Entertainment For Lively Minds
England vs India, 3rd test
Posted by Red Umpire on 12 August 2011 - 3:44pm.
Bloody England middle order collapses. Honestly, they're hopeless.
From 596-3 to 613-6 in five overs...
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613-6
Granted losing the last two wickets so cheaply takes a little shine off the day but I think most of us would have been happy with that at the start of play.
The weather is the only thing that will save India from another innings defeat imho.
Darn it...
I knew I should have put a winky smiley at the end of my post.
Bresnan, Broad and Swann to the rescue
We need them to perform now to ensure we get to 1000 runs and piss off the scoreboard operators!
What do we reckon?
Cook gets 300 and then declare?
Swann must be watching the Indian spin and liking what he sees.
Incidentally
is there a better website dedicated to a single sport than espncricinfo.com? If you are a cricket fan it is nirvana.
Well designed and the content is unbeatable.
Off for bad light again - ridiculous
Back on again straight away
What's going on with all these micro-interruptions?
So why are India so poor?
A couple of comments I've heard
Boycott: "If this had been Bangladesh, we'd have been asking why they had been given Test status"
Frank Skinner: "Pakistan played better when they were trying to throw the match"
Oh no!
Cook out for 295. Brilliant, brilliant innings, but such a shame that he didn't make 300...
England declare on 710-7, just the 486 runs ahead.
13 overs left in the day
Could an Indian batting collapse happen?
F**k! Sehwag's gone!
King pair!
For Sehwag!
Sh*t!
(Excuse all the screamers but sometimes they're entirely justified.)
I am starting to feel really rather proud...
of this cricket team. It is a very pleasant feeling to have.
The best Test team we have ever had
It's almost
an embarrassment of riches.
Broad and Bresnan playing like a pair of all rounders. And now the prospect of one of the most exciting batsmen in the world picking up some wickets tomorrow with some spin bowling. And then there's Swann.
As in all sports it's cyclical
it is indeed a golden period and as someone who paid Skys dollar to watch Athertons 90's team (49 all out in the west Indies and 5-0 to the Aussies etc) I for one intend to enjoys it. It will be someone elses turn soon but I wonder if in the next two or three years England will begin to replace players so the side doesn't grow old together. Witness Australias decline and the West Indies before them and now India. It'll be a brave man that moves Strauss or Swann on but the timing of it is essential for continued success.
A pedant writes...
...that the only England teams to lose 5-0 to Australia were captained by JWHT Douglas and Andrew Flintoff.
Atherton captained for the last two Tests of 1993, winning one and losing one, and then lost 3-1 and 3-2. An overall record of four wins, seven defeats and two draws.
Pedantry aceepted
and justified. Lazy of me not to check especially as Atherton is only second to Botham as my all time cricket hero. My point remains, however imagine what Atherton would have achieved captaining this lot.
That's an interesting question…
...but I wonder whether Atherton, or any other captain in the history of English cricket, could have done a better job than Strauss is doing now.
Strauss / Flower
is a formidable combination but I have an unnatural admiration for Athers. Grammar school, Cambridge, Lancashire, England, England Captain, Sky commentator and Times cricket correspondent. That's my life that is, bastard!
You forgot about...
...Sports Journalist of the Year 2010.
Ah yes, but..
Have you ever been mistaken for my mate Justin?
I once watched a bunch of lads talk to the then little-known Mike Atherton. They thought he was Justin.
India have not lived up to number one billing
They are out of form, unfit, under prepared and the insidious effects of the IPL are clear to see. However, the most disspiriting aspect of all is precisely that - the lack of spirit or heart or fight with one or two notable exceptions.
Having said all that, this is a very good England team that may even grow into a great one. The overall state of world cricket is not as strong as it was 5 or 10 or 15 years ago, but this crew seem to have that drive and ruthlessness that marks out the great sides like the West Indies of the 80s and the Aussie teams of the 90s and early noughties.
If I were to pick a team from the last 30 years it might run something like
Gooch
Cooke
Vaughan - Captain
Gower
Pietersen
Botham
Stewart Wk
Flintoff
Swann
Underwood
Willis
That's four from the current crop and strong cases for Anderson, Broad and Trott too
This is a pretty damn good England team alright
Blimey
Did Derek Underwood play in the last 30 years? I remember him only in black and white, bowling in near dusk.
Ha!
And bowling medium fast off a longer run up than some fast bowlers!
He played...
...his last Test in February 1982.
The extraordinary thing about Underwood is that, bowling apart, he is entirely right-handed.
ok 30 or so years...
and adds balance to the team with Swann as offie and real strength in the seam department.
Plus I faced him once as a schoolboy who had been invited down to a Colts representative trial at Canterbury. I was 15, he must have been late 40s at least. You could hear the ball fizz in the air, bowling at a pace that would have been good club cricket quick. Frankly, he was pretty much unplayable in a setting where he was hardly likely to be trying too hard
When their careers are done
Bell, Trott, Broad, Prior, Anderson and maybe at a push Bresnan if he keeps developing could well demand places in that team. That is the difference. I would still go Atherton / Trescothick at the top of the order, what a combination and replace Vaughan with Trott.
What a find...
...Tim Bresnan is. I love watching him play – a wonderful combination of skill, strength and enthusiasm. And he is so clearly enjoying himself hugely.
I love the fact
that he has devoted his life to be the best he possibly can be and then grasps the opportunity with both hands. The change in his physique is incredible. Ironically he should have started the series ahead of Broad but now I don't see Tremlett getting back in. Unless they go for four seamers at the Oval and leave Swann out. Let's not forget we haven't LET India be good, it's an important point to make, they haven't suddenly become a bad team we just haven't let them breathe. Wonderful times.
A find?!?
TB has been playing first class cricket for 10 years. First played for Yorkshire when he was 16.
Fair point
I should have expressed that better. What I was trying to convey was that his county stats were not particularly compelling, and I don't recall any great demand for him to be picked, but he's made the step up to Test cricket with ease.
I think the England selectors deserve a lot of credit. Whether picking players like Chris Tremlett and Graeme Swann who had earlier been discarded, or sticking with Alastair Cook and others through bad patches of form, they've done remarkably well.
Fair point also
I should also have given credit to TB for the work he has put in to change himself from a chubby, fast medium trundler who could hold a bat into a supremely fit, genuinely quick bowler who also looks like a proper batsman.
Only trouble is, he very rarely plays for Yorkshire these days. We could really do with him at present.
Sheev...
Close, but no cigar...
Sir Geoffrey in for Cook
Hussain* as captain, in place of Vaughan, tho' it's a close one.
Knott for Stewart (no brainer)
Gough in for Swann (again, close)
Now thats a creekit team, could bat all day long with a stick of rhubarb that bunch.
* Nassar Hussain sowed the seeds that Struass and co are reaping... IMHO he is the most influential English cricketer of the last 20 years.
Also, a sense of perspective required: Engerlund beat a very ordinary Aussie side for the Ashes, and really, this Indian team don't seem in any way interested in this Test Series.... whereas the 2005 team beat at an Australian side who were just (and no more!) on the slide from greatness... Hayden, Langer, Pointing, McGrath, Gilchrist, Warne and Lee.
Would the current English team have given that bunch a decent game?
Maybe, but the best English team of my lifetime was Vaughan's 2005 lot.
No Trescothick?
A finer opening batsman this country has not seen. I'd replace GG. I would also suggest that the attack lacks bite. I'd want Simon Jones in his full pomp rather than Beefy. Otherwise.. Yep.
Edit..
But Beefy was a better fielder. And we've got spinners..
Ooh..
Trescothick?
Agreed, see up there a bit. Wonderful book too, plenty of "bloody hell" moments. If not for his breakdown Cook may still be waiting for his chance, ain't life funny?
may be a harsh judgment
but cricket - like all top sport - is about mental toughness and performing under pressure. Trescothick was undoubtedly a good player and destructive of good bowling on his day - sadly not on enough days.
Gooch was similarly dominating, was more consistent over a longer period of time and in a period when England were not strong and others - Aus, Windies and Pakistan in particular - were.
Gough? Good bowler but adds nothing that Flintoff and Both and Willis don't provide. Might be persuaded by the case for Knott. Stewart's keeping not in the same class, but it was competent enough and his better batting and, again, his toughness just edges it for me.
Alan Knott's...
...Test batting average was 32.75. Alec Stewart's was 34.92 when he was keeping wicket.
If you want to pick a keeper for his batting as well as his glove-work you might want to consider Matt Prior, whose average is 45.10.
My copy of The MCC Cricket Coaching Book (published 1952) says, in bold, 'It can therefore be laid down as an absolute principle in team selection that the best wicket-keeper, irrespective of all other considerations, should always be chosen.'
I worry about Prior's catching close/up to the stumps
I think Kiesewetter is a better catcher. Prior keeps him out on experience and his contribution so far, but he is knocking on the door.
It's good to have competition and two good keepers/batsmen anyway.
One or 2 other good young keepers coming through the county system as well
I think that principle is as outdated
as the notion that the captain should be a "gentleman" rather than a "player" which also was the prevailing code at the time the manual you quote was written.
Cricket has moved on and sadly deft glove work alone cannot be the decisive factor. Even in Knott's day , many argued that there were other better keepers and it was Knott's batting skills that gave home the edge over someone like Bob Taylor, for example. Although, Taylor did play some Test cricket, his place was always under jeopardy from another wickie who could provide runs too.
I think that basically a wicket keeper/batsman is a must in the modern game as it is, in effect, another type of all-rounder and enables the picking of a specialist bowler or batsman depending on the team's needs.
Actually, I would go further and say that all players need to move closer to the all-rounder model these days. If you can contribute a few overs as well as runs, it will give you an edge and, if, as this England team has proved bowlers can make runs then it has a very positive effect. Athleticism and alertness in fielding are also becoming increasingly mandatory. That being one of the arguably few beneficial contributions that T20 has made to the game overall.
Yes, the principle is outdated.
That was why I included the date of publication.
The MCC themselves had thrown the principle into the bin by 1960, when they picked Jim Parks as England wicket-keeper.
What?
No room for Heyhoe Flint in that line up?
Hey ho Flintoff?
Howszat!
Forgot all about Tony Grieg.....
Once again Sheev I almost agree with you.
Re Knott/Taylor, they were both outstanding glove men, chosen for their ability to keep wicket, but Knotts superior batting skills meant he got the nod over Taylor, but he was picked primarally for his outstanding ability to keep wicket.
What is the point of chosing a WK who may score an extra 15 runs batting, if he misses stumpings, catches etc and gifts the opposition 40+ more runs than they would otherwise have got due to bad wicketkeeping?
M'lud, the prosecution calls for Geraint Jones....
No. 1 team in the world!
Brilliant stuff.