The International Cricket Thread

[Meanwood Villa]

Doesn't look like there'll be much play today

[olaftab]

Not for me. Much better than watching teams pile on 500 under no threat. This has been a fun test match.

Each to their own. I much prefer both captains shaking hands just after tea on the 5th day having batted an innings each at 600 plus

[cdbearsfan]

Doesn't look like there'll be much play today

Perfect, I'm off to the pub today so waiting until tomorrow is ideal.

[Tony Daleys Shorts]

Gotta love cricket. The weather finally clears this morning, so lunch is taken.

[tomd2103]

Good to get the win, but some of the doubts still remain.  The pitch has rightly been criticised, but our batting still looks fragile.  Atkinson, Robinson and Tongue, with Stokes in support, looks a useful enough seam attack in our conditions and it will be interesting to see how they go this summer.  I accept that the game was shorte than expected and no-one has a crystal ball, but Bashir didn't bowl a ball in the test.  If conditions are going to be the same going forward then surely Root and Bethell can cover the spin and we could play another batsman?

[paul_e]

I honestly don't think you can read anything into either the batting or bowling from that test. On day 1 and early on day 2 the ball was swinging far more than normal and it became really tough to bat on. Then it got worse as it dried out a little and turned into a minefield with extra bounce, no bounce, sideways movement off the pitch and still with a bit of movement in the air. Gay's 2nd innings performance was heroic, he had to face some absolute filth.

Then we had a load of rain and it went back to playing the same as day 1 for us to skittle their tail.

I get the argument that it's more exciting to see some real jeopardy rather than watching teams put 500+ up and bore their way to a draw but, for me, this one went too far the other way and at times was looking pretty dangerous with 3 or 4 bouncing 'wrong' and hitting a batter who was trying to duck/dodge the normal line, Bethell in particular took a really nasty one to the shoulder that should've missed him by a foot. Lords really need to have a good look at the pitches they're producing and come up with a plan to produce wickets that give the bowlers something to work with but not ones that do the work for them like this.