Cricket fred

[Digby]

Interesting thing for the summer is both sides have strong seam attacks. We might be in it for the draw!

[Banquo]

piss poor

[Digby]

perhaps piss poor, but between them across 2 innings our top 4 batsmen are nearly coming up on 100 runs, and a century is seen as a good thing

[Digby]

there's quite a lot that hasn't worked, but when your top order can't score any runs it's like trying to win a rugby game by giving away 6-10 pointless penalties. it might work, but you're going to need a weirdly compliant opposition

[Banquo]

there's quite a lot that hasn't worked, but when your top order can't score any runs it's like trying to win a rugby game by giving away 6-10 pointless penalties. it might work, but you're going to need a weirdly compliant opposition

poor batting possibly not a surprise given virtually no exposure to top class spin in county cricket on turners- there are at least a couple of good players of spin, but bar Roots double ton, they haven't showed up. Selection and the bubble rotation have exaggerated the issues though; the first innings was spineless tbh, and our selection allowed them to get away from 145-6.

All that said, not sure we really had enough in our locker for those conditions anyway.

[Banquo]

Misery over.

As said, the likes of Anderson will be hacked off. He's probably the only England player who can look back at the series with no personal regrets.

Its worth reflecting that we were stuffed with Kohli misfiring with the bat. Patel and Ashwin's returns in a 4 match series are phenomenal.

[Lizard]

Can you just make sure that Lord’s is a belting seamer whenever we get to play the final?

[fivepointer]

Pretty dreadful collapse after a good 1st test.
Demanding conditions and good opposition, but our inability to build partnerships with the bat and exert consistent pressure with the ball made life very difficult.
Hopefully some of the younger players will be better for the experience.

[Galfon]

'Now we're suckin' diesel..! ' (again)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/cricket/55282644

Archer/Wood...Roy/Buttler/Bairstow back in the groove,
Morgs back at the helm..
Not bad at these side-shows, generally.

[Digby]

That limited overs batting lineup is so strong they're easily able to ignore any pressure to pick up the phone to Hales. They don't even need Root, though they might want him to have others bat around. And our lineup puts huge pressure on opposition batting lineups to score at 120+ SR, which isn't easy against Wood and Archer. I don't know if they're the best limited overs side I've seen, but they might be because of the power in the batting just smashes sides apart, you almost need a couple of 2 wicket overs in the first 5 overs to hold the onslaught. Sometimes we are going to lose too many wickets by dint of our play, but whatever, this makes much more sense than watching Cook and Trott grind out the runs

[Galfon]

Close in the end, but too big a chase in the end.
2 - 2 with 1 to play.
Thakur getting Stokes & Morgan in 2 smart deliveries the turning point.Good to see Jofra connecting.

[Banquo]

Close in the end, but too big a chase in the end.
2 - 2 with 1 to play.
Thakur getting Stokes & Morgan in 2 smart deliveries the turning point.Good to see Jofra connecting.

Let them get too many runs tbh.

[Banquo]

ODI batting shambles now

[fivepointer]

Classic England batting collapse. The openers had set the game up and we should have cantered home.

[Galfon]

The home team bossing in all formats now - starting to look like they have the Indian sign over England.

[Banquo]

The home team bossing in all formats now - starting to look like they have the Indian sign over England.

for all its a great job etc etc being bubbled in hotel rooms will take its toll after a couple of months. Its a tough enough place to play in the first place, and this Indian team is very good.

That said, we made that too easy yesterday!

[Galfon]

333 now needed from 48 overs ..another nice challenge is that.
10 wickets in hand though.

[Galfon]

Stokes going berserk now - 10 sixes already.
56 needed from 15 now, just 1 wicket down.
Surely even Eng. can't Farokh a defeat from here ?

u/d: over 6 overs to spare, at a canter.
Livingstone cameo brings the mini-flap to ground.

[Banquo]

Boom. Stokes and Bairstow phenomenal. Our approach to ODI is certainly entertaining.

[Digby]

The fat lady is warming the vocal cords.

Fair play to India who've posted 3 large totals on the bounce, they've just been more consistent

[Galfon]

Just 7 short in the end - good effort but another big ask.
Can't argue with the 1 day format..100 overs, 650 runs, 19 wickets and a result...real bang-for-your-buck.
The fans have missed a belter of a mini-series there.

[Galfon]

Eng should avoid defeat after the lost day. A good toss to win for NZ tbf.Robinson has gone well but his possible future exclusion for past twitter-bad-boy-isms is not a good start to the summer tests.
Burns rode his luck but applied himself well and justified his recall.

[Puja]

Eng should avoid defeat after the lost day. A good toss to win for NZ tbf.Robinson has gone well but his possible future exclusion for past twitter-bad-boy-isms is not a good start to the summer tests.
Burns rode his luck but applied himself well and justified his recall.

I have a lot of sympathy for Robinson - few amongst us can say that we weren't a twat at 17-18 years old and he appears to have gone 9 years without being a shitposting edgelord which suggests that he's grown up. Doesn't obviate the initial posts and he absolutely needed to apologise and disown them and be on a final warning, but I don't think he should face further consequences.

Plus, his response on the pitch has shown a degree of mental strength that's rare amongst English cricketers.

Puja

[Banquo]

Eng should avoid defeat after the lost day. A good toss to win for NZ tbf.Robinson has gone well but his possible future exclusion for past twitter-bad-boy-isms is not a good start to the summer tests.
Burns rode his luck but applied himself well and justified his recall.

I have a lot of sympathy for Robinson - few amongst us can say that we weren't a twat at 17-18 years old and he appears to have gone 9 years without being a shitposting edgelord which suggests that he's grown up. Doesn't obviate the initial posts and he absolutely needed to apologise and disown them and be on a final warning, but I don't think he should face further consequences.

Plus, his response on the pitch has shown a degree of mental strength that's rare amongst English cricketers.

Puja

This. Now he has an open ended suspension with an unbounded 'investigation' from the ECB. Seems the ECB are keener to be seen to do the 'right thing', rather than doing the right thing imo. He clearly had behavioural problems until his early 20's, and probably now needs a lot of support. Whether he gets it is questionable, given they've hung him out to dry.

[Puja]

Eng should avoid defeat after the lost day. A good toss to win for NZ tbf.Robinson has gone well but his possible future exclusion for past twitter-bad-boy-isms is not a good start to the summer tests.
Burns rode his luck but applied himself well and justified his recall.

I have a lot of sympathy for Robinson - few amongst us can say that we weren't a twat at 17-18 years old and he appears to have gone 9 years without being a shitposting edgelord which suggests that he's grown up. Doesn't obviate the initial posts and he absolutely needed to apologise and disown them and be on a final warning, but I don't think he should face further consequences.

Plus, his response on the pitch has shown a degree of mental strength that's rare amongst English cricketers.

Puja

This. Now he has an open ended suspension with an unbounded 'investigation' from the ECB. Seems the ECB are keener to be seen to do the 'right thing', rather than doing the right thing imo. He clearly had behavioural problems until his early 20's, and probably now needs a lot of support. Whether he gets it is questionable, given they've hung him out to dry.

I've been annoyed by the reporting and rent-a-quotes from people like Vaughan saying things like, "Robinson has made a mistake; he has to go away and educate himself and learn from this." He did make mistakes 8 years ago, apparently did educate himself and learned from it, and is still facing "should have known better" headshaking when clearly 2021!Robinson did and does know better! His only sin in the last couple of days was not setting every social media from his idiotic youth to private/deleted.

Don't get me wrong, the original posts were very shitty and we should look to discourage that kind of behaviour in other people I wouldn't even be averse to a limited, one-match ban, to set the example to any onlookers. However you can do that and still continually mention that it was idiotic schoolboy behaviour and he's now grown up, rather than imply that he's still racist and sexist to a casual reader (which is far worse optics if they plan on using him in the future).

Puja