got away with it, so I'm not unduly bothered though.

[Dave Cooper please]

They had already beaten New Zealand (in the series), this was just a case of crushing them into the ground and humiliating them utterly or just crushing them into the ground and allowing our batsmen a bit of time in the middle.
If this were the Aussies I'd have gone with the former, but with them bastards coming up later I'm happy with how Cook played it.

[cdbearsfan]

What I meant was they had already won the series, but should have been trying to make absolutely sure of two-nil for the sake of the Test rankings. Wrapping up the series one-nil would've been a disappointment.

As for time at the middle, I doubt they'll benefit too much bearing in mind the Ashes is still two months away.