Broad's interview yesterday where he basically called the batsmen a bunch of cunts was glorious. It very much feels like he's throwing the towel in at the end of this tour and heading off to the Sky studio.
Broad's interview yesterday where he basically called the batsmen a bunch of cunts was glorious. It very much feels like he's throwing the towel in at the end of this tour and heading off to the Sky studio.
Broad is made for punditry. Absolute natural.
Yeah and if he's prepared to slag off his own team now then you'd think he should really be happy to open up as a pundit rather than the usual thing of people being too worried about upsetting The Lads.
Was just looking to see how long it's been since England were good enough and cared enough to sweep in a series of more than two games. There was a Sri Lanka one in 2018/19 that we won 3-0, before that you have to go back to 2011 for this:
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/.../match-results
Four declarations in the series? Us actually enforcing the follow-on?? What a time to be alive that must have been.
710/7... Woah.
England rarely get clean sweeps in series because cricket in England is fundamentally unpredictable, a toss here, some overhead conditions there all make for much more competitive series. Hence, other than the rain, it being the best place for cricket to be played.
2011 vs India was carnage. They turned up off the back of a World Cup win with captain Dhoni not giving a single solitary shit about being there, and Ian Bell ran riot.
Really the 'doos' series and retirement of Strauss was where it went to shit after a basically very successful period 2003-12.
Even Eoin Morgan got a century.
Would say that's a bit of a red herring, by that stage he was coming to the end anyway.
We had a really good 7 man batting lineup and only replaced 1 of them (with Root).
Yeah when I was looking through the scorecards that there were big scores from all over the batting line-up was the thing that really stood out.
Considering I went to bed absolutely SEETHING at 36/4, I'm pleasantly surprised to wake up and see some fight from the middle and lower order. I was fully prepared to come on here and blow my top, that opening session was somehow the worst of the tour so far (or at least it felt that way).
It's fair to say that it being 3-0 has seen me waking up the last couple of days legitimately not caring either way. Yes it'd be nice to see some backbone and whatever but these are dead rubbers (sorry, I forgot all-important WTC points) and anything anybody does here when the series is done comes with an asterisk.
Top level bants all round there.Bairstow also blocked out comments from one rowdy supporter in the member’s stand who shouted: “Take your jumper off Bairstow, lose some weight Bairstow, you’re fat.”
Bairstow fired back with “Pal, that’s right just turn around and walk away,” before his abuser and two others were ejected.
I've just seen the clip of this. No idea how that was given or how anybody but the bowler (who I can allow when you've just come off a seam delivery might just be trusting what he's heard) have thought that was out. It was nowhere near his pad and I don't think it was even a deceiving angle.
It's prompted his high holiness SR Tendulkar to tweet his belief that the law should be changed for that to be out anyway. Never in the field of human conflict has a man with so many Test runs been so wrong.
This is what happens when you let such short people play cricket.
Pretty sure England have done this every single morning after a decent end to a day. Not that it wasn’t to be expected of course. Pure sexual cricketing on show from Mr Broad with them lunges and swings
England aren't capable of carrying on from the previous day, decent or otherwise. It's a fact. Anything less than a couple of wickets lost in the first four overs is a result.
Does Steve Smith have ADHD or just snort a bag of coke before every batting display?
Hameed is going to get 100 here. I have faith.
I meant Crawley.
Hameed is absolutely useless, isn’t he?
He'll go well in Asia and some English grounds, but anywhere with bounce he's going to struggle.
He's an English batsman in Australia, of course he is.
Not a chance we're salvaging this.
Any chance.of rain?
Hameed is one of the most limited batsmen to tour Australia in recently memory.
Useless in the field as well.
Last edited by Queenslander; 08-01-2022 at 11:54 PM.
Bit underhanded of Australia to keep putting the ball exactly where Crawley wants it so he piles on a score in a losing effort, gets picked again and they can lol him to death in the next test.
He needs a big hundred here, or to bat until tea, or something that demonstrates mental fortitude. We know he can play nice shots for a bit. We need him to make the next step. He's done it once in his career (vs Pakistan) to date. If he does it again here and then again in Hobart then he might be worth persisting with.
I think I’ve seen Hameed’s two edges (dropped catch and wicket) over 100 times now on replay. More so the dropped one than the wicket. They must hate Carey over in Australia
That’s annoying. That was beautiful delivery, mind.
That was nervy as fuck
Honestly thought I'd wake up to 160/170 all out.
Fuck you Australia, we'll have you next time.
Maybe with another two tries left we'll manage a score of more than 300.
NZ chucking Ross Taylor the ball to take the final wicket in his final test (3 wickets @ 16 in 112 tests) was lovely to see.
I saw that and thought it was pretty cool.
I also heard the other day that Jimmy (Anderson, not Floyd) is just 15 runs away from being the record number 11 run scorer in test cricket.
A couple of swashbuckling 8s in the next test would be grand.
12 of them being reverse sweeps, obviously.
Though I am sure it’s time for Jimmy to “rest”
I'm pretty certain he'll go past Warne's wicket record and, as absurd as this may sound, I wouldn't quite take Murali's off the table either.
You think he's got enough years/matches in the tank for that? Seems a big ask even allowing for the fact that he looks after himself well.
If it's left to his devices, I think he'll go on basically forever.
I love these sort of stories.
From your various dispatches about club cricket Jimmy I assume they are still a thing, but I always wonder if it's something our younger players actually miss out on, as they're probably mired in academy structures from a young age and so don't get a chance to go out and play at that sort of level either here or abroad.
There are a fair number of English players who go and play Aussie grade cricket. Tom Lammonby is there at the moment for one, Ollie Pope went a couple of years ago too. Countless others at am level albeit you need to be able to pay for it. They do play club cricket here albeit it's all very managed, i.e. I get a call from Surrey every week telling me if our young Surrey keeper is allowed to take gloves or play at all.
My lot actually played at Sandwich last year after inexplicably getting quite a long way in the national cup, and there was a framed Labuschagne shirt on the wall. They said he had popped back a couple of times when in the country, too. It's a nice tradition of exchange. I've got a guy coming over from Manly this year.
Last edited by Jimmy Floyd; 12-01-2022 at 02:08 PM.
I've no idea if it's as easily explained as it would be with the football pyramid but what level is your team at, Jimmy?
Each county has its own league system, generally with divisions of 10 teams. The Premier Leagues (top tier of each county) are generally proper hard cricket with a smattering of pros and the very best amateurs. You come across some good players there, Adam Zampa's been there, Ajaz Patel, there was an India A player there last year. We're in the third tier in Surrey, albeit Surrey is a strong pyramid, so we'd be top flight in many smaller counties. My task is to try and get us into the second tier or even first tier with basically no resources - you have to develop players from within or pick them up from other local teams, which is harder to do than it is in football as cricket has a much more family feel. We have four XIs for which I'm the chair of selectors. I also umpire in similar leagues, so basically spend the whole summer immersed in the game.
It's quite fun, some of the time.
So given some of the teams you brush with are there times you get absolutely fucked over by some young player and can immediately tell they're going to be a bigger deal? And as with football / any other sport I suppose, ones you assume will be and then you never hear of again?
Yes, both. We had a very entertaining game some while back when we were at home to Ashtead, who brought a teenage Dom Sibley along. They batted and when it was rained off after 32 overs, Sibley was 133 not out and well on course for a championship record. Still, a draw's a draw.
And yes, for every god-like talent that makes it there are 20 who don't and end up either singing for their supper or going down in a ball of flames.
That sounds like a very Sibley-esque strike rate...
Do you get the thing you hear about with football where some mid-50s ex-Premier League (or whatever) rocks up to turn out for a Sunday league team and is superior to those around him by many orders of magnitude while barely even trying?
I'm not aware of many ex-pros who still play at club level. Club cricket is a bit of a slog in the sense that it's a dawn till dusk activity, you have to be fully invested in it.
Michael Carberry did randomly show up in our league at one point a couple of years back, which was a bit of a panic inducer, but he didn't last long. The danger is when you happen to play against a club who have a couple of pros who can't get in the county XI that week, or when the Blast is on the red ball only players stay in nick by smashing your attack of gardeners, students and management consultants into nearby gardens.
India / SA hasn't been a very high scoring series so far, eh.
Though one of them has beaten 300, the sort astronomical score England can but dream of.
EDIT: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...-england-ashes
Some interesting bits and pieces in here though nothing revolutionary.
Last edited by Ian; 13-01-2022 at 08:26 AM.