Oh yeah mate?England captain Joe Root on BT Sport: "The immediate thought is frustration because of how it's finished. We have played some really good cricket throughout and shown what we're capable of. We've grown over the two games and shown a lot as a batting unit. Yesterday we let ourselves down and we didn't stand up to it well enough and it has left us in this position where we've lost after playing so much brilliant cricket.
"We've got to show more frequently, like we did on the first day of the tour, people standing up and us getting to a total more frequently. We've shown we can do it - that's the frustration. That first day of the tour was some of the most tricky conditions we've had - we didn't stand up yesterday.
"I thought the attitude throughout the whole tour has been brilliant - in that respect we've made many improvements. That has to continue. There's so much we can take away from this - it's frustrating not to win because we came here to do that but we can take away some of the things from the approach. We've had three debutants have shown plenty and they've got stuff to take away from it.
"I've made it quite clear at the start of this game and tour that I want to take this team forward. I don't think it's ever in your hands and I feel like the group are behind me. We're doing quite a lot of good things - we just need to turn that into results now."
All that's missing is a reference to examining the data and executing our plans.
He might as well have outright admitted the "red ball reset" was entirely his idea. Trying to spin that shambles in a good light screams of him needing to be right about it.
It'd be quite nice for him to get the hook just so we don't have to hear him talk anymore. He's just so wet.
Who is the nearest we've got to a Nasser style hard bastard? If we're going to be shit, I'd at least like it if we had someone in charge who sounded unhappy about it.
No one is allowed to have character anymore.
Missed this match on holiday, absolutely devastated to have missed us being absolutely scythed open by the 75mph dobblies of Kyle Mayers. Makes a change from Roston Chase I guess.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/g...nistan-1308058
Things you didn't think you'd ever read.
I didn't realise they play "home" games in India.
Joe Root is OUT. Probably SACKED but they're saying 'stepped down'.
All with Ollie Pope 113* overnight for the rey.
So who comes in? Literally Stokes is the only option unless they bring Broad back. I don't think Stokes will be able to cope with the workload. Nobody else even has their place in the team guaranteed.
I would, and this runs against everything I stand for, give it to Jos Buttler. The way he bats, it's basically like having a non-playing captain, in the sense that he can just come in at 7 and do whatever with less scrutiny on his form if he's guaranteed a place as skipper.
He's not a Test batsman but I think he has a much better cricket mind than almost anyone in our ranks.
Nobody benefits from Stokes being captain.
Actually, there is an ideal captain candidate among active English players, but we'd need to tempt him out of retirement.
The scenes if Cook returns.
I'd get even more tired of Buttler punching balls when he should be catching them if he was also under no threat of his place.
Foakes getting bunted out again to accommodate a non-playing playing captain would be classic England.
As would appointing Stokes. He's basically non-playing at this point as well.
Has Captain Morgan been floated anywhere?
There are no good options. Darren Stevens?
Maybe Nasser Hussain as a literal non-playing captain. Doesn't bat, bowl or field, but puts the whites on and directs things from the boundary, as well as giving rockets in the dressing room afterwards.
That said, Rob Key's supposedly in line for the DoC role so Sky can't be raided too heavily.
Mike Brearley is still alive
Rob Key in as director of cricket. I remember him playing for England U19, ffs.
I don't understand why he's taken it. The manic schedule clearly doesn't sit well with him mentally and that was before the burden of captaincy.
Having said that, he's definitely Team Anderson/Broad so at least we won't have to endure Overton's dobbers all summer.
Well Stokes / Key haven't fucked around in saying they want Broad and Anderson back.
Makes it all the more puzzling what was going on before.
Something about the Stokes/Key pairing makes me feel weirdly optimistic. These are flawed men, not corporate robots. We need a bit of that. See what happens with the coaches, I guess.
I'm keeping my Ravi Shastri candle alight.
Last edited by Jimmy Floyd; 28-04-2022 at 09:23 PM.
It seems my man has ruled himself out, but at least in return I get this truly legendary, swear-filled interview in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...-england-india
First there's the BCCI's hiring practices:
'At any cost'“I had no warning,” he says. “I was commentating at the Oval during India’s [2014] tour of England and came off air to find six or seven missed calls. ‘Seven bloody calls? What’s happened here?’. [The BCCI] just said: ‘We want you to take over, starting tomorrow, at any cost.’
Then there's his attitude to qualifications:The most important thing is getting among the players and setting a tone from the outset: what you believe in, what you think of them and changing the mindset to compete and win. You have to be bullish and brutish in wanting to achieve that. For us, and now England, it was about setting the challenge of winning abroad, big time. I was very firm when it came to team culture: all the prima donnas and all that shit, that had to go out of the window early.
And it was about attitude, especially when playing the Aussies. I told the boys if one single ‘fuck you’ comes your way, give them three back: two in our language and one in theirs.
You can kind of see why India have been so good in the last few years with this legend setting the tone.And I didn’t have coaching badges [either]. Level one? Level two? Fuck that.
Cup cricket has started in our league this week and I just noticed a lad I've played against the odd time has managed to record figures of 0.1-0-13-0 for a tremendous economy rate of 78.00.
0nb 0nb 4nb 6, end of game.
I was doing a county u15 game on Sunday and some lad started his spell with 7 wides in a row, then two front foot noeys and another wide for a 16 ball over. Was rapid for his age, too, and almost in tears. I wanted to stop the game and find him his mummy.
Stokes has just hit 18 year old Josh Baker for 34 in an over. He was visibly annoyed that the last ball only went for a 4.
And then 2 sixes off of the next two balls he's faced, he's scored 51 off of his last 10. Mental.
Hang on he wasn't even batting when play started this morning. I'd drop by (ground isn't far from me) but guaranteed he'd get castled the moment I walked in.
EDIT: lol it's at Worcester. Maybe not.
Last edited by Ben; 06-05-2022 at 12:07 PM.
Just the 147 not out before lunch. Casual. They might even declare at this point, such was the pace of that session.
He’s obviously got plans for the weekend. Slog away Benjamin.
First ball after lunch out the ground. He's hitting everything so clean.
He's out. Back to work.
Meanwhile at the Oval, Sam Curran was out for 73 earlier which marks the 53rd occasion that he or his two brothers have made a professional half-century, with none of them ever going on to reach a hundred. Possibly my favourite weird sports stat du jour.
I feel their pain. 22 fifties and never made it past 80. I did declare on myself once at 75 and maintain to this day I would have got 100, but I'm a Team Player.
Never knew Ronaldo was in the squad in '94.
Steamed in for a big four over spell today and I’m absolutely crippled already. I used to bowl 25 on the bounce about 10-12 years ago. Too old.
First league game today and already loving life. Gave a bloke nicked off, he had a massive paddy and threw his bat across the square claiming it had hit the stumps, not his bat. Then (after the home team closed out a win by 10 runs) an away player somehow managed to cause a fight during the post-match handshakes.
My colleague was an Indian guy, who is my favourite type of Indian, the Shastri-esque heavy swearer. So rather than my attempts at calming things down, he steams into the melee going 'What's this fucking rubbish?' which only makes the handbags even more handbaggy.
Eventually we decided to speak to the captains, but Shastri decided we should invite them into the umpires' room for this chat. The problem with that was that the umpires' room was actually the ladies loo, but for the duration of the match they take down the ladies sign and put up a piece of lined A4 that says 'umpires room'. As such the captains came in, Ravi starts lecturing them with his full on 'Now listen to me, your players are a swarm of bloody idiots!' while it's so cramped that I have no idea where to stand, the options being clambering into one of the shower units, or sort of looming behind him in one of the toilet cubicles.
League cricket.
Harry Brook has to be in with a shout this summer. Passed 50 in all 6 innings so far for Yorks including 3 centuries (and still going in the third)
Well the bails didn't come off, otherwise he'd have been bowled. So he was saying it was a thin edge off the stumps (that didn't remove the bails) and not from his bat.
Not a form of dissent I've had in my 150 odd games umpiring to date.
Oh, of course.
Excellent.
The image really would be complete if you'd just stood atop one of the toilets behind him.
Graham Thorpe in hospital and apparently it's very serious.
I've read it's an attempted suicide.
It appears 'Baz' McCullum has interviewed for England coach.
Has he not destroyed every T20 side he has coached?
I will forever be amazed by what he did to turn around the NZ cricket team when he was appointed captain in unceremonious circumstances. In retrospect, he really was the right man at the right time. I'm guessing England are hoping for the same.
Surrey managed to muster 671 without anyone making a century, although Jacks at 9 and Clark at 10 is cheating a bit.
Curran's record goes to 0/22 in first class matches now. I don't know what the all time record is, can't find anyone higher than Tony Lock's 0/27.
How long did it take Bale to win for Spurs? Wasn't that some really weird streak too?
I seem to recall that being around the same ballpark. 23?