The Cricket Thread 2016

[tomd2103]

Stokes has showed why he must play and why he'll be a hell of a player.

Agree, but I hope too much pressure is not put on him.  I think we have to accept that if he continues to play that way, there are going to be days when he does not fire.  Saying that, to see a one day team featuring him, Morgan and Buttler will be worth watching. 

[Monty]

I thought he got it right. We couldn't lose the game on the last day and we took our chances.

The 5 day game has reached a new level - over 1500 runs scored and 20 wickets taken with only 8.5 overs remaining of the game.

Don't want to be too critical after a great win, but it would have been interesting had we not been bowled out.  It forced Cook's hand, as I'm not sure he would have been too keen on declaring. 

That's my suspicion. They scored quickly in the morning as if they were looking for a declaration, but I suspect Cook was looking at closer to 400 than 350, which probably wouldn't have left us enough time to win the match.

[PaulWinch again]

Bayliss confirmed. I've got over my initial disappointment with Gillespie. Bayliss's record is outstanding.

[tomd2103]

Bayliss confirmed. I've got over my initial disappointment with Gillespie. Bayliss's record is outstanding.

Especially in the shorter formats of the game.  Worked with Farbrace before, so I'm sure he will remain part of the set up.  Fair play to Strauss, he's acted quickly and decisively as we were in danger of drifting through the summer.

[Chris Jameson]

Think it could be a good appointment, admit I don't know anything about Bayliss but everybody seems to speak highly of him and I'm delighted Gillespie is staying at Yorkshire where he can continue to help produce more future England players.

[KevinGage]

the Australian perspective

Bayliss brings steel to strengthen England

Andrew Ramsey, Senior Writer

Affable and good-natured, Trevor Bayliss also knows how to crack the whip to get the best from his charges

Much of the early commentary around Trevor Bayliss's appointment as England's next cricket coach has focused on his affable nature and his capacity to extract the best from players by nurturing a tranquil dressing room environment.

Amid the disappointment of his team's crushing Test loss to England at Lord's this week, New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum – who played under Bayliss in the Indian Premier League – claimed he would seek him out for a beer if he arrived in Leeds in time for the second Test starting Friday.

Former Australia legspinner turned commentator Shane Warne, who has long maintained the only use a Test team should have for a coach is to ferry them to and from a playing venue, tweeted that England had chosen wisely with Bayliss because "he is a ripper".

And Geoff Lawson, the ex-Test bowler and Pakistan coach who played with Bayliss at NSW in the 1980s and 90s and was on the panel that re-appointed him as the Blues' coach in 2013, noted that the 52-year-old's pre-eminent gift as a coach was that he "keeps it simple".

But you don't guide teams to trophies in such overtly competitive forums as the IPL, the Bupa Sheffield Shield and the KFC T20 Big Bash League unless you are willing to crack the whip when needed, and Bayliss's players well know the important difference between 'stress-free' and 'without-care'.

And while Bayliss's highly developed man-management skills won't be tested by the polarising presence of Kevin Pietersen, as was the challenge for his immediate predecessors in the England job Peter Moores and Andy Flower, he won't compromise on his philosophy for rank or reputation.

Just ask Australia's third-highest wicket-taker across all three international formats, Brett Lee.

In the languid days that traditionally follow Christmas, Lee – in his final season with the Sydney Sixers last year – was scheduled for a media appearance with local rivals the Sydney Thunder's star recruit Jacques Kallis to help promote the teams' post Boxing Day-derby at ANZ Stadium.

However, when the planned press event was found to clash with an impromptu fielding session instituted by Bayliss, he was asked if – in the Yuletide spirit – Lee could be excused from drills he had participated in umpteen times throughout his 20-year career in order to make the photo call.

The coach refused to grant the 38-year-old fast bowler a leave pass from fielding training, adding gruffly "because he needs it".

It sends a clear message that while the man who was confirmed as England's Test and limited-overs coach overnight ago prefers to keep out of players' faces and minds, he won't turn a blind eye to the cutting of corners.

Even though his talents as a solid middle-order batsman and predatory in-fielder were never rewarded with international selection, he knows what it is like to share a working environment with elite-level cricketers.

In one of his first Shield matches for NSW in 1988, he was part of an XI that included 10 other players who either had or would go on to represent Australia in the Test arena.

And having succeeded fellow Australian Tom Moody as coach of Sri Lanka in 2007, he led a team of brilliant individuals and strong personalities to the 2011 World Cup Final (which they lost to home team India) and a Test win:loss record of 14:7 from 31 matches played.

But even Bayliss, renowned for unflappability and who Lawson maintains "never gets overly excited or overly depressed by the game or by performances" sometimes struggled to keep a lid on the agitation and anxiety that would sweep through the Sri Lankan room at crucial times.

Bayliss has been known to reflect wistfully on those moments when he would hear the background hubbub of Sinhalese rapidly rising and, sensing panic was afoot, would reassure all within earshot that events were in hand and that the match situation was progressing well.

These interventions would sometimes end in a subsequent clatter of chairs as a member of the playing squad jumped to their feet, grabbed a fresh pair of batting gloves or water bottle and charged on to the field to deliver a message that was unknown to, nor sanctioned by, the coach.

But Bayliss remained true to his methods, and it is as much his experience with the Sri Lankan team – during which they were subjected to a terrorist ambush and their bus sprayed with gunfire while en route to Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore in 2009 – as his triumphs in the red and white ball formats that have impressed England.

The England and Wales Cricket Board's new Director of Cricket Andrew Strauss made it clear when identifying the reasons why a new coach was needed that Moores had been found wanting in crafting strategies – particularly in the limited-overs game – at international level.

With his pedigree in T20 franchise competitions and the results he achieved with Sri Lanka in the 50-over game, Bayliss will be expected to significantly sharpen England's white ball skills given they are currently ranked sixth in ODIs and a lowly eighth in T20 internationals.

And any shortfalls in his knowledge of the England county scene, its players and processes will be filled by the current caretaker coach Paul Farbrace – who was Bayliss's trusted deputy in Sri Lanka and is well-liked by the playing group – who has been confirmed to remain as assistant coach.

It was a lack of international coaching experience and a similar paucity of involvement in the limited-overs format that – along with the strains that constant travelling would place on his wife and four young children – reputedly stacked up against early coaching favourite, Jason Gillespie.

While Bayliss's children are older – his son is at university and plays third division for Sydney grade club Penrith, while his daughter is completing her HSC this year – the scrutiny he receives in a nation that feasts ravenously on sporting failure will be both intense and immediate.

Due to land in England next month, his first assignment will be plotting the demise of an Australian Test team that won back the Ashes 18 months ago with a five-nil humiliation of a disunited, dispirited England.

In the longer term, Bayliss will be expected to replicate another recent Australia triumph when England hosts the 2019 ICC World Cup with an unspoken expectation that it is well past time the game's homeland secured a trophy it has failed to lift at 11 previous attempts spanning 40 years.

If the imperturbable ambience that Bayliss is known for has the desired effect and helps to maximise his players' output, it is also expected to shield him from the spotlight that will burn on him from the moment he becomes the first Australian to slip on an England cricket coach's tracksuit.

Those expecting him to be on call 24/7, trawling social media, firing off endless text message reminders and rejoinders to his players will find themselves sadly misled.

There are those who work with him who doubt that he even knows how to decode the complexities of a modern mobile phone given the difficulty they have found in tracking him down when he's away from the cricket environment.

While he's unlikely to insist on the same clause that former England and India coach Duncan Fletcher supposedly had in his most recent contract whereby he was guaranteed quarantine from the voracious daily press, Bayliss is expected to meet his media obligations with a polite equanimity.

Which provided another tick in a box for an employer who has seen first-hand over the past year or more how combustible comments made in public can effectively derail every best attempt to restrict focus to on-field performances.

Lawson, whose tenure as coach of Pakistan was in part ended by a falling out with influential sections of the local press, believes that even as a 'foreign' coach with no direct experience of the game in England Bayliss was unlikely to be fazed by the depth of media examination that will confront him.

"If the players have respect for the coach and his ability to coach and his communication skills, then you don't really have those problems," Lawson told cricket.com.au last year in relation to Bayliss being subjected to possible public trial by the UK press.

"If you're a foreign coach, and even in Australia if you leave your state and go and coach somewhere else, you face the same sort of thing.

"You can ignore the media, and even ignore the administrators to a large degree.

"If players want to listen and learn then there won't be a problem."

The first chance for England's players to show they are listening to and learning from their new mentor will come in the opening Ashes Test, which begins in Cardiff on July 8.

[Chris Jameson]

Rashid out for 99 today, he took 8 wickets in the last match. He's a genuine all rounder these days, excellent fielder too.

If Bell continues to struggle could move Ali back up to 3 and bring Rashid in to bat at 8.

[PaulWinch again]

Rashid out for 99 today, he took 8 wickets in the last match. He's a genuine all rounder these days, excellent fielder too.

If Bell continues to struggle could move Ali back up to 3 and bring Rashid in to bat at 8.

I think that could be a good option.

[PaulWinch again]

Ali at 4 though.

[Chris Jameson]

Ali at 4 though.

Forgot Ballance is at 3!

[Villan For Life]

I have a feeling that Rashid's card was marked during the West Indies tour.

There was plenty of positive press about Lyth, Wood and Bairstow as non-playing squad members but not about Rashid and you have to ask why.

Maybe the whole Yorkshire want him back if he's not playing/ECB say no saga affected him, or he didn't handle matters professionally.

I would like to see him in the side, he's a player I've always rated but you have to question whether his continued non-selection is for non-cricketing reasons. Does he knuckle down and get stuck in during practice when on tour as a non-playing squad member? Something is not quite right here.

[tomd2103]

Rashid out for 99 today, he took 8 wickets in the last match. He's a genuine all rounder these days, excellent fielder too.

If Bell continues to struggle could move Ali back up to 3 and bring Rashid in to bat at 8.

I think that could be a good option.

Why is that a surprise!!  Moeen Ali is OK where he is, as he needs to work on developing his bowling. 

[paul_e]

Rashid out for 99 today, he took 8 wickets in the last match. He's a genuine all rounder these days, excellent fielder too.

If Bell continues to struggle could move Ali back up to 3 and bring Rashid in to bat at 8.

I think that could be a good option.

Why is that a surprise!!  Moeen Ali is OK where he is, as he needs to work on developing his bowling. 

It shouldn't be, someone who's batted his entire career in the top 3 really is too good to be at 8 so looking at ways to push him higher up the order just seems to be good sense to me.  My only worry is that with Moeen, Root and Stokes at 4, 5 and 6 we could end up with too many bowling options but what I'd really like to see is a call up for a bowler (spinner or quick) who can do 10-12 over spells at one end so at the other we can rotate between Anderson, Broad, Wood and Stokes all getting 3-4 over spells so they can put everything into it.  Moeen should be able to do that as well so have 2 rotating at one end and then the others getting short spells at the other end, with Root filling in where needed.

[PaulWinch again]

Ali at 4 would give us the option of another specialist spinner I guess.

[paul_e]

Ali at 4 would give us the option of another specialist spinner I guess.

Absolutely, good timing seeing as Kerrigan apparently bowled superbly against derbyshire, I still think he's the one we should be looking at long term.