The Cricket Thread 2016

[PaulWinch again]

Looking like this might be tricky.

[Villan For Life]

I thought we were poor at times today, particularly in the afternoon session.

It could have been different if Rashid had held on to the chance off Stokes. Victor mentioned on TMS that we were bowling to a plan/trap with short pitched bowling and two men out for the hook shot. Why have the weakest fielder in the side, or so Victor said, out on the boundary for the mis-timed hook shot when you're bowling to a plan? You really need your best catchers out there

[PaulWinch again]

Spinners really poor today.

[Villafirst]

Woakes dropped?

[paul_e]

Woakes dropped?

There was talk of him having a slight knee injury yesterday so I suspect they decided to rest him so they can rotate the bowlers a little.  I suspect Broad will miss at least 1 test as well.

[Villan For Life]

Woakes dropped?

There was talk of him having a slight knee injury yesterday so I suspect they decided to rest him so they can rotate the bowlers a little.  I suspect Broad will miss at least 1 test as well.

There's no way that they would drop Woakes after the year he's had. He has a slight niggle so given his workload in tests and limited overs Cricket it makes sense to rest him.

Counting this test there's four tests between now and Christmas, with the next test in July next year. The scheduling has been stupid.

[PaulWinch again]

It was a good effort to knock them over for 450, but this looks pretty tricky.

[PaulWinch again]

A run out of Hameed is not what we needed.

[PaulWinch again]

Really really poor. We're in big trouble now. Duckett seems to have a real problem against off spinners, and Root's shot was just horrible.

[Villan For Life]

Yet again it's the usual batting malaise of lose one lose several.

[PaulWinch again]

This is dismal. Once again we've lost half our team for less than 100. It's not good enough and this is not a horrible batting pitch or anything.

[Villan For Life]

What pisses me off is that it's not technical issues that are getting us, it's a mental thing. Individually they can't handle the pressure of slow bowling and men around the bat, self-destruction inevitably follows.

[PaulWinch again]

I think it's a technical issue with Duckett, but in fairness in Bangladesh and India it's probably the first time he's faced quality off spin.

Root's dismissal and instigation of Hameed's run out were both really disappointing.

[paul_e]

I guess the key question is how do you solve this?  I agree with PWA about Duckett, he's probably never faced spin like this before this winter, and a few others will only have a few matches against spin in genuinely spin friendly conditions so how do we give them the experience to fall back on?  That's been a key problem for years.

The most disappointing wicket for me was Cook, who really should've been able to handle the bowling they were giving him, yes it was a good spell of bowling but there was nothing new about it.

[PaulWinch again]

I'm not sure what you do other than literally set up some sort of academy in the sub-continent, but then you're still going to struggle to face the quality of spin you'd face at this level.

I think there is a mentality issue that keeps rearing its head. We tend to lose clusters of 3 or 4 wickets on a more regular basis than other countries.

It is going to take a miracle to save this game now.