The Cricket Thread

lol at Kumble being forced to resign because Kohli doesn't like him. Sounds like he's building himself a Dhoni-esque empire, but with less match fixing and more angry shouting at opposition fans.

This is a battering.

Aye.Top notch effort from the saffers. Inexplicable.

Good to see a trend towards playing Tahir as non-spinning half track wank.

Crane is class. Take him to Australia.

Oh and what a day to be on under 145 :drool:

He'll play in Sydney with Boyd Rankin and Scott Borthwick.

South Africa seem on the verge of a disaster tour. Just look an ordinary side. They won't be scalping a captain this time round.

We should go down there with Mo, Rashid and Crane all in the side. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Bin off Plunkett or whichever boring backup seamer they favour.

Was it last time the plan revolved around all our bowlers being really tall or was that the time before?

Whichever one where Broad was the ENFORCER, right? Which seemed to involve bowling them short enough to clear the roof of the stadium.

Last time. They took and played Tremlett even though he had been bowling 71mph potato gun all summer.

Everything about that tour was about as bad as it gets. I think someone brought my end of tour ratings over to this board somewhere.

When was the last genuinely competitive series in Australia? Are we still going back to the 80s for one of those? Or earlier?

Bairstow looks in insane form at the moment (making his odd capitulation against Pakistan all the more perplexing). Everything was flying off the middle of the bat today.

1998-99 was 2-1 Australia going into the last game, so that wasn't miles off. Before that it was the one we won under Gatting I think.

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Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd

1998-99 was 2-1 Australia going into the last game, so that wasn't miles off. Before that it was the one we won under Gatting I think.

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Last game was a good one, too. Michael Slater got 123 out of 184 runs in the second innings, which ended up being the difference.

Stuart MacGill got about a million wickets in that series.

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Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd

Last time. They took and played Tremlett even though he had been bowling 71mph potato gun all summer.

Everything about that tour was about as bad as it gets. I think someone brought my end of tour ratings over to this board somewhere.

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Here:

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Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd

I'm still awake, and angry, so I'll do a WDYTOE. Let's pretend for the sake of argument that the fifth Test has been called off for humanitarian reasons.

Cook
Shows the sort of leadership last exhibited by Captain Schettino when the Costa Concordia smashed into some rocks. Bowled the wrong bowlers at the wrong times, set horrible, defensive and inflexible fields, and then, once the series was lost, resorted to utterly bizarre shite in an attempt to ape his opposite number's (crap) Funky Fields. Selection also abysmal, for what part he has in it. With previous successes now confirmed as being down to his leading players, he's got to go, as captain, and concentrate on his batting, which - predictably - has turned to utter shite with him chasing and dabbing at wide filth outside the off stump like he probably chases and dabs at his wife outside the stables.

Carberry
Why do people constantly state he's a good fielder? He's not. Has at least applied himself with the bat, making him unique among the tour party, but is old and probably isn't quite good enough. Bye.

Trott
If anyone ever doubted the great man's value before, survey the apocalyptic scenes of doom before us now.

Root
Since the previously settled order has crumbled around him, seems to have suffered a crisis of identity and is much more successful at making 'who's a cheeky monkey?' grins than at any aspect of playing cricket. Has some nice shots in his locker, but seems petrified ever to play them. I'd put him back up to opener and back him for a bit.

Pietersen
He's never going to change, so we might as well keep him at number four until he finally minces his way into the record books. Has an ego to make Muhammad Ali look like a hermit living in the Swiss Alps by a forty year unbroken vow of silence.

Bell
Gah. Fucking hell, Ronald. If you start driving uppishly early in the innings again I'll have to take it all back.

Stokes
Has shown promise, albeit only actually in a single innings, but he's blatantly not a Test six. Bowling fine. Saying he's the light at the end of the tunnel is massively overdoing it, but he's worth persisting with.

Ballance
Has emerged with the most credit of all England batsmen on the tour, by virtue of never having left the fucking nets. Might as well be Lara.

Prior
Bye. In every sense. I hope he doesn't go in vogue and Retire From All Cricket because in April I'm going to take a trip to Hove to watch him with his hands in his pockets, fielding at third slip for the Sussex 2s against fucking Cardiff MCCU as he bids to regain his form enough if not to get an IPL or Big Bash contract, then certainly to have a stab at Bangladesh. 'One thing I know about this Barisal Burners team is that we always come out fighting'.

Bairstow
Not good enough with bat or gloves. Will probably become a Ramprakash figure. Bye.

Broad
Criminally underbowled at times by Cook, by far our most impressive bowler (though still gets too obsessed with our crap PLAN of bowling short all the time) and if any of the current shower of absolutely putrid shite could have even a look at being the next captain, it might be him - although even suggesting that makes me feel like I have AIDS. However, his batting, which on natural ability should be a very handy second string to his bow, is instead a total embarrassment to him and his family.

Bresnan
Bowls a heavy ball, keeps the run rate down, will never let the side down, useful with the bat, etc. Let's face it, he's fucking shit, has always been fucking shit, and always will be fucking shit. Fuck off. Bye.

Tremlett
We might as well have brought a photograph of Tremlett for all the use he has been. His top level career is over, I warned the England selectors about this all summer having actually watched him play then as opposed to whipping out the DVD of 2010/11 for a cheap Thursday night wank. But did they listen? Did they fuck. Bye.

Anderson
Let's not kid ourselves that a 'lack of assistance' or 'the Kookaburra ball' is at fault for Jimmy's failings in the series. No. He bowled beautifully in Australia last time out and has done so in all conditions, all around the world. What's at fault for his failings is the fact that he's been programmed into needing to swing the ball - conventionally or reverse - by the England stat computers so much that he's forgotten how to actually bowl, hence the humiliating episodes every innings when he tells Aleem Dharmasena that the ball is out of shape after three overs. It was so in 'helpful conditions' in the summer as much as here. Probably deserves the Sri Lanka series as a final chance to sort himself out.

Finn
Another example, along with the above and others, of the cancerous effect of our 'scientific' management on our best talent. Here we have a raw talent who has all the things you can't teach - so we decide to fucking unteach them, and try and make him more like Timothy Twatface Bresnan. It is, in sporting terms and for Finn as a man, a tragedy.

Rankin
Why would you take him on tour if you have no intention of trying him out, even amidst the wreckage of the most embarrassing attempt at a Test series in the last 25 years? He's 29, so not a youngster as everyone seems to assume, and if not good enough for Tests, surely you'd know that before bothering to tempt him over from Ireland?

Swann
RIP. Bye.

Panesar
The England Setup clearly fucking despise this man, and all spinners not called Swann. First they didn't select him in Dubai, then they didn't select him in Ahmedabad, then they selected Kerrigan over him after he was pissing on bouncers, and finally Cook starts bowling Joe Root ahead of him here. What's going on? I doubt they'll pick him again after this tour.

Management
Flower's time has run its course, while Gooch and Saker also have to go. In their place I would suggest Ashley Giles and Graham Thorpe would be a good start. Less southern African thinking required, more Englishness. Also, I am reliably informed that James Taylor's height is what keeps him out of the team. You what? Selection is batshit mental and clearly picked off some graph that doesn't mean anything.

So this is an approximation of what I reckon we should start next summer with:

Cook
Root
Bell/Trott
Pietersen
Bell/Taylor/Ballance
- (wk)
Stokes
- (spinner)
Broad (c)
Finn/a young quick (not Tymal fucking Mills)
Anderson/a genius 1990 style journeyman

Then hopefully, by the time MS Hitler brings the Nazis over for their five match series, a few people will have stood up in county cricket and sensed their opportunity.

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Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd

Last year these were my thoughts on the Ashes, and I hoped I would never have to write such a cathartic rant post again but here we are, and here we go. Let's start with the players.

Morgan
This bloke has puzzled me for a long time but in this tournament I've finally chanced upon what he is - a fucking shitcunt version of KP, who, himself already a fucking shitcunt, is setting the bar very high. Morgan has totalled about one good year in an England shirt and on his day etc etc - I don't care. Ultimately you have to ask why he has come over the sea. He doesn't give a fuck about playing for England, as he has shown on numerous occasions and not just with the anthem, so you can only imagine he came here to enrich himself on the back of English cricket. Fine, many have, but England captain? Once you get past the pleasant manner and the come-to-bed eyes he's just another underperforming cunt who can fuck off. Put him on the ferry at Liverpool and let him play for a country he wants to play for. Shouldn't play for England in any format again.

Moeen Ali
This morning I saw a picture of him playing chess with Ravi Bopara, which appeared to have been taken by an ECB sniper. I like to imagine that it was a piece of performance art, a cry for help. He's a fucking legend. We don't deserve him.

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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B4atgkfCYAEvdqB.jpg:large

Ian Bell
I really want Ronald to be the best player ever but the fact is, the guy has spent his entire life at fucking Loughborough and it shows when the crunch comes. He's never been a good enough one day cricketer, because one day cricket is about big, swinging testicles and unfortunately Ronald's have to be hoovered out of his ginger perineum every morning. Shouldn't play in one dayers again.

Alex Hales - he has a shit technique, I don't really rate him and he is one of those guys (like Stokes) who people latch onto and turn into the Messiah because he's not in the team. He does at least take the bowling on but he is not the future and is frankly no better than ordinary. That's the sad truth.

Barry Gallance - I have watched Barry smash the fuck out of T20 and one dayers with Yorkshire, so ultimately his utter fucking disaster of a tournament has to be another for the long, Tolkien-esque book of people England have made worse. He has come into the side because they want a batsman, they've put something through a computer and told him he has to be their solid number three, and it's broken him, as has the humdrum tedium of having to have 800 throw downs from Simon Short-Shorts and his dog chucker every day. I want Barry to go back to topless nightclub singing. He enjoyed that.

Joe Root
I love Root. He has talent, he has guts, he has a pair and he's the future, and now the present, of English cricket. Make him captain of everything.

James Taylor
The ECB's treatment of Taylor is the cricketing equivalent of that woman who was filmed putting a cat in a bin. Reliable sources have told me he wasn't picked for years because 'DATA' (hopefuly this is now a thing) suggested he was too short for international cricket, despite being taller than arguably the greatest batsman to play the game since the war. When finally picked, he has been moved up and down the order according to the needs of other people, all of whom make lesser contributions than he. He must now be treated as an asset in all formats.

Ravi Bopara
We've been trying him for fucking years and he never does anything. Why the fucking fuck was he in Australia? We have aggressive, stylish batsmen like Vince and Roy not even threatening the squad because this dickhead and his little no-backlift pushes behind point are deemed a crucial cog in the machine. Fuck off and take your shithouse bowling with you. Shouldn't play for England again.

Jos Buttler
If he's been a bit under par its because our batting plan is 'lose loads of early wickets while scoring at a poor rate, and then hope Jos hits 150 off 40 balls'. Like all our other shit plans, this one has been execution-free. Obviously a big player going forward along with Root, Moeen and Taylor.

Chris Woakes
I have always been a fan, and still am despite his complete inability to think for himself on a cricket field, but that started to diminish when the other day I heard him say 'execute our plans/skills' in five consecutive sentences. I'll stop here to explain why skill execution is so sinister and wrong. It implies that a textbook skill is perfectly formed and can be pumped into the very flesh and bone of Chris Woakes, and then it's down to him to execute it and the coach can say not me guv. What it does is elevate the coach and the analyst to a level above the player, which is not surprising since it's them who came up with the concept. It's also the reason why everyone - EVERYONE - must be sacked.

Chris Jordan
Can't blame him.

Stuart Broad
I was dreading getting to this absolute CUNT of a man because with everyone else a bit of sweary slagging off is enjoyable, but with this fucking disgusting person it just makes me more and more angry. In the first game against Australia he repeatedly ran away from the ball like a little girl, which for an international cricketer claiming to bat at 9 is pathetic, and that summed up his World Cup - averaging less than 3 with the bat and almost 80 with the ball. He's a coward, he's a simpleton, he's a cunt and the ECB gave his sister a job as an analyst, which is BCCI-esque. He has to go. I can't bear it any more. Oh and as Alex Hales so neatly puts it, who indeed does have their initials on a golf shirt? https://twitter.com/AlexHales1/statu...32242029547520

Steven Finn
If you took his pants off you would find a penis and then a void behind it with a stamp saying DAVID SAKER WOS ERE. He bowls like he's on death row, with no conviction, with no venom, with no confidence. But can you blame him? This is a setup that intentionally drains all of those things from anyone who had them initially. He is done, he is finished, and so is England.

James Anderson
He was past it as a one day cricketer at the last World Cup, we rest him from every one day series, so he turns up at the next World Cup, bowls like a hologram and people are surprised? Fucking get rid.

James Tredwell
He's probably just made his own way home by now.

Management
It doesn't matter if we sack Peter Moores. The next person will be the same. The ECB has built a system in which conformity is paramount, whilst individuality and fun and joy are to be distrusted and stamped out at all levels. It broke Jonathan Trott, by all accounts the most decent man in those better England sides, not that that was any great achievement. It's broken Steven Finn. It's well on its way to breaking Ballance.

They are such a corporate set of cunts that they feel everything has to be controlled by them and the protection of revenue and the brand is the only thing worth fighting for. The England brand must be worth about 3p by now, but they still cling on.

David Saker is a fucking useless cunt, and I have no idea how he still has a job. Moores seems to be broken, has failed miserably twice, and has to go. Downton is an absolutely ridiculous fungus of a man and has to go. But none of these people has to go like the one who has seemingly permanently entombed himself at the centre of English cricket, Giles Clarke, who has damaged our game, damaged the world game and all whilst aping David Mellor. If he drowned tomorrow I genuinely wouldn't be that upset. In fact, fuck that, I'd pay to watch it.

I love cricket, like thousands of others I put a lot of time into the game, and we all get up at 4am and watch these cunts represent us and we deserve better. They can all fuck off and some new ones can come in. We were fucking shit in the 90s, but at least then we were shit for the right reasons. This time we're shit because parasitical cunts have made us so and it didn't need to happen.

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The Ian Bell World Cup entry remains my favourite paragraph ever on this board or any. I have thought about it almost every time I have seen poor Ronald since.

I reckon the bit about hoovering Bell's bollocks out of his ginger perineum every morning might be my favourite TTH thing ever.

Edit: Hah, snap.

Coincidentally you reposted that just at the moment I saw a tweet from Kevin Pietersen asking his followers what he can do about patches of his lawn being eroded by his dogs pissing on it. That alongside my Ashes 13/14 review of him make a nice diptych.

Ginger perineum is the eye catcher, but the succinct truth of "I want to like him, but he's spent his whole life at Loughborough and it shows..." is the real meat.

He's currently leading Warwickshire through a terrible season. Imagine Ian bloody Bell as your captain.

Apart from Bairstow 13/14, I think it all stands up actually. Being a Woakesliever from the beginning is on my CV.

In happier news, Ireland and Afghanistan have just been confirmed as Full Members. Hallelujah.

Scenes when we play a one test series against Afghanistan in late August on an inexplicable dust bowl and Rashid Khan takes 16-for :drool:

Bet it does a bit at Jalalabad.

Afghanistan is certainly one of history's "difficult place(s) to go". Tricky away day. Wonder if Gladstone Small or whoever will be doing a tour party to Helmand.

All transport provided in armed convoys PLUS special eve-of-the-Test dinner as your host Simon Hughes gives his unique insight on the modern game and special guest Mullah Omar remembers the glory days. Just £1,195 per person per night.

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Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd

Being a Woakesliever from the beginning is on my CV.

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I'm sure there was another TTHer who was an even more devout fan than thee, and he was lampooned at the time . . .

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Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd

In happier news, Ireland and Afghanistan have just been confirmed as Full Members. Hallelujah.

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About time. I honestly though they'd never do it, for fear of disrupting the voting blocs.

Well it doesn't really disrupt the voting blocs as there's one of each, which is probably why it got through.

Although I'm not sure the voting blocs now are necessarily the same as they were in the 90s.

Being as this is Taunton I'm guessing South Africa are a long way short of a competitive score again here.

Livingstone really botched that. Proper rabbit in the headlights.

Tom C though :cool:

I'd never heard of Livingstone but he didn't look up to much. Just vaguely swinging at shit and hoping for the best from what I saw.

He's come in off the back of a string of decent performances for Lancs/Lions but I suspect he's a bit of a hacker. Famously got 300 in a limited overs club game a couple of years back.

Can only assume word had come in from HQ to keep the series competitive. Either that or monumental arrogance has rightly cost them. You don't send Livingstone in at 4 when you have Morgan and Buttler to come and are pissing it. How is that 'having a look at him'? You look at him where you intend to bat him (6). It's unfair on him to send him in to win the game when you have more experienced/capable players in reserve and I don't really see what you learn - either Roy smashes them to victory or the rest of them capitulate in a bit of a heap? He's not going to be batting at 4 (well, realistically not at all but we'll overlook that) in a proper game so what is the value in 'looking' at him there? Morris was properly ticking though. Fun to watch. Just a shame someone didn't launch him into the river and tell him to get back to his mark.

I really like Mason Crane. AB just nailed him a few times in the over and he kept his nerve and got him at deep square.

Behardien now in for the big dot fest that is his life.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england-...y/1106040.html

This is all a bit weird. I trust the Surrey sniffer dogs have been sent in now Sanga is hanging up his magical orb.

Meanwhile, they've named their Test squad. Their chief selector, Linda Zondi, is a bloke, which is a bit of a confusing one.

du Plessis, Amla, Bavuma, de Bruyn, de Kock, Duminy, Elgar, Kuhn, Maharaj, Markram, Morkel, Morris, Olivier, Phehlukwayo, Philander, Rabada

Went to Headingley yesterday, im not sure this day night 4 day cricket/test match is going to work in this country.

The pink ball was fine to see in the first session, got a bit more difficult to see as it lost a bit of colour in the second session and then once the floodlights came on at 7pm in bright sunshine it became impossible to see the ball. At 9pm you would still probably have been ok to play without the floodlights so unless there going to play these games in April or September or play at this time of year from 4pm till 11pm I can't see it working.

Crowd wise there was definitely an increase on what there has been at other championship games ive been to over the last few years. I'd say about 3 to 4 thousand were there yesterday. The crowd got smaller into the evening though as the older guys who go to every game were leaving to get their bus/train home and it was starting to get a bit colder. It didn't seem like many people had come along after work to watch the second half of the day.

Sanga was obviously on a way higher level than anyone else but I was also really impressed with Roy. First time I've seen him live and when he isn't trying to play stupid reverse paddles or hit every ball out of the ground he actually looks a very good cricketer

Imagine being a fly on the wall at BT when they realise Australia aren't going to bother putting out a side for the ashes.

And the moment when they finally realise it's on in the middle of the night.

I think you mean between the hours of 8 and 6.

And then it won't be on at all.

Chef's got a bit of an opening stand on the go here.

Jinx!

Aye, proper kiss of death there.

:D

Whether you're into women's cricket or not, Atapattu has just an absolute blinder of an innings for Sri Lanka against Australia. 178* from a total of 9/257.

Watched a bit of it at the pub this evening. Really enjoyable. Women's cricket has really come a long way.

Ours managed to lose to India the other day, who unlike their men retain the plucky underdog spirit of yore, probably because India is a violently sexist country and despises women.

Those Little Lankans giving Oz a run here.

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Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd

Ours managed to lose to India the other day, who unlike their men retain the plucky underdog spirit of yore, probably because India is a violently sexist country and despises women.

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I had almost the same thought when I saw them playing. :D

The next World Cup has 10 teams, and the top 8 in the ODI rankings as of 30 September this year qualify automatically. Sri Lanka were looking a bit iffy, so they decided to schedule a nice easy home series against Zimbabwe to boost their ranking. The first match was today.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/sri-lank...h/1104478.html

:harold:

Gaz Ballance back in the Test squad. When will they learn.

Ballance in the test squad? Is the County Championship having a strike year or something?

Patel and Mullaney running riot.

The horror.

Hales is probably going to have to get a double ton here it Notts are going to win.

Which footballers do you think would have made good cricketers? Tony Yeboah as a big fast bowler anyone?

Hell of a knock from Hales.

On Ballance, having only seen him
in Test cricket, it's baffling to me how he's managed to score so many FC runs. Just seems if you keep bowling full he won't score, will be nailed to the crease and will eventually get out. Dawson is actually the weirder selection though, don't get the ECB brains trust obsession with him in any format.