Need some right handers up there as well with Ashwin lurking.
As I said a few days ago, I think they will pick Buttler. I'm warmer on it than I was a few months ago but still would be a mistake.
No idea of the bowling line up either tbh. Broad back in for Finn obviously but no idea on Batty/Rashid/Ansari. They may just play one and bring another seamer in.
If they're going to field Jake Ball or someone as a 4th seamer, they might as well just pick Buttler to bat at 8.
Sending Ballance home and bringing another middle order batsman would help (no, Vince, not you). Has Ramprakash brought his gear?
The Lions are touring the UAE soon so you'd imagine the first lad to get some runs will be parachuted into India after a crushing innings defeat in Rajkot.
There's not even anything there to come in and bat number 4. Westley or Clarke? That would be desperation on a 2001 Ashes scale.Squad: N Gubbins, K Jennings, T Alsop, D Bell-Drummond, T Westley, J Clarke, L Livingstone, B Foakes, L Dawson, O Rayner, Jack Leach, S Curran, T Curran, T Roland-Jones, J Ball, J Fuller, C Overton, S Meaker
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engin...h/1062502.html
I love finding shit games like this live on Cricinfo. Not only is this some early part of World Cup qualifying, technically at least, but the players have names like 'AAA Amsterdam' and Italy are in a decent position to cause a huge upset.
I thought I was immune to Bob Willis rants now, but him saying that Ballance and Rashid should be on a charter flight back to Leeds/Bradford Airport as soon as possible (this is on the ECB's broadcast rights holder, remember) is just too good.
It was brilliant. I can't remember what he ended the evening with, but "Trotty" and "Butch" were pissing themselves. Finally bit the bullet and got Sky Sports on Now TV last night, and watching the verdict I immediately felt vindicated.Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
The Verdict is the best sport coverage punditry thing on TV, for my money. I don't like it so much when they don't have somebody who's in the side of the opposite team in there but generally it's excellent.
I think my favourite Bob comment was his harsh "Simple" Simon Kerrigan moment.
The true Bob Willis heads prefer his earlier, more Daryl Harper centric work.
The Aussies collapsing from 158/0 to 244 all out is pretty special.
Wanting South Africa to win makes me feel dirty, but given how shit they are these days (especially without AB who is presumably busy collecting his Nobel Prizes) it would be hilarious if they could pull something off.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engin...h/1063555.html
Boys doing me proud.
I went into a seminar just as Warner got out. When I checked the score afterwards, I just sighed.
Jimmy now flying out and perhaps ready for the second Test. Perhaps lolling at lolstralia was good for his recovery.
Steve Smith's face after he was given out on review the other day certainly perked me up from a cold so it's definitely possible.
The really painful thing about today was that it was Elgar. He's a nothing batsman.
Duminy's screwed us over before though, so fair play.
You've got a bit unlucky that they've stumbled upon a decent XI, the sort of joke players they were putting out against us in January would be going round the park for 550/4 as per.
The advent of (it's our problem free philosophy) Bavuma/Rabada to sort the quota out has been a big plus for them as well.
Bavuma
That Bavuma run out is the best I've ever seen, made even better by the fact that it's Davey Warner he run out.
https://twitter.com/pavilionopinion/...60774029312000
That is quality.
Did you see Mohammed Amir get run out the other day? Classic Pakistan. He smashed it out to long on, thinks it's going for six and they amble to meet each other in the middle but it's hauled in and he gets run out whilst they are practically shaking hands in the middle of the pitch.
That's quality from Bavuma.
Full clip of the Amir one. I saw it the other day. Great work on the rope by Chase.
https://youtu.be/LB6f_B7c81E
Elgar is a classic opener, I'm a massive fan.The really painful thing about today was that it was Elgar. He's a nothing batsman.
Duminy's screwed us over before though, so fair play.
This team has some potential, Bavuma, Rabada and de Kock is the future. De Kock will turn out to make Adam Gilchrist look like an average club cricketer. What a talent.
You need to find some support bowlers for Rabada, because Steyn/Morkel/Philander are all going to disappear over the hill at some point. You also need to avoid potential Test players fucking off to county cricket because of the quotas. That aside, the future seems pretty bright.
Toggle Spoiler
I find this training image fascinating, like a Bruegel. Fuck knows who half the people in it even are, and I don't know whether to be more fascinated by where Rashid's rope is moored (Root's anal cavity?) or the fact that the only person in the entire picture holding a bat is Otis fucking Gibson.
George Dobell reckons Hameed for Ballance and Duckett to four. The side that should have started in Chittagong.
If there's one thing we are number one in the world at, it's stubbornly selecting the wrong team at the start of away tours and then gradually correcting it.
Bresnan ahead of Panesar at Ahmedebad the aboslute pinnacle
Closely followed by Tremlett ahead of Panesar here: http://www.espncricinfo.com/pakistan...ch/531628.html
And Tremlett in Brisbane last time we were there.
Jesus, it's tomorrow. If they pick Finn instead of a spinner I'll seethe at 4am. Ball I could just about stomach.
Maybe it'll be a raging GREENTOP and we'll have to fly Graham Napier in at the last minute.
I'm actually quite excited. That will soon evapourate when I'm making my third coffee of the morning at 6am with India 150/0 but still.
Really want to watch Hameed bat. The tones in which he's spoken about by the journalists, players and coaches on the county circuit coupled with there not being much actual footage of him out there is enticing.
Paul Edwards cricinfo reports from his innings this season are probably more vivid than actually watching him to be honest.
They say he's incredibly correct and just doesn't play a loose shot ever. I hope Bayliss and co haven't spent the last month trying to make him play a more expansive brand of cricket, cobber.
I think this is the first one I read right at the beginning of the season when I'd barely if ever heard of him: http://www.espncricinfo.com/county-c...y/1011093.html
Hameed deserves credit for opening the Lancashire innings with impressive solidity and for the smooth grace with which he drove the ball through the covers. Although only 19 years old and with more than 15 cricketing summers before him, he bats as if every innings is precious. Hameed plays a minimum of 12 shots every over, six to the balls bowled and then at least one after each of those six, as if he is still searching for a shot so perfect that it defies experience or description. He leaves the ball as a matador might manoeuvre a bull, the bat a muleta before it becomes a sword.Simon Barnes once wrote of cricket as a wonderful metaphor for death and one imagines that each of his dismissals is accompanied by a sense of mild bereavement for Hameed. At one stage it seemed nip and tuck whether, if Hameed was to score his first century for Lancashire, he would do so before the county completed the building of their new hotel.This is what it must have been like being a cricket supporter in the 1950s or whatever when Miller or Harvey came to your ground on an Australian tour and you'd never glimpsed them in your life, only read about them.James Tomlinson must feel like one of the last Texians at the Alamo, albeit that Hameed currently lays the gentlest of sieges.
Yeah exactly. Sort of if your football club signed a player from abroad in the 90s and there was a sense of anticpiation. Not now when you've seen him play multiple times on BT Sport or in the Champions League and the fan forums are full of fans of his previous club telling you everything about him.
He does seem like the most nailed on lad to play for England since er, Joe Root. Attitude and drive seems perfect. Nice profile here http://www.alloutcricket.com/feature...ay-for-england
England batting first, Cook dropped third ball!
As if they've just shelled Chef for 0 off the third ball of the match. IT'S A SIGN
A commentary trio of Shastri, Botham and Gavaskar. Half expecting Donald Trump to walk in and make it a foursome.
India clearly rattled by the news. Dropping catches like the beta cucks they are.
How the fucking hell did they pick Gallance over this kid.
That drive off Ashwin
Thought that was going down in real time. Missing by a mile in fact.
Root and Hameed batting together though. The future.
Was a dreadful decision and an even worse one not to review.
England struggling to find an opening partner for Haseeb Hameed.
Jadeja making howling fielding errors and the Indian commentators saying 'a rare lapse from India's best fielder' will never get old. He's average to poor.
They were on about Kohli being a "keen" slip fielder earlier when he dropped one. Nasser then taking the words right out my mouth when he replied "it's alright being keen but is he good?"
Duckett has all the shots but has no defensive technique to fall back on against the spinners.
Need that long batting line up to come to the fore again. 400 min on this pitch.
I was going to say before he got out, the way he sets up against off spinners is absolute nonsense, huge gate and moving parts everywhere.
I'd like Woakes in next really, need an accumulator, not someone who goes hard at the ball.
Please let the whole series be like this.Kohli turns to R Ashwin again, with tea approaching
61.1
Ashwin to Ali, FOUR, lovely stuff from Moeen, comes down the pitch and spanks Ashwin over mid-on, got to the pitch and easily cleared the man on the edge of the ring. Statement shot to welcome the bowler back
Mohammed bloody Shami has looked probably their best bowler and he's gone off injured.
This session has been eerily perfect.
This partnership is like karmic rebalancing. My two favourite England players, possibly ever.
So we're clear at the start of this series, I am 100% behind England here.
Staggering that so many people are interested in an American election whilst Joe Root and Moeen Ali are putting India to the sword in their own back yard.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
