This Broad knock is proper Lazarus stepping out of the tomb stuff.
This Broad knock is proper Lazarus stepping out of the tomb stuff.
Left with England about to be bowled for 330 or so, to come back and not only see a lol 80+ final wicket stand, but S'affers are 6 down below 100. Lovely stuff.
They are a total rabble. It's easy to blame the Kolpak stuff but even if you reversed all that, what are you getting?
Kyle Abbott in for Dane Paterson
Duanne Olivier/Morne Morkel/Simon Harmer probably in for Pretorius/Maharaj
That makes their bowling lineup more consistent but doesn't transform it. Batting wise you're looking at Heino Kuhn and Rilee Roussouw, not sure they would strike any more fear into English hearts than the current selection of batsmen do.
Ultimately they have had the same problem a lot of countries have had during the last decade. If you don't look after your domestic cricket properly then the seasoned options just aren't there to step in when great names like Amla, de Villiers and Steyn come to the end. The ECB seem desperate to take us down the same route (bean counters get quite frustrated and upset when people talk about having a strong county game, because it just doesn't show up on balance sheets, hence the fucking Hundred) but the counties have held firm so far and keep churning out the talent, or at least most of them do. Hampshire and Glamorgan can get to fuck.
He may be a legend for them and all but Philander has totally phoned it in this series. That gut is a disgrace for a professional sportsman.
This is a always a dull period of a test match. England justifiably batting again but with such a big lead and nothing really to be gained for South Africa there’s nothing really happening. At least if Stokes or Pope were in we’d get some stroke making.
Not knocking it, just on my one day of watching it’s the kinda boring bit
You can have endless fun watching Dom Sibley's leaving prowess, and Beuran Hendricks's dreadful wrist position. Mute it when Kevin Pietersen comes on commentary and it's the perfect Sunday.
Quite like when Sibley watches the ball into the keepers gloves even when it’s a mile outside off stump.
What's the theory behind not enforcing the follow on? Give the bowlers a rest?
If the weather forecast is fine, build a lead you know can't be beaten, get your bowlers a rest and annoy the other side by having them field all day.
They're still going to have South Africa needing 400-450 with the best part of 2 days to bowl them out.
Might be worth declaring here to get some overs in before the night.
Not really convinced by the way we've gone about this but whatever.
At least we can use it as evidence against Buttler.
Exactly, especially when your stallion quick bowler has the most high maintenance body on earth. You also get to bowl when the pitch is at its oldest.
The only real times to enforce it are when you are pushed for time; when the bowling conditions are unusually good at that moment; or if you are playing Belgium and have a first innings lead of four million and just want to get it over with.
It was day 3 and we're 2-1 up in a four match series, enforcing the follow on would have been totally mental, and probably the only (admittedly tiny) chance south Africa had of getting back into the game.
If they'd somehow managed to set us 150+ to chase you just never know.
This first ODI is going well.
Proper throwback effort this
Yeah, we've won this format, so back to being rubbish at it.
Particularly liked Denly's inclusion, and his gritty sub-100 strike rate innings.
We really are getting all of the milk from Denly's teat aren't we.
Buttler has scored just one century in 41 Tests and his form with the bat has tailed off in recent months — he averages 29, 24, 21 and 16 in his last four series.
Some of his wicketkeeping when standing up to the stumps in South Africa was also a bit scruffy.
But Root is a huge fan of Buttler, a former Test vice- captain and Eoin Morgan’s No 2 in white ball cricket, while head coach Chris Silverwood preaches the mantra of continuity.
Surrey’s Ben Foakes, an ever-present when England whitewashed Sri Lanka 3-0 in late 2018, will go as second-choice gloveman.
Continuity for it's own sake. Great.
First time I've seen Mo give a batsman a send-off.
That review thing was ridiculous. He needed the send off.
Good to see the spin twins back at it.
Jordan was a bit pap in those final overs, although it's a hard task defending that short boundary.
First time I've seen this Sipamla but he looks a bowler to me. Lovely fundamentals. Looks like it would be a good action for red ball too, or perhaps more so.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/...ld-cup-2019-20
This was lol as fuck, particularly the various bits when the two sets of players were just screaming at each other in fury for no apparent reason.
Good to know they didn't stray far from the formula though:
Rakibul has the flag wrapped around him as he speaks: "It's an unbelievable experience. We came here with plans and it worked out really well. Whichever team executes their plans better on the day wins, and that happened for us today."
That was unnecessarily laboured in the end, shame Banton couldn't see us through. Still, 1-1.
Banton's set up is pretty much baseball. Planted feet, open stance. Literally cannot believe there are people (Michael Vaughan) advocating for him to bat 6 in the Test team. I doubt he'd average 30 in county cricket.
KFJ is in the Sri Lanka squad.
I wonder which actual promising opener is taking the fall for the useless twat.
My problem isn't so much that he's getting called up for being good against spin (well I do have issues with that given his form seems to be crap, but let's pretend for the sake of this that I don't) as the fact that previous form suggests if he does do well we'll then insist on playing him elsewhere for a bit. And that he will be shit.
I don't see why we can't see how the ones we have get on.
He might be a Burns placeholder. It is so weird, having learned his cricket in South Africa and then Durham, that he is seen as a spin specialist.
I think it's more that he is wank outside his off stump, to be honest.
Averages 40 in ten innings on the subcontinent, 258 of it coming from two innings.
21 average outside the subcontinent.
SPECIALIST.
I loved the idea of sending Joe Denly in to 'maintain the right-had left-hand combination' whilst you've got Stokes sitting in the shed. Classic England behaviour.
Joe Denly's international career (all three formats!) is just pure banter. Ed Smith played with him of course.
I see America are having a go at cricket, equaling the lowest ever ODI score yesterday.
They should be better than that on paper, although Nepal have one nigh on world class bowler who looks to have sorted them out.
This is off to a fine start.
They'll never get these. Moeen is our leader.
They are getting these. I'd forgotten how rank poor we are in these situations.
Oh, they've out-choked us, despite Quinton de Kock being a cheating cunt. As you were.
Curran did well to hold his nerve for those final two balls. Fucking shameless cheating from the Saffers though, shouting from the balcony is such bullshit. And why did the 3rd umpire spend about 5 minutes when there was clear daylight between the bat and ball on the side-on camera?
How were they cheating? I was only half watching.
Quinny de Kock did that thing where it was LBW and he was signalling down to the pitch for the batsman to review, something which is illegal and I believe it was our saffa friends who had a massive cry when Australia did it a few years ago.
Naturally the decision was upheld.
Thanks christ they got Malan out there.
Does he ever move his feet? I always thought he was an elegant biffer.
Not much chance of getting these unless Mo goes mad.
Malan is a prick and Eoin Morgan hates him, so no future there.
We really need to stop picking people like Mark Wood in this. T20 demands changes of pace.
That was looking a properly tasty finish until Morgan got bored.
Knew we'd need Mo to see us over the line.
T20 is a bit of a farce on the haaaah veld. No total is ever really enough. Easy sixes for everyone and you basically can't bowl anything except perfect yorkers.
England on a road can get anything in limited overs cricket.