This T20 appears to have been conducted on a pitch little bigger than a tennis court. One of the boundaries was about 10m outside the circle.
This T20 appears to have been conducted on a pitch little bigger than a tennis court. One of the boundaries was about 10m outside the circle.
Chased 243 in a T20.
D'Arcy might be the real thing, too.
Some really shite bowling on display today.
Presumably the ultimate goal is to get T20 to a point where you get a four just for hitting beyond the reach of your bat, a 6 if you get it off the wicket and then an extra run per metre up to the boundary.
300 runs if you get it on the roof.
And 20 bonus points if you're clean bowled but you were swinging REALLY hard at the ball.
Some idiot (Simon Hughes I think, most idiotic suggestions come from him) said we need a new score above the 6. No, Analyst' mate, we just need to play on proper sized grounds. It's like if football made the goals 20 foot tall you'd get more goals but it would also be a worse sport.
It was a serious suggestion for USA 94 I believe as our cheeseburger-eating cousins were concerned that there weren't enough scores in a soccer match to make for an exciting game.
So the Diana Ross thing was a protest of some kind?
The balance in our test team seems right, although I'm still concerned about Mitch Marsh. He's playing well though, so fair go for him. I'd put Renshaw back in place of Bancroft though.
Some outstanding umpiring and reviewing by S's Ravi and Smith in that middle session there.
Are they using/trialing some sort of 'review retained' thing with the DRS in this match where you don't get double fucked by a stinking "umpire's call" decision? That first Smith one had something like that when it was being replayed.
Mitch Marsh being the Surrey overseas for the full season is a real loyalty splitter to me. Imagine wanting him to score runs.
S Ravi is wall to wall entertainment with his FRONT ON SPIN WISSION repertoire.
Meanwhile, rumours circle that Morne Morkel is about to jack in international cricket after this series and join the Kolpak revolution.
Hasn't he already announced some sort of retirement?
Looks like it. Hasn't selected his county yet but I think we all know what will happen there.
I see Afghanistan are busy stuffing up world cup qualification, which is a bit of a bummer.
Scotland or similar making it would be better as it would put two fingers up to the absolutely farcical 10 team format.
It's the Afghans' own fault, they seem to have gone all in on Rashid Khan being good when actually he isn't.
You lot will still win this ODI easily, but that was one hell of a collapse.
This Ross Taylor lad seems to be doing quite well for someone with sixteen injuries.
The Sky commentators are pissing themselves every time he holds a new body part with a grimace on his face.
Our counties are only allowed one overseas player (at a time), or two in T20. EU freedom of movement means that EU players count as non-overseas. In 2003 there was a landmark legal case involving a Slovakian handball player named Kolpak which means that countries with 'EU Association Agreements' also enjoy freedom of movement. South Africa, Zimbabwe and the Caribbean countries have such status, meaning that their players could join counties as non-overseas. For some legal reason it seems like they have to give up international cricket to do this.
Then you have a weak rand and generally poorly paid SA players, so a secure county deal becomes attractive.
Will Brexit wipe out Kolpak (and Bosman!) rulings?
Depends on what happens to freedom of movement, but there's a good chance, which explains the mad rush to get them in now.
If we get full hard, horny Brexit-means-Brexit Brexit in which cold beer is banned and everyone has to carry a picture of Churchill in their wallets, then we might see football getting fucked by it. Highly unlikely, I would guess.
Wealth finds a way.
Steve Smith taking over Watto's insane review mantle.
Good old Leg Before Watson.
Smith can review anything he damn well wants. Clean bowled? Maybe the bowler overstepped.
You think we're going to save those reviews for Mitch Marsh? Bugger off.
Yeah, I like that they seem to have a term for it now. 'Personal review'.
With the review retained thing (if I understand how that works) it's almost worth sending anything up as a batsman, with the way knocking leg stump out of the ground can be 'umpire's call'. Finally the system is morphing to what they all ways wanted it to be, the batsman redemption system.
I see we gave New Zealand a good shoeing overnight.
Case in point review by Amla there. Complete roll of the dice, was walking off when he saw he hadn't inside edged it, and then reprieved by the narrowest margin on hitting outside the line (the hawkeye made it look a lot more outside the line than it did in reality). Not what this system was put in place to deal with.
Rabada is so fucking good. ICC will probably ban him for that send off when the world should reward him for getting in that twat Warner’s face.
What a bowler he is though. Shame he isn’t going to play more Test cricket.
Yeah, shame he's managed to get himself banned for the rest of the series.
I really hate that send off rule as well. You should be able to tell the cunt batsman to get to fuck as they dither over their DRS reprieve decision. Give'em a little wave, blow them a kiss, whatever. Seeing as you're allowed to say pretty much anything from behind the stumps I always find it odd that bowlers aren't even allowed to swear when they're on the wicket. I say odd, I mean, evidence of how things operate.
The ICC should really just put Michael Holding in charge of player conduct and discipline. 'Sledging' is, and always has been, a dickhead's charter. It needs done away with in the modern age of hypersensitivity.
You'd think I'd be happy that Rabada is out, but I'm not at all. We don't get to play test series against any team that much, so you'd prefer to have the chance to face their best XI, and see what our lot are capable of doing.
Umpires in general are too nice and passive. You need some shouty Paul Durkin style cunts.
Give them the power that baseball umpires have to do a theatrical point off the field and instantly eject anyone who mouths off. It would mean Sri Lanka down to 4 players every game, but that's their lookout.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_C..._Cup_Qualifier
The World Cup qualifier makes no sense on any level. Afghanistan started out by shitting the bed, but have now just beaten West Indies. Scotland are absolutely donning it, which is both bizarre and potentially very funny, and Ireland and Zimbabwe are right in the mix and play each other tomorrow.
The permutations are mind-boggling, but I reckon if Scotland win their next game they'll have just about done enough.
It's also an utter joke that all of the above teams won't be going to the World Cup. ICC hang your heads in shame.
Last edited by Jimmy Floyd; 15-03-2018 at 08:37 PM.
Ireland v Scotland on Sky now. Scotland chasing 272 and currently panning Boyd Rankin all over Harare.
Scotland have rather turned this match against the Windies on its head from when I checked in on it earlier (WI 135-3 after 33 overs).
Such a classic Scottish failure in the offing here.
The umpire has stitched Scotland right up there with that lbw decision.
And then they were just behind on duckworth lewis, and then it chucked it down, and now they're out.
You shouldn't laugh. Good work by the cobber umpire.
He'll be dining free on fresh plantains until the day he dies.
The whole thing seems like an absolute corrupt sham, which is unfortunately what happens if you let south Asians run things.
When you guys see the score was 7/23, you'll think that it's been a patented England collapse™.
It's not. The bowling has been sensational.
I reckon teams are going to start preparing pitches that are arrow-straight for day-night pitches, in order to mitigate the effect of the ball swinging all over the place in the final session.
It might make life a bit harder in the first two sessions for teams that depend strongly on swing.
Tuned in and just saw Taylor getting out and thought not bad.
Then I clocked the 'lead by 66' in the corner of the screen. What the fuck?
Any annoyance I had about the performance has quickly been overtaken by Vaughan saying Mark Stoneman 'doesn't practice like an international cricketer'.
In happier news, Zimbabwe losing to UAE to blow their World Cup place is one of the funnier things to happen recently.
Which means this Ireland/Afghanistan clash is a straight shoot out. The Stan tying Ireland up in knots a bit, run rate a funereal 3.2 and they can’t get Rashid Khan off the square.
Not exactly a massively hot take but it really is a disgrace the World Cup is only 10 teams. Plenty of talent here and a shame more aren’t going to be at the big tournament.
I mean obviously there will be a few shellackings but you also might see Afghanistan turn over England or Ireland shock England or the UAE surprise England or Scotland beat England.