The Cricket Thread 2016

[Villan For Life]

We need big innings from Root and Ballance now.

[paul_e]

Not sure why Bell hasn't reviewed that, looks well worth checking.

Umpire's call on leg stump so he'd have been out if he'd called for a review.

Yeah I saw, I thought it looked like it was going wider than hawkeye showed, I wouldn't have been upset with him reviewing that one even knowing now that it wouldn't have made a difference.

Decent recovery since, some nice counter-attacking from Root who's taken the ODI attitude change into the game with him.

It helps that the ball is softening and getting a little less movement, now the flat pitch should work in our favour so we need to push the score for the next 25-30 overs before it starts reversing.

[PaulWinch again]

Good recovery from Root and Ballance, but definitely Australia's morning. A lot more work to do.

[Villan For Life]

Boycott questioned why, given that pitches in Cardiff are always flat and unresponsive, they awarded them an Ashes test. Simples Geoffrey, they bid the most money!!

[paul_e]

Watching that back Starc bowled 4 beauties in the row, Bell got done by his 1, Root managed to dodge all 3 largely by luck. That's pretty much the difference between averaging 15-20 and averaging 100 right there.  Yes you make your own luck and Bell did get drawn across but Root was all over the place for those 3 deliveries but got away with it, right now Bell isn't getting away with much at all.

[tomd2103]

We need big innings from Root and Ballance now.

Ballance has got a really important role now.  If he can anchor the innings, that should allow Root, Stokes, Buttler and Ali to play their natural games and we might just get out of this. 

[PaulWinch again]

Watching that back Starc bowled 4 beauties in the row, Bell got done by his 1, Root managed to dodge all 3 largely by luck. That's pretty much the difference between averaging 15-20 and averaging 100 right there.  Yes you make your own luck and Bell did get drawn across but Root was all over the place for those 3 deliveries but got away with it, right now Bell isn't getting away with much at all.

I'd agree with that if we look at one innings in isolation, but Bell has been consistently poor for a while now. And actually other than the century in the Windies he's been poor for a year or so in Test cricket.

[paul_e]

Watching that back Starc bowled 4 beauties in the row, Bell got done by his 1, Root managed to dodge all 3 largely by luck. That's pretty much the difference between averaging 15-20 and averaging 100 right there.  Yes you make your own luck and Bell did get drawn across but Root was all over the place for those 3 deliveries but got away with it, right now Bell isn't getting away with much at all.

I'd agree with that if we look at one innings in isolation, but Bell has been consistently poor for a while now. And actually other than the century in the Windies he's been poor for a year or so in Test cricket.

Yes but as I've said before when someone has a run like that you can normally see clear technical reasons for it that bowlers are seeing and targeting.  Take Cook and him hanging his bat out to wide ones for a year and you'll see what I mean.  With Bell there's nothing like that, there's nothing in his game that you can pinpoint as him needing to work on.  Watch his wickets from the last few series and it's a mix of poor movement/shot selection and bad luck but with nothing jumping out for him to work on at the bears and then come back in the winter.  I honestly think if he goes that's it and he won't be back because even if he scores a hatful I don't know if it proves anything, that's what makes it so tough to know what to do with him.

[PaulWinch again]

Ballance doesn't look very comfortable with the short ball.

[paul_e]

Ballance doesn't look very comfortable with the short ball.

Nope, but his job here is to keep his wicket which he's managing so far, I'd like to see him attack Lyon a bit to get his confidence back though.

[PaulWinch again]

I don't want to see us sitting in too much against Lyon. If we just allow him to bowl throughout this series then their pace bowlers will get plenty of rest. As an aside this, at the moment, is a poor Test wicket. I really don't think Cardiff is a very good venue.

[PaulWinch again]

I'm glad Ballance is there, but he needs to work out this short ball. Good from Root against Lyon.

[PaulWinch again]

We're making life too easy for Lyon at the moment, but it's been a good recovery so far.

[PaulWinch again]

I think in this series it's going to be important that we don't let Watson/Marsh and Lyon just bowl over after over without any pressure. I can see Root is trying to be aggressive, but it's important that it's not all down to him.

[paul_e]

We need to go after Watson a little more as well.  I want them to find that Watson and Lyon aren't the run saving safe options they're hoping for so we can see how Clarke reacts to not being able to tie things down at one end and let Johnson, Starc and Hazlewood have expensive but quick and aggressive spells at the other end.

Lyon isn't a terrible bowler and I think he's unfairly maligned by some but we really need to put him under some more pressure.