The Cricket Thread 2016

[paul_e]

Bloody hell the knives are out for Roy already. Give the guy a chance. One failure doesn't make a bad player.

Totally agree Paul and that is part of the problem.  That kind of attitude creates the environment of fear that has held us back for so long now.  If any new player coming in fears failing as they know they will get hammered, they won't play their natural game. 

They'd best avoid reading a lot of this thread in that case!

Moeen in particular, it's getting frustrating having to defend his inclusion in the test side every time he has a few overs without a wicket or scores less than 50.

[aj2k77]

This is proper one day international cricket. Good wicket, none of this dabbing spin about for singles and getting bogged down. Lovely to watch.

[PaulWinch again]

Brilliant from Root and

Bloody hell the knives are out for Roy already. Give the guy a chance. One failure doesn't make a bad player.

Totally agree Paul and that is part of the problem.  That kind of attitude creates the environment of fear that has held us back for so long now.  If any new player coming in fears failing as they know they will get hammered, they won't play their natural game. 

They'd best avoid reading a lot of this thread in that case!

Moeen in particular, it's getting frustrating having to defend his inclusion in the test side every time he has a few overs without a wicket or scores less than 50.

Indeed especially as people over look that he had about 5 or 6 chances dropped off his bowling over the last two Tests.

[PaulWinch again]

Excellent from Root and Morgan. Shame they've both gone, it's important we continue the momentum.

[PaulWinch again]

Lost our way a bit here. Important Buttler sees us home.

[tomd2103]

Excellent from Root and Morgan. Shame they've both gone, it's important we continue the momentum.

Those two going brought Buttler and Stokes to the wicket a bit too early.  Ideally we want them coming in about now.

[tomd2103]

I'm beginning to wonder if the two Pauls can go a day without mentioning Moeen Ali   

[tomd2103]

If he's not going to keep wicket, I'm struggling to see the reasoning behind the selection of Billings.  It would be understandable if he has been brought in to keep and free up Buttler, but if tthat isn't the case, I find it a little strange.  Surely we would have been better beeffing up the batting order with Taylor?

[paul_e]

Maybe they thought he would beef up the batting order, his record with the bat isn't terrible.

The key here is we've got to 40overs with an effective target already set (Cook would've been happy with this after 50) so now the last 10 overs can be used to move that from passable to genuinely challenging, 360-370 is on the cards here so long as we don't lose a cluster of wickets.  If one of these 2 does go Jordan is a finisher and plunkett can flash a few around the ground as well.

[PaulWinch again]

This is some innings. England have finally arrived in ODI cricket, win or lose.

[adrenachrome]

Ton up for Jos Buttler. 103 off 66balls, with 11 fours and 3 sixes . SR 156.06.

[paul_e]

What a brilliant century that is, I firmly believe Buttler will be the top batsman in the world before long, he makes it look so easy.

ODI and T20 cricket is all about scoring pressure, McCullum there has dropped a sitter because his mind is racing worrying about the chase, even for a fantastic ODI side like NZ this is going to be a very tough chase.

[PaulWinch again]

This is stunning.

[Villan For Life]

What a most un-England performance with the bat.

[adrenachrome]

JC Buttler c Henry b McClenaghan 129 (77b 13x4 5x6) SR: 167.53

Brilliant knock.