The Cricket Thread 2016

[olaftab]

This is not an unplayable pitch so 236 required tomorrow is well within England's reach however a huge amount of concentration will be required as Shah and co are tricky foe. All depends on where Root and Cook serve up!

[Richard E]

Magic darts.

Aha! I see.

[Villan For Life]

It's all down to Cook, Root and to a lesser extent Taylor tomorrow. If one of those three can get a score then we should win.

[tomd2103]

I think up until Pakistan's innings we've competed well in this series, but the spinners massively let us down yesterday and today. Bell as usual when the pressure is on does nothing. Moeen is clearly not an opener. It's a tough ask, but it's not impossible.

Not impossible at all.  I think if Cook and Root can anchor the innings tomorrow then we may well do it with a late push. 

I am a big Ian Bell fan and in fact would say he is one of my favourite sportsmen, but he is now "Between the Clock and the Bed" in terms of his international career.  He should have gone out on a high and on his own terms after the Ashes, but it now seems like he won't get the choice.   

[Villan For Life]

Well that was a good start to the day. Wake up, switch radio on to find that we've lost 4 wickets in less than half an hour.

[PaulWinch again]

Yep well now I've changed my mind we've fully deserved to lose this series. Two reasons, firstly the spinners have done an absolutely terrible job and secondly the two batting collapses we've had have just been awful. We're still doing the thing of having match losing sessions quite regularly. It is also weird that Root, brilliant player that he is, if he gets no runs in the first innings he gets nothing in the second.

[Proposition Joe]

Like Villa's crapness/malaise, I'm sick to the back teeth of England batting collapses. We could have the top 6 ranked batsmen in the world and it will still happen regularly.

It's basically down to players not having the will to stand up and be counted in difficult circumstances. "He failed and he failed and so did he, so it doesn't matter if I fail too". It lets an individual off the hook if he fails as part of a collapse.

[olaftab]

Really surprised that in this hopeless situation Ben Stokes is being allowed to carry on batting out there. Surely this could make matters worse and harm his chances of recovery for SA tour?

Edit: OK all over now so  no more damage.

[PaulWinch again]

Cook batted brilliantly, Rashid and Broad helped. Pretty weak from the rest of the batsmen. They need to learn how to stick in.

[OzVilla]

Really poor from the spinners in this series. Inexperience is one thing, not landing 3/4 balls an over like Rashid was doing yesterday is just garbage.  How do you even begin to build any pressure.

The substandard county championship shows in a series like this. The top players, Cook, Root, Broad and Anderson (maybe Stokes) are quality performers despite conditions but the rest are average. 

Seeing the Aussies having a field day at the Gabba doesn't help.

[Ads]

At least we've competed down here, unlike the Aussies who were thrashed out of sight after 3 days in both tests.

[AVH87]

At least we've competed down here, unlike the Aussies who were thrashed out of sight after 3 days in both tests.

I can't take much consolation from that after a 2-0 defeat in a 3-game series. It's like when some Villa fans are saying 'well at least we haven't been thrashed this season'.

[Villan For Life]

It was disappointing to lose the series 2-0 so for what it's worth here are my opinions:

There is something fundamentally wrong with the batting which has been in collective decline since 2011. Only Cook and Root performed in this series to expectations with the rest failing. We have problems at 2 and 3. Ali is not an opener and no doubt they will select Hales for the 1st test in South Africa. Hales is not a natural opener and this next cab off the rank philosophy just isn't working. Hales struggled in the one day series against the Aussies and it will be interesting to see how he does in the one day series against Pakistan. The number 2 spot really is a poisoned chalice. Alex it's your turn so good luck against Steyn, Morkel, Philander and Rabada, who in particular is seriously quick.

We badly need someone to step up from county cricket or go back to the likes of Lyth, Carberry or Compton. I expect that they will select Bell for the South Africa series and he really is in the last chance saloon now. I don't think that they will go to South Africa with an inexperienced batting line up so your time is now Mr Bell.

The continued batting collapses suggests a deeper malaise. Earlier today someone on TMS claimed that we've suffered batting collapses in 18 out of the last 25 innings which is a startling stat. Technically the players seem to be OK. Yes you do get the odd fault creeping into a technique but the players have the talent to bat well and bat long. At the highest level in many sports, the difference between success and failure is, it is suggested, mental strength. We are like rabbits caught in headlights far too often so we need to address this problem and fast. I question Ramprakash as batting coach. He was a wonderful batsman but struggled at test level because he did not have the prerequisite mental strength. How can we expect him to coach mental strength when he struggled himself?

Anderson and Broad bowled brilliantly and were well supported by the other seamers. They kept us in this series when it looked like it was getting away from us. The spinners were a massive disappointment but you cannot blame them because they are the best we've got available.

We have a county system that places too much emphasis on T20 cricket. It's plain daft to play the bulk of 4 day Cricket in the spring when conditions do not suit spinners. In the drier months of the summer the county sides play a repeated set of limited over cricket which hampers the development of spinners. It's no co-incidence that the two best spinners of the last 10 years Swann and Panesar  both learnt their trade on spin-friendly pitches at Northamptonshire. Last season Northants were docked points for a spinning pitch. We need to decide on what our prioities are. A successful test side normally means an increase in county attendances.

Come on ECB sort it out!

[paul_e]

It was disappointing to lose the series 2-0 so for what it's worth here are my opinions:

There is something fundamentally wrong with the batting which has been in collective decline since 2011. Only Cook and Root performed in this series to expectations with the rest failing. We have problems at 2 and 3. Ali is not an opener and no doubt they will select Hales for the 1st test in South Africa. Hales is not a natural opener and this next cab off the rank philosophy just isn't working. Hales struggled in the one day series against the Aussies and it will be interesting to see how he does in the one day series against Pakistan. The number 2 spot really is a poisoned chalice. Alex it's your turn so good luck against Steyn, Morkel, Philander and Rabada, who in particular is seriously quick.

We badly need someone to step up from county cricket or go back to the likes of Lyth, Carberry or Compton. I expect that they will select Bell for the South Africa series and he really is in the last chance saloon now. I don't think that they will go to South Africa with an inexperienced batting line up so your time is now Mr Bell.

The continued batting collapses suggests a deeper malaise. Earlier today someone on TMS claimed that we've suffered batting collapses in 18 out of the last 25 innings which is a startling stat. Technically the players seem to be OK. Yes you do get the odd fault creeping into a technique but the players have the talent to bat well and bat long. At the highest level in many sports, the difference between success and failure is, it is suggested, mental strength. We are like rabbits caught in headlights far too often so we need to address this problem and fast. I question Ramprakash as batting coach. He was a wonderful batsman but struggled at test level because he did not have the prerequisite mental strength. How can we expect him to coach mental strength when he struggled himself?

Anderson and Broad bowled brilliantly and were well supported by the other seamers. They kept us in this series when it looked like it was getting away from us. The spinners were a massive disappointment but you cannot blame them because they are the best we've got available.

We have a county system that places too much emphasis on T20 cricket. It's plain daft to play the bulk of 4 day Cricket in the spring when conditions do not suit spinners. In the drier months of the summer the county sides play a repeated set of limited over cricket which hampers the development of spinners. It's no co-incidence that the two best spinners of the last 10 years Swann and Panesar  both learnt their trade on spin-friendly pitches at Northamptonshire. Last season Northants were docked points for a spinning pitch. We need to decide on what our prioities are. A successful test side normally means an increase in county attendances.

Come on ECB sort it out!

I slightly disagree here, the biggest problem is that spin (other than the top 5-6 in the world) will never be as good as swing bowling in English conditions.  For that reason English spinners don't bowl enough overs and when they do bowl they're expected to slow the run rate from one end so a seamer can have a bit more freedom to do damage at the other.  How often, ever, have you seen reports of 2-3 spinners bowling at both ends and destroying a team in England, at any time in the summer.  What we need to do therefore is find a way to get our spinners playing in games where they can be the main threat and the seamers are support them.  The simplest way would be to encourage more English players to play abroad for a few years but English sports boards (all of them) have a problem with doing that, they'd much rather keep the players local.


An alternative would be to get some of the county sides to 'tour' to places like india, SA and Aus and learn to play in different conditions so an international call up isn't the first time they experience those conditions in a competitive match. Somehow our players to get that experience, particularly our spinners for sub-continent conditions.

[olaftab]

Yes agree on  spin being a key factor in this series. Spin bowling is a key skill in cricket and England were inadequate whilst Pakistan have at least one world class bowler and anther two way above Rashid/Ali level.
However the series was lost by poor batting and poor catching. This is the first series that I can remember between these two teams where England have dropped more (and a lot more) catches than Pakistan and that I am afraid was the crucial factor.