The cricket thread

Stuckfast

This has got to be the worst England batting line-up since the 1990s. Has every single wicket now fallen to a ball that should have been left alone?

sixstringsupplies

^It is appalling isn't it? Never have I seen such a dishevelled look of a batsman than Bracey after that dismissal.

Feel for the guy but the reality is he shouldn't be in the team at all (this is not down to his ability, but I really disagree with the ECB / management resting Stokes/Woakes/Curran and Buttler/Bairstow for the sake of T20 cricket.

Anyway, watching on Sky and listening on the radio, the atmosphere seems absolutely electric, I really can't wait to dive in and experience it on Saturday! 

I am not in the Hollies stand....but I am, ehem....a typical Hollies stand spectator. Lots of beer and sun, I expect to wake up on Sunday with a sore head and red like a lobster.

 I just hope this match goes to a third day...I'm sure it will.

scrumhalf

That's the influence of one-day cricket for you. Building an innings, knowing when to play and when to leave, it's not currency in the one-day game.

Listening to Dennis Amiss on TMS at tea I couldn't help but wonder what he thinks about the current state of our batting.

But I'm sure everything will turn out fine, the Hundred will save the game and give us the upper hand in the Ashes. 

Heartfeltdawn

Stuckfast said:

This has got to be the worst England batting line-up since the 1990s. Has every single wicket now fallen to a ball that should have been left alone?

I'm not going to call it the worst line up since the 90s but it's the most misfiring all over the place top 7 for ages. 2 has no fluency, 3 is bang out of form, Root..., Pope is another who hasn't grabbed his chance, and Bracey looks like an absolute bag of nerves. In some ways, it's harder for him to go in at 7 than to go 2 or 3. Imagine being in that dressing room after a first Test duck. Lose three quick wickets, the collapse is on, skipper comes back quick... and then you've got to go out there. At least opening up, you aren't sat there listening to all this shit going on. 

It's shit but we've seen worse. 

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/new-zealand-tour-of-england-1999-62074/england-vs-new-zealand-4th-test-63844/full-scorecard

crunchman

Heartfeltdawn said:

Stuckfast said:

This has got to be the worst England batting line-up since the 1990s. Has every single wicket now fallen to a ball that should have been left alone?

I'm not going to call it the worst line up since the 90s but it's the most misfiring all over the place top 7 for ages. 2 has no fluency, 3 is bang out of form, Root..., Pope is another who hasn't grabbed his chance, and Bracey looks like an absolute bag of nerves. In some ways, it's harder for him to go in at 7 than to go 2 or 3. Imagine being in that dressing room after a first Test duck. Lose three quick wickets, the collapse is on, skipper comes back quick... and then you've got to go out there. At least opening up, you aren't sat there listening to all this shit going on. 

It's shit but we've seen worse. 

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/new-zealand-tour-of-england-1999-62074/england-vs-new-zealand-4th-test-63844/full-scorecard

Having someone who knows which end of the bat is which at 9 does help.

222 for 7 would have been 230 all out with Mullally, Tufnell, and Giddins at 9, 10, and 11.  Wood is a distinct upgrade on that.

Heartfeltdawn

Oh yeah, tails in those days were proper tails. None of this batting lark back then.

Stuckfast

Heartfeltdawn said:

It's shit but we've seen worse. 

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/new-zealand-tour-of-england-1999-62074/england-vs-new-zealand-4th-test-63844/full-scorecard

That was a pretty good top six! Barring Root for Maddy you'd pick most of them ahead of the current lot.

crunchman

Stuckfast said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

It's shit but we've seen worse. 

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/new-zealand-tour-of-england-1999-62074/england-vs-new-zealand-4th-test-63844/full-scorecard

That was a pretty good top six! Barring Root for Maddy you'd pick most of them ahead of the current lot.

I think Atherton was really struggling with his back by that point in time.  From 1998 onwards he averaged 32.7, compared with 40.6 before that.  With an opening partnership of Maddy and a crippled Atherton, the middle order was exposed.  Not a lot of margin for error with that long a tail.

sev112

That 1999 batting line up (Maddy excepted, who I liked a lot and hoped he do better given a better chance) reminds me very much of the Engkand football team generation of Beckam, Gerrard, Lampard etc.  

That was 5 batsmen who could have dominated test cricket for years.  Each in their individual ways were significant test players, Ramps perhaps slightly less, but if I remember whikst he didn’t make lots of hundreds her usually made runs ?
funny game isn’t it.  

I was looking at who to add to it in place of Maddy. Perhaps Butcher was injured or out of form temporarily, as he was a good test opener, maybe not top notch, but good over a reasonably long period ?

crunchman

sev112 said:

That 1999 batting line up (Maddy excepted, who I liked a lot and hoped he do better given a better chance) reminds me very much of the Engkand football team generation of Beckam, Gerrard, Lampard etc.  

That was 5 batsmen who could have dominated test cricket for years.  Each in their individual ways were significant test players, Ramps perhaps slightly less, but if I remember whikst he didn’t make lots of hundreds her usually made runs ?
funny game isn’t it.  

I was looking at who to add to it in place of Maddy. Perhaps Butcher was injured or out of form temporarily, as he was a good test opener, maybe not top notch, but good over a reasonably long period ?

The big problem with that 1999 team was the bowling.  Alan Mullally and Ed Giddins weren't going to strike fear into anyone.

Stuckfast

crunchman said:  Alan Mullally and Ed Giddins weren't going to strike fear into anyone.

... except England fans.

crunchman

Stuckfast said:

crunchman said:  Alan Mullally and Ed Giddins weren't going to strike fear into anyone.

... except England fans.

Giddins main claim to fame has to be one the classic sledges when a bowler asked for a snort leg when came into bat.

Heartfeltdawn

Stuckfast said:

That was a pretty good top six! Barring Root for Maddy you'd pick most of them ahead of the current lot.

Atherton was struggling badly as Crunch says, Maddy as an opener = no way, Stewart at 5 with the gloves is the shit top 6 version of Stewart, and Ramps at home averaged 24. So I'd happily take Thorpe and Hussain from that top six as they played for this team. 

Stewie would be in my top six as a batsman alone, not as he was there in 1999 hence me not picking him. When you go back through his career, it reinforces how fucking stupid repeated coaches were. When batting at 1 or 2 and not keeping, he averaged 45. All positions in the top order without the gloves, he was averaging 47.70. Put that against other openers of the time and their average. Slater and Taylor, 42 and 43. Haynes and Greenidge, 42 and 44. Graham Gooch, 42. People talk about many players being mismanaged and treated like shit in the 90s. Hick, Tufnell, Ramprakash, Lewis, Devon Malcolm, but Stewart too suffered from insane management. You take a guy who could and should have been our top order pivot, the one guy everyone could have revolved around, and you dump both the gloves and the captaincy on him. We pissed away a genuine absolutely stone cold great in Stewart to my mind. He's still got a bloody good record: it should have been better.

We had the batting in the 1990s. We simply didn't use it well. The 1990 series against West Indies, Stewart and Hussain debuted. Atherton debuted a year earlier. Robin Smith and Allan Lamb were in the side. Gooch was leading and opening. On paper, we had some experienced guys who were good, we had some good young players who didn't hit the high performance levels in the West Indies but showed they had some character, and we damn well nearly won against the best in the business. 

And we did this all with Wayne Larkins opening. 

We then come back to England, a three Test series against NZ, and then the First Test against India, the match Gooch hits his famous 333. Hussain and Stewart have gone, Gower comes back again, and John Morris has somehow jumped up the rankings. After going through the brutality of the winter against the West Indies quicks, the easier more sedate fare of India was denied. We had no development policy in place and we kept going back to the old guard. 

There's an interview or two with Alan Mullally talking about some of the madness. One aspect was him saying how he once went 27 playing days in a row for club and country. So our batting and bowling were shit in those days but the whole system was a fucking mess pre-Fletcher and pre-central contracts. Fletcher coming in made the County Championship a priority as the springboard to international cricket. It's fair to say that all the T20 stuff, IPL, T100 contracts have destroyed that structure that was built up and we're now seeing the consequences of it: top order batsmen who can't stop playing away from their body who are desperately out of form and don't have any cricket other than 20 over slaps with which to find it. 

Heartfeltdawn

crunchman said:

The big problem with that 1999 team was the bowling.  Alan Mullally and Ed Giddins weren't going to strike fear into anyone.

Giddins was a greentop bowler. Mullally ultimately fell into the mismanaged category like many others and some of the comments he has made about senior management are consistent with what others have said. 

The 1990s were the era of next level shit management. I mean, christ, I'm focusing on the start of the 1990s and bloody Illingworth had yet to come in then! 

Gassage

@Heartfeltdawn ;
Just one point- Larkins at his best, was utterly destructive. 

Heartfeltdawn

Gassage said:

@Heartfeltdawn ;
Just one point- Larkins at his best, was utterly destructive. 

Agreed, he really could destroy attacks at county level but it didn't get translated into major Test success. Again like many others, you look at his Test career and you see this pattern of coming in and then going out of the side. In his case, in and out over 1980 and 1981, out of the side through his own decision to go on a rebel tour, and then back again for 1990 to the West Indies, out again for the 1990 summer, in again for Australia 90/91... the pinball selection policies of the 1990s were quite something.

Heartfeltdawn

Comedy note of the day: Stuart Broad is still 18 runs short of matching Graeme Hick for Test runs. 

https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/records/batting/most_runs_career.html?class=1;id=1;type=team

Stuckfast

Yes to be fair to Mullally and co, the workloads on Test bowlers before we had central contracts were insane. Gus Fraser was another who could have had a much better England career if he'd been looked after. 

crunchman

At this rate, we won't have to choose between cricket and football tomorrow afternoon.

scrumhalf

What a load of old pony.

Really poor.