The cricket thread

scrumhalf

Stuckfast said:

Dead right. When the Aus team was at its strongest, players like Michael Hussey had to wait til their late 20s before they got a chance, even though they were hitting triple hundreds for fun in first-class cricket.

This was before everything was sacrificed on the altar of one day cricket. Batsmen gad a chance to develop a red ball game. Nowadays it's an afterthought. The county championship is played at stupid times and doesn't act as any sort of training for Test cricket. 

scrumhalf

364 all out is less than I would have expected at the start of play, but Bumrah is making the new ball do things. 

Heartfeltdawn

Stuckfast said:

Dead right. When the Aus team was at its strongest, players like Michael Hussey had to wait til their late 20s before they got a chance, even though they were hitting triple hundreds for fun in first-class cricket.

Oh yes. The days where the gauge of Australia strength wasn't the side selected but the people who weren't even getting in squads. One Hussey got a Test chance, the other one didn't despite an FC average of 52. 

The way I think about things now: longer formats of the game give players a chance to nail down the basics of the game and then they can develop the fancy shit that goes with T20 batting. Now we're coming into the generation that haven't had that same development from age group representative cricket that focuses more on T20 at the expense of the long form, then you're seeing a bit of a skills deficit developing in the early 20s players coming through. Tom Banton would be a perfect example to my mind of a guy who came in, got a load of hype, and still doesn't average over 30 in any format. 

https://www.espncricinfo.com/player/tom-banton-877051

When I talk of longer formats for the younger players, I'm not talking about FC cricket. It's longer formats of the game at youth level that are lacking. As I said recently, it's amazing to me that young players who are on county Academy contracts don't always play that often at adult league cricket level. For my area, the highest legue (WEPL) is down to 45 overs a side anyhow. When you think this season that some of those academy players will have played a limited number of multiple day fixtures, been shunted into the Royal London one-day cup this year, might be playing 45 over games on a Saturday... how do you develop those players? 

Take Amar Virdi, the best young spinner in the country. He isn't in the Hundred, he wasn't picked for the RL Cup, and so he hasn't represented any professional side since the four-day Surrey-Somerset game starting July 11th. Assuming he isn't picked for the RLC, then his next match could be the CC game at Durham starting August 30th. No guarantees that he'd be picked though for the traditional Durham seamy world given recent weather. The next CC game at the Oval is Sunday 5th September against Northants. It's quite feasible that Virdi might have gone nearly eight weeks between game starts because of this ridiculous schedule. He's not playing league cricket (last played for Sunbury in June) and even if he was then the Surrey Championship goes back to 50 over games instead of timed declaration stuff so 10 overs per bowler is the norm again, and there's no 2nd XI cricket for Surrey between July 9th and August 30th. 

https://www.kiaoval.com/2nd-xi-fixtures-results/

And that's an aspect forgotten about. No FC cricket for over a month and a half, no 2nd XI cricket for over a month and a half, at a time of year when generally wickets are harder and the sun is out. it's utterly ridiculous. 

scrumhalf

Oh for fuck's sake. 23-2. Root must be wondering what he has to do to get a sit-down with a cuppa after dismissing India.

Heartfeltdawn

scrumhalf said:

Oh for fuck's sake. 23-2. Root must be wondering what he has to do to get a sit-down with a cuppa after dismissing India.

I think he should put himself at 8 in the second innings just to troll the middle order. 

scrumhalf

Sibley has to go after playing that shot. (Autotext offered me "shit" instead of "shot", it's obviously a fan of test cricket.)

He did not need to play that shot. If he doesn't value his wicket neither should the selectors. 

Dopesick

Yeah Sibley is history. 

Heartfeltdawn

scrumhalf said:

Sibley has to go after playing that shot. (Autotext offered me "shit" instead of "shot", it's obviously a fan of test cricket.)

He did not need to play that shot. If he doesn't value his wicket neither should the selectors. 

Sometimes a picture says more than words. 

https://i.imgur.com/EUenRyb.png

As Siraj comes in, his back foot movement takes him from umpire being able to see all three stumps to a little bit of off stump. The weight is still on the back foot, the straight front leg means it's hard to shift the weight over properly for the shot he wants to play, and the wide position the bat comes down from means a shot like the easy wrist roller in front or behind square or dabbed to fine leg is hard to play. Playing a hard hand flick through midwicket with your front foot pointing at the umpire is just an absolute collapse of technique in my book. It's an absolute nothing ball and if a nothing ball like that causes such a technique collapse, then it's time to go back and work on stuff. You get batsmen playing brain fade shots (Ian Bell was pretty good at this at times) but this isn't that. 

So if he does sod all in the second knock, then what for the Third Test? Hameed's an opener but he's been castled by a straight ball. At this rate, we may as well as ask Stokes to give up bowling and focus just on batting and to do what Kallis did in his later years. 

scrumhalf

Didn't Woakes open the batting a few years ago, or come in at 3? I have no problem with selecting someone who can bat as an opener in the shirt term if our "proper" openers are not doing it. 

Our current openers can't open. We need to find a solution. If we take them to Australia there is a risk that their confidence may be destroyed. 

Stuckfast

Our league sent round a questionnaire recently. At the moment we play 45 overs a side and if the team batting second doesn't get bowled out, it's a draw (albeit that a 'losing draw' doesn't get you many points). They're asking if it should be changed to 40 overs and the draw option eliminated.

I had a long debate with son #1 about this. I like the current format. It forces teams to learn to bowl a side out, rather than just rack up big runs and then put everyone on the boundary. It means individual bowlers can bowl 11 or 12 overs in total, which is two proper spells. And if you do find yourself in one of those mismatched club matches where the side batting first gets 300, it gives you something to bat for.

He completely disagrees and would much rather play 40 overs win/lose. Maybe I'm a dinosaur but I think the current format is just that bit more like 'real' cricket.

Heartfeltdawn

scrumhalf said:

Didn't Woakes open the batting a few years ago, or come in at 3? I have no problem with selecting someone who can bat as an opener in the shirt term if our "proper" openers are not doing it. 

Our current openers can't open. We need to find a solution. If we take them to Australia there is a risk that their confidence may be destroyed. 

I've touted Sam Curran many times as a temp opener who'd offer a bowling option who couldn't do any worse than Sibley at present. SA back in the day threw Andrew Hall up to open and he did a stellar job in India with the bat and gave them a legit bowling option too. I'd personally keep Woakes down the order because I like his relative steadiness with the bat down there as a counterpoint to Buttler or Moeen. 

Heartfeltdawn

Stuckfast said:

Our league sent round a questionnaire recently. At the moment we play 45 overs a side and if the team batting second doesn't get bowled out, it's a draw (albeit that a 'losing draw' doesn't get you many points). They're asking if it should be changed to 40 overs and the draw option eliminated.

I had a long debate with son #1 about this. I like the current format. It forces teams to learn to bowl a side out, rather than just rack up big runs and then put everyone on the boundary. It means individual bowlers can bowl 11 or 12 overs in total, which is two proper spells. And if you do find yourself in one of those mismatched club matches where the side batting first gets 300, it gives you something to bat for.

He completely disagrees and would much rather play 40 overs win/lose. Maybe I'm a dinosaur but I think the current format is just that bit more like 'real' cricket.

I'd definitely favour 45 overs and with 11 or 12 overs per bowler. My dislike of the WEPL right now is that it's 45 overs and 9 overs per bowler. As a bowler, I'd feel shortchanged knowing I am restricted in that way. Never feels right that a batsman has the chance to bat for 100% of their innings but a bowler in that same innings is restricted to performing in 20% of that innings, so the 11/12 over restriction of your league sounds perfect. 

I like the draw option which is why I liked timed games with the 'winning draw' option. 

The perfect balance is something like the Surrey Championship that plays 50 overs game for the first quarter of the season, timed games for the next half, and then finishes up with 50 over games. Harder to do that in the more rural areas because of travel time and that's one aspect that the move to a pyramid system of league cricket around here 20 years ago was a real problem. The league side I was with at the time in West Wiltshire at the turn of the century would be travelling up to places beyond Cheltenham, a near 200 mile round trip. For Saturday amateurs, that's simply too much. 

40 overs: that's Sunday friendly material! 

Heartfeltdawn

Stuckfast said:

And if you do find yourself in one of those mismatched club matches where the side batting first gets 300, it gives you something to bat for.

What's the worst mismatch you've ever been part of? Mine was a uni 1st XI game. We whomped 400 plus in 50 overs and bowled them out for 34. One of our chaps who was on Surrey's books got a double ton and teed off and opening bowler got 6 for 12. They weren't even a bad side, they just had a nightmare game. I didn't bat, bowl, and barely even touched the ball in the field. Quite possible that I had more post-game pints than I actually touched the ball outright. 

pigface

Heartfeltdawn said:

What's the worst mismatch you've ever been part of? 

In a school game, our chaps made about 195 for 3. I didn't bat. We had a future international batsman in the side, who made a ton. We then bowled the opposition out for 3. Yes, 3. I didn't get a bowl.

Stuckfast

Ooof! Don't think I've ever been involved in anything quite as brutal as that. Some of the Sunday league games we played were quite one-sided though. Our overseas pros would usually turn out and most of them didn't really understand the concept of taking your foot off the gas against weak opposition. I remember one of them scoring a 12-ball half century once.

Heartfeltdawn

pigface said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

What's the worst mismatch you've ever been part of? 

In a school game, our chaps made about 195 for 3. I didn't bat. We had a future international batsman in the side, who made a ton. We then bowled the opposition out for 3. Yes, 3. I didn't get a bowl.

Cripes. Who was the batsman? 

Heartfeltdawn

Even if he is dismissed before stumps tonight, big up to Root. That's some effort today. 

Our two all-rounders at the half way point have scored 27 runs between then and taken 1 for 124 from 40 overs. 

scrumhalf

Indian bowlers getting a bit carried away with the short stuff at Jimmy. 

Perhaps Woody can respond in kind. 

scrumhalf

Roooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot!

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