The Cricket Thread 2017

[tomd2103]

Sounds like Jonny B will open tomorrow. Probably the right call, as I think Roy needs a break. I still think he's a key player for the World Cup, but he needs to clear his head.

Agree Paul.  Probably needs a bit of time in the middle away from the spotlight of international cricket to get his game sorted. 

[PaulWinch again]

We're not exactly racing along here, sounds like a sluggish pitch.

[PaulWinch again]

Not going to set much of a score here, I'm hoping it's the pitch.

[PaulWinch again]

We need a big 18 overs here.

[UK Redsox]

Well, England are making a right feck-up of this

[PaulWinch again]

Yep this is going pretty terribly, we need a huge bowling performance.

[paul_e]

The consolation here is that Pakistan look like a very weak batting line up.  We need to just go for it a bit now, 240-250 gives us a decent chance still.

[PaulWinch again]

Yeah we need the mid 200s to stand a chance. I'm really hoping it's the pitch, but Pakistan have bowled well and we'll need to bowl exceptionally to defend whatever total we set.

[UK Redsox]

Some interesting comments from Woakes  regarding the fact that England do not practice running between the wickets, communicating with the other batsman or sliding/bat grounding.

This surprised me. I'd have thought that coaches/players would be looking for every advantage possible.

[paul_e]

That's about 30 short of what I'd have been wanting as a minimum, we'll need to bowl brilliantly to save this.

[PaulWinch again]

Yep that was desperately poor. We'll need a miracle to get through now.

[manic-road]

Well England's bowlers will have to do something pretty special if they are to win.

[PaulWinch again]

With a total that low you do genuinely need a miracle, because there's no scoreboard pressure at all in the chase. If it had been 270 we'd have had a chance. Poor batting line up or not Pakistan should stroll this.

[PaulWinch again]

I think the start of the innings has indicated which way this is going.

[PaulWinch again]

They're making this look rather easy.