Cricket fred

[Galfon]

A faint sniff - steady start essential.
Hopefully the illness in the camp doesn't spread (not literally) and complicate matters.

* Also i'd to point out this is the two-thousandth reply on this fred and as such could attract considerable value in the lurk export market, in a by-gone era.

[Galfon]

Not the best start - Burns & Denley depart.
Eng. need a big innings from someone now..
still a whiff.

[Banquo]

Not the best start - Burns & Denley depart.
Eng. need a big innings from someone now..
still a whiff.

Burns will be hanging his head a bit...

[Banquo]

Have to worry about YJB. Think he needs some proper time off; he's corrected technical faults before.

Buttler needs to play his normal game imo.

[Banquo]

amazingly, we collapsed again; illness is a bit of a mitigation, but these collapses are too regular.

[Galfon]

Last 5 wkts. in 5 overs.. 129 for 9 wickets today when a win was a possibility...
The debilitating extent of the lurgy is an unknown, but this team seems to fold more readily than a napkin at the moment.

[Digby]

The good news is with just one qualification spot open for the utter abhorrence that is the world test championship bollocks we're exceedingly unlikely to make it.

[fivepointer]

Think illness was a telling factor. Most of the team had bouts of illness before and during the game. It shouldnt be used as an excuse as England, yet again, came up short in too many areas. Opting to bowl first looked a gamble at the time and hindsight confirmed it was a poor decision.

[Digby]

I'd accept the illness and attending lack of a spinner more as explanations for the bowling than the batting, and certainly than batting collapses. Especially when collapsing in both innings is what our batters do when in theory not ill, if anything they maintained standards admirably.

Ideally we'd make SA bowl another 70-80 overs at us in the next test, but we've got to manage another 50 odd unless SA have at least one miserable failure with their batting.

[Galfon]

More bad luck - Burns out of tour following a football injury (ankle) in training. Not the first one to suffer this fate - could well be the last eh..

[Banquo]

How come Leach has fallen out of favour? We don't seem to have any patience with spin bowlers, certainly compared to some batsmen.

[Puja]

How come Leach has fallen out of favour? We don't seem to have any patience with spin bowlers, certainly compared to some batsmen.

He's genuinely not that good of a bowler. His turn is practically non-existent on anything but a helpful pitch and he's neither accurate enough to hold down an end nor has enough tricks in his locker to present a threat.

Genuinely, Root is a better spin option.

Puja

[Banquo]

How come Leach has fallen out of favour? We don't seem to have any patience with spin bowlers, certainly compared to some batsmen.

He's genuinely not that good of a bowler. His turn is practically non-existent on anything but a helpful pitch and he's neither accurate enough to hold down an end nor has enough tricks in his locker to present a threat.

Genuinely, Root is a better spin option.

Puja

Their test records to date dont agree- Leach is going at less than 3 an over and is taking wickets at less than 30, not bad for starting a test career on flattish pitches.

[Mellsblue]

Ffs

[Banquo]

Ffs

yep. Broad should bat at 15.

[fivepointer]

Poor to have so many starts but only one batsman getting to 50. Some of the dismissals were incredibly soft.

At least Broad provided a comedy turn.

[Banquo]

Poor to have so many starts but only one batsman getting to 50. Some of the dismissals were incredibly soft.

At least Broad provided a comedy turn.

its sad that Broad has gone from being a decent bowling all rounder to being a comedy batsman.

[Digby]

How come Leach has fallen out of favour? We don't seem to have any patience with spin bowlers, certainly compared to some batsmen.

He's genuinely not that good of a bowler. His turn is practically non-existent on anything but a helpful pitch and he's neither accurate enough to hold down an end nor has enough tricks in his locker to present a threat.

Genuinely, Root is a better spin option.

Puja

Their test records to date dont agree- Leach is going at less than 3 an over and is taking wickets at less than 30, not bad for starting a test career on flattish pitches.

He was genuinely not well, as in I don't think they even knew if he'd be able to train ahead of this match. And I assume they just weren't confident he would last a 5 day match given low energy levels. I also assume he simply had the virus the was going around, I did know what was wrong with him and simply cannot remember now

At least we picked a spinner, though how much use when our batsman are clearly better at football than cricket I don't know

[Banquo]

He's genuinely not that good of a bowler. His turn is practically non-existent on anything but a helpful pitch and he's neither accurate enough to hold down an end nor has enough tricks in his locker to present a threat.

Genuinely, Root is a better spin option.

Puja

Their test records to date dont agree- Leach is going at less than 3 an over and is taking wickets at less than 30, not bad for starting a test career on flattish pitches.

He was genuinely not well, as in I don't think they even knew if he'd be able to train ahead of this match. And I assume they just weren't confident he would last a 5 day match given low energy levels. I also assume he simply had the virus the was going around, I did know what was wrong with him and simply cannot remember now

At least we picked a spinner, though how much use when our batsman are clearly better at football than cricket I don't know

I'd heard a pundit- maybe Agnew- say they'd lost confidence in Leach.

[Digby]

Their test records to date dont agree- Leach is going at less than 3 an over and is taking wickets at less than 30, not bad for starting a test career on flattish pitches.

He was genuinely not well, as in I don't think they even knew if he'd be able to train ahead of this match. And I assume they just weren't confident he would last a 5 day match given low energy levels. I also assume he simply had the virus the was going around, I did know what was wrong with him and simply cannot remember now

At least we picked a spinner, though how much use when our batsman are clearly better at football than cricket I don't know

I'd heard a pundit- maybe Agnew- say they'd lost confidence in Leach.

That might also be true, but I do know there were doubts he'd be ready to train on Wednesday or Thursday this week. And with the side likely to have been missing Archer you'd think they'd want Leach not Bess at least for this game

I wonder if Anderson has missed walking out to bat with no runs on the board?

[Galfon]

Very ordinary total, no shock there.
Good riposte early doors by the quickies - Elgar playing with a degree of pomp, under the circumstances.

[Banquo]

Very ordinary total, no shock there.
Good riposte early doors by the quickies - Elgar playing with a degree of pomp, under the circumstances.

enigmatic batsman, not much variety though.

[Mellsblue]

Elgar playing with a degree of pomp, under the circumstances.

Very good. Very good, indeed.

[Mellsblue]

Don’t worry chaps. Root reckons it will only take 8 years to sort out this mess.

[Banquo]

bowled like sh@t since lunch compounded by a no ball `wicket'
Pietersen is an unwelcome addition to commentary