The International Cricket Thread

[olaftab]

I think Afghanistan’s inexperience in winning matches will result in England sneaking this. Wood and Rashid doing very well.

[Lsvilla]

I think Afghanistan’s inexperience in winning matches will result in England sneaking this. Wood and Rashid doing very well.

FFS.

[PaulWinch again]

This has been pathetic.

[taylorsworkrate]

They've fully deserved the victory Afghanistan. Batted with far more purpose and bravery at the start of their innings and they've outbowled England.

As I said earlier, it really isn't that much of a surprise. England have been sleepwalking since the last world cup in the 50 over format. Any side that thinks its acceptable to have Sam Curran coming in as it's No 7 batsman deserves everything it gets

[PaulWinch again]

Well done Afghanistan.

Dismal England, they’ve got virtually no chance of semi finals. All facets of the game miles off.

[Meanwood Villa]

It would seem 2019 was the aberration sadly. We are so bad at world cups generally.

[olaftab]

I think Afghanistan’s inexperience in winning matches will result in England sneaking this. Wood and Rashid doing very well.

FFS.

Not sure who what was more pathetic, England performance or my optimism 

[PaulWinch again]

It would seem 2019 was the aberration sadly. We are so bad at world cups generally.

In fairness we won the Twenty20 World Cup.

We look really poor and meek here. We’re playing with 9 men the way Woakes and Curran are bowling as well.

[Gareth]

All that 50 over practice they had this summer…getting what ECB deserve for the farce of inventing a competition (that no one else plays) and playing it through the summer whilst the domestic 50 over competition was on.  Nevermind Monster Munch or Scampl Fries probably got advertised…absolute cretins

[PaulWinch again]

It’s not as simplistic as that though is it? I don’t love the Hundred, but it has brought a lot of people to the game and been massive for the women’s game. This isn’t about domestic 50 over cricket, not really, it’s more that it’s become massively inconsistent in the international calendar. England haven’t played enough games, and that is the administrators fault.

But beyond that there are players like Woakes and Curran ( really like them both, the former is obviously terrific) who are massively underperforming. Like I said earlier, they only managed 8 overs between them today - they were dreadful.

Also the structure of the side is unbalanced - Livingstone and Curran at 6/7 is too high. If it were 7/8 that’s very different.

[paul_e]

It’s not as simplistic as that though is it? I don’t love the Hundred, but it has brought a lot of people to the game and been massive for the women’s game. This isn’t about domestic 50 over cricket, not really, it’s more that it’s become massively inconsistent in the international calendar. England haven’t played enough games, and that is the administrators fault.

But beyond that there are players like Woakes and Curran ( really like them both, the former is obviously terrific) who are massively underperforming. Like I said earlier, they only managed 8 overs between them today - they were dreadful.

Also the structure of the side is unbalanced - Livingstone and Curran at 6/7 is too high. If it were 7/8 that’s very different.

Yep, we've played about half the amount of 50over games as the likes of India since the last world cup and we're seeing the impact of that.

[Steve67]

I agree with all of the above but I also think we should have batted first and when we bowled, taken the pace off the ball and strangled them like they did us.  Not sure I like Buttler's captaincy much.  Brilliant for Afghanistan though, wasn't even close.

[PaulWinch again]

Bowling first was a mistake (although had we bowled vaguely competently we probably would have won). We’re hedging our bets with the bowling too much and it’s leaving us exposed with a weak batting line up. Livingstone and Curran at 6/7 might work if the top 5 basically get 250 runs (plus) or so every time, but if you get rolled over it’s just too flimsy to work on a consistent basis.

[PaulWinch again]

Looks like when we play the Saffers both sides will be looking to bounce back.

[Lsvilla]

Learning the same way we did. Scoreboard pressure in a tournament is very different to scoreboard pressure in a bilateral when you can go again 3 days later against the same opponent. Get the runs on the board and pass that pressure onto the associate member nation.