The Cricket Thread 2014

[PaulWinch again]

I was going to say, which top line batsmen did well? I don't remember any.

[OzVilla]

Also our bowling was poor mainly because they had no scoreboard pressure to bowl to in the 2nd innings and had to get back out there after 60 overs time after time.

We had the Aussie top order in trouble loads of times but ran out of stream. Swanny's injury and general state of not really wantin to be there didn't help either as we had to keep going back to our knackered seam attack.

The batting was dreadful all tour long.

[taylorsworkrate]

I was going to say, which top line batsmen did well? I don't remember any.

Yeah exactly. Pietersen topped the run chart for the series and he averaged below 30

[Dr Butler]

Also our bowling was poor mainly because they had no scoreboard pressure to bowl to in the 2nd innings and had to get back out there after 60 overs time after time.

We had the Aussie top order in trouble loads of times but ran out of stream. Swanny's injury and general state of not really wantin to be there didn't help either as we had to keep going back to our knackered seam attack.

The batting was dreadful all tour long.

that is a pretty good round up of that last series, let's hope we can give them a game in the next Ashes series.

UTV
The Doc

[PaulWinch again]

Also our bowling was poor mainly because they had no scoreboard pressure to bowl to in the 2nd innings and had to get back out there after 60 overs time after time.

We had the Aussie top order in trouble loads of times but ran out of stream. Swanny's injury and general state of not really wantin to be there didn't help either as we had to keep going back to our knackered seam attack.

The batting was dreadful all tour long.

Yep agreed, although I think our bowling lack ideas at times. Australia have a really good bowling attack, but we shouldn't have folded like we did.

[peter w]

To be fair our top line batsmen played in well enough in the last Ashes series. It was the lower order batsmen that were blown away.

That's not true, the only batsman who averaged over 30 was Stokes and his figures were heavily influenced by his century (the only 1 we scored on the tour).  You can look at the stats below, there really is no silver lining for the batting displays, as a team we let Johnson and Harris totally dominate us to the point where it was embarrassingly 1sided.  The bowling as poor as well and clearly our lower order batting was abysmal but averages like we saw from the top order can't happen if you want to win things.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/the-ashes-2013-14/engine/records/averages/batting_bowling_by_team.html?id=7899;team=1;type=series

What I mean was that we weren't blown away by Johnson. that was the lower order. Not that anyone came out of the series with any real credit.

[paul_e]

To be fair our top line batsmen played in well enough in the last Ashes series. It was the lower order batsmen that were blown away.

That's not true, the only batsman who averaged over 30 was Stokes and his figures were heavily influenced by his century (the only 1 we scored on the tour).  You can look at the stats below, there really is no silver lining for the batting displays, as a team we let Johnson and Harris totally dominate us to the point where it was embarrassingly 1sided.  The bowling as poor as well and clearly our lower order batting was abysmal but averages like we saw from the top order can't happen if you want to win things.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/the-ashes-2013-14/engine/records/averages/batting_bowling_by_team.html?id=7899;team=1;type=series

What I mean was that we weren't blown away by Johnson. that was the lower order. Not that anyone came out of the series with any real credit.

I agree they weren't blown away, but they did just go into survival mode rather than trying to put some pressure on him.  On that same link look at the strike rates, loads of top order batsmen going at 30-50%.  Johnson had an economy of 2.74 - score that slowly against him and he'll do what he did.

[PGW]

An amazing innings from Rohit Sharma just now 264 (173) 33 x 4's & 9 x 6's in a total of 404 v Sri Lanka.
He was dropped on 4, a pretty expensive one as it turned out, it took him 72 balls to get to 50 which in effect means he scored 214 off 101 balls,incredible.
He is the first player to score 2 x 200's in ODI's.
He was out off the last ball of the innings which was a shame he desrved to finish not out.
He didn't quite beat the highest List A score just missing out on beating Alastair Brown's 268 for Surrey which he most certainly would have equalled had he not been caught on the
boundary.
I don't hold much hope for Sri Lanka in their reply!!!

[Villan For Life]

An amazing innings from Rohit Sharma just now 264 (173) 33 x 4's & 9 x 6's in a total of 404 v Sri Lanka.
He was dropped on 4, a pretty expensive one as it turned out, it took him 72 balls to get to 50 which in effect means he scored 214 off 101 balls,incredible.
He is the first player to score 2 x 200's in ODI's.
He was out off the last ball of the innings which was a shame he desrved to finish not out.
He didn't quite beat the highest List A score just missing out on beating Alastair Brown's 268 for Surrey which he most certainly would have equalled had he not been caught on the
boundary.
I don't hold much hope for Sri Lanka in their reply!!!

That's a phenomenal effort. How many dot balls did he face?

[PGW]

An amazing innings from Rohit Sharma just now 264 (173) 33 x 4's & 9 x 6's in a total of 404 v Sri Lanka.
He was dropped on 4, a pretty expensive one as it turned out, it took him 72 balls to get to 50 which in effect means he scored 214 off 101 balls,incredible.
He is the first player to score 2 x 200's in ODI's.
He was out off the last ball of the innings which was a shame he desrved to finish not out.
He didn't quite beat the highest List A score just missing out on beating Alastair Brown's 268 for Surrey which he most certainly would have equalled had he not been caught on the
boundary.
I don't hold much hope for Sri Lanka in their reply!!!

That's a phenomenal effort. How many dot balls did he face?

58

[PGW]

The breakdown per bowler is:
Kulasekra   58 runs  32 balls  9 dots 8 x 4's  2 x 6's
Eranga       53          31          9         7           2
Mendis       49          27          6         9          0
Prasanna    43          37         15        3          2
Thisara       25          14          3         3          1
Dilshan         6           3           0         1          0
Matthews   30          29          16        2          2
Totals        264        173        58       33         9         
 

[Villan For Life]

An amazing innings from Rohit Sharma just now 264 (173) 33 x 4's & 9 x 6's in a total of 404 v Sri Lanka.
He was dropped on 4, a pretty expensive one as it turned out, it took him 72 balls to get to 50 which in effect means he scored 214 off 101 balls,incredible.
He is the first player to score 2 x 200's in ODI's.
He was out off the last ball of the innings which was a shame he desrved to finish not out.
He didn't quite beat the highest List A score just missing out on beating Alastair Brown's 268 for Surrey which he most certainly would have equalled had he not been caught on the
boundary.
I don't hold much hope for Sri Lanka in their reply!!!

That's a phenomenal effort. How many dot balls did he face?

58

Tsk. That's almost 10 overs where he didn't score!

[adrenachrome]

From espncricinfo:

...

 Rohit's innings was so ludicrous that the first 100 runs, which were hit at a run-a-ball, seems achingly humdrum in comparison to the 164 that followed. The surge had actually begun before he reached his century, when he plundered 14 runs in four balls, in Nuwan Kulasekara's 30th over. Soon after that, the ball would be leaping off the middle of his bat with almost every stroke he offered.

There were many incredible shots, from among his 33 fours and nine sixes, but the most gobsmacking was the six off Kulasekara at the end of the 48th over, when he walked across to off stump, took a half volley from about a foot and half away from him and flicked it high over the midwicket boundary. It was the kind of shot, and innings, that seemed in open defiance of physics.
...

[PaulWinch again]

Moeen showing the right attitude in the first one day game against Sri Lanka A. He hit 6 boundaries in the first over he faced!

[PGW]

England won by 56 runs D/L
Moeen Ali star turn 56 runs his 50 off 21 balls plus 3/ 29
Cook 54 his 50 off 58 balls
Bell 16*
Root 15*
Bowling
Finn             8    0    48   2
Woakes        8   0     20   0
Tredwell      8    2     33   0
Ali               9    0      29   3
Jordan        5    0      48   0
Stokes        3    0      15   1
Root           2    0        7   0