Sohail Khan's running is diabolical.
Sohail Khan's running is diabolical.
Big Angie Mathews to bring it home for Sri Lanka tomorrow with an unbeaten double ton?
God. That's why you watch test cricket. Four days of rain and runs, and then a final day of perfect competition.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/review20...y/1073990.html
I think they basically got the Test XI of 2016 (the team that matters) right:
Azhar Ali
Kraigg Braithwaite
Joe Root
Virat Kohli
Steve Smith
Jonny Bairstow
Ben Stokes
R Ashwin
Rangana Herath
Mitchell Starc
Kagiso Rabada
I can't really argue with those results.
Mark Waugh trying to dig KP is so cringeworthy.
All Australian commentary is pretty cringeworthy. 'Tubs' needs to be extinguished.
I know it has it's terrible moments, but Sky is almost as bad. Certainly as one-eyed.Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
You learn to ignore it when it's your own lot.
Ricky Ponting is class. I had turn the sound due to Junior sniping away at the England stuff at the end of KP's Test career. I'm sure the boomers and bogans love it but fair dinkum it's the big bash where one team is wearing purple and the other teal. Calm the fuck down mate!
A month ago, only twice in test history had a team scored more than 400 batting first and gone on to lose by an innings.
Today, that number went up to five.
Incidentally, Stokes' average for the year drops to 34 if you take out his freakish innings against South Africa.
Obviously you can't take that innings out, as it defined his year, but he'll have to up his game if he wants this year not to be a positive blip.
https://streamable.com/eg7pv
Clean hit that one
That's basically what he does. If you're looking for someone to compile a neatly crafted 65 before putting his feet up in the pavilion with a cup of strong tea and a copy of the Financial Times, he's probably not your man.
Christ that's massive
The sound off the bat is unreal.
I'm a bit obsessed with this Carl Hooper six from back in the day.
https://youtu.be/u4y8ppsMRfM
He's not even followed through ffs.
Abbott looks like he's leaving South Africa for Hampshire. Better contract and won't have his place taken by a black man (unless it's Tino Best). Can you really blame him?
Davie Switch hit looking at getting himself a ton in the first session
And done with an over and a half to go
That was one of the most brutal blitzes I've ever seen in the sport. And not a slogathon either - just strong technical batting, and not missing a single opportunity.
Renshaw happy to rotate the strike, and why wouldn't you be?
Hundred for Renshaw. Unless things go wildly pear-shaped, we can start to pencil in the long-term best XI for Australia, after a few recent changes.
1. Warner
2. Renshaw
3. Khawaja
4. Smith
5. Handscomb
6.
7. (wk)
8. Starc
9. Lyon
10. Hazelwood
11. Bird/O'Keefe?
O'Keefe's first-class record suggests that he should get the second spinner nod when one is deemed necessary. Six is the "batsman who can bowl" role, and the wicketkeeper is proving a challenge. I'd almost inclined to go with Marsh (S) at six, and accept that we don't have an international-quality all-rounder. That does leave us a bit vulnerable when nothing's working with the frontline bowlers though, because none of those batsmen can even vaguely bowl (and that includes Smith). Maybe Moises Henriques?
I feel like Nevill was a better keeper, but it is possible that Wade brings a certain energy to the side. I'm really uncertain about what the best course of action is there.
Renshaw you ripper!
Yorkshire's finest.
And a Quoinslander!
You may as well pick a batsman and the best gloveman, who I'm led to believe is Whiteman.
No it's not. It's not the bias that makes 9 so bad. It's every fucking thing else, like Tubbs and Warnie spending 15 minutes in the Boxing Day test talking about why Sydney is better/worse than Melbourne, complete with shit dad jokes about waves at beaches. It's Ian Healy requesting Ross Taylor to "lay down his bat and do a little kummety-hummety for us" and James Brayshaw calling sixes as "hit up into the people".
I can accept bias, it's all of the other rubbish that makes 9 so bad, and it is missing for the most part from Sky's cricket coverage. The likes of Atherton, Hussain, Holding and others would never plumb the depths that 9 do.
With Steyn and Morkel close to the end seems a bit odd still? He'd be in the team fairly regularly now and in the future. It's certainly a significantly bigger blow for SA than losing some loser like Simon Harmer or our mate Hardus Viljoen to England.
The sad thing is most of those guys have good cricket brains and some interesting things to be said about the action if they could step off the banterbus for a second.
Quite a lot more financial security with Hampshire though. And he probably won't be able to Kolpak in 3 years' time because of Brexit, so he's thinking about the rest of his career well into his thirties.
Would do major damage in county div 1, unlike Hardus in div 2 I fear.
Yeah, Mark Taylor is one of the smartest guys in cricket. Stick him with Ian Chappell, who has the perspective of years, and you can't fail to learn things.
Healy's job is to drive the banterbus. Warne's an odd one, because he's insufferable but occasionally very insightful (on the topic of spin bowling, for the most part).
EDIT: @Max.
Also on the subject of Saffers, there are quite a few Saffers (and more Pakistanis) in English club cricket right now who would be at least playing first class, if not pushing for international honours were they full time professionals at home, but it makes more financial sense for them to pro here and hope for a county contract if they do well enough. England is just a much better place to be a professional cricketer than pretty much anywhere else - which is why we get opprobrium from other nations when the very best of these people qualify and make the national side.
Australia you can have a reasonable go playing grade stuff, but it doesn't seem like non-nationals can (or do) play state cricket anymore.
Yeah, Warne is generally good in "The [Ashes] Zone" on Sky coverage about bowling.
The real solution seems to be other countries being willing to select players who are plying their trade in England. Can't really blame England for selecting them when they become eligible.
Maybe after the away tour to India. I'd have Shaun Marsh (who can bat in subcontinental conditions) and Peter Nevill (who is a better keeper than Wade). Then hope that O'Keefe and Lyon can put in real shifts.
Abbott has officially left South Africa for Hampshire and so has Rilee Roussouw.
Have to say, I signed a South African this winter for club cricket, was given a list of about 50 options by the agent as the fuckers are all clamouring even for gigs like that. When I researched the black/Asian/coloured players on the list, they've all played far more rep cricket than the whites with the same or worse stats. Transformation is necessary I'm sure but they've got a real problem here.
God I love New Zealand v Bangladesh as a series. Shakib Al Hasan swings one forlornly into the leg side, taken by a fielder (let's call him Colin New Zealand) and as Shakib exits to Dire Straits 'Walk of Life', Athar Ali Khan reprises his usual melancholy lament into the microphone as another inevitable defeat approaches and Rubel Hossain walks out to bat to the strains of a saxophone version of 'Smoke on the Water'.
All at a ground called 'Bay Oval'.
The Coronation Street theme as Ian Bell nicks off to second slip. Amazing.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/county-c...y/1076735.html
Another one down. It'll soon just be Faf, Rabada and Tokyo Sexwale left.
Looks like the chef is about to stand down.
I really hope Root is the best captain ever.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/38576016
Find this lad ludicrously impressive. Make him captain. Disgusting when you see in articles 'Hameed, 19', the fuck was I doing at nineteen years old?
He's one of those very rare youngsters where you just can't really see where it could even theoretically go wrong.
Shakib
Genuinely pleased to see Bangladesh competing.
And we haven't even seen Kamrul Islam rough them up yet.
Anyone who thinks South Africa 2010 was a bit lacking in the vuvuzela department, whack this ODI on.
Jason Roy doing Jason Roy things also.
On the list of experiments that didn't work even a little bit, batting Mitch Marsh at #4.
I think they want him to be a player he'll just never be.
EDIT: Also, whatever you get against India, they'll chase it. I'll be happy if they don't - I'll support England against India in nearly ever case - but in India, they definitely will.
They seem to be obsessed with having a world class all rounder. You can't manufacture world class all rounders, they just appear, and not very often at that.
I'm fine with him down the order. He'd be pushing selection in the ODI side on his bowling alone. But he's very much a bowling all-rounder.
Glenn Maxwell is probably getting there on pitches that take spin. I'd have him at six against India in the first test - he bats well against spin.
Our inability to deal with the absolute shite bowled by Jasprit Bumrah does grate. Three full bungers in this over and we've not even threatened a boundary and then slapped a slower ball straight down long on's throat.
I see "Bumrah" and think Mumm-Ra.
Four height no balls in the last twenty minutes. India's seamers are a complete joke as ever. Vile bowling.
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