Now I've learned something here. I had assumed all Test matches should be played on a new pitch.
Now I've learned something here. I had assumed all Test matches should be played on a new pitch.
I know there's two tours of Pakistan in there to skew things a bit, but Duckett isn't far off averaging 50 since coming back into the team a couple of years ago.
This all-spin approach from Pakistan might be interesting considering seam took half our wickets there.
This Sajid Khan bloke is absolutely shite. Almost impressively so. 366 a dreadful score by Pakistan, could do them by an innings again.
The fumbled run out immediately followed by a full toss on the pads was circus stuff.
You would imagine this pitch would have to become a complete minefield at some point.
I guess that was their plan. Pick a load of spinners and hope we'd need 300 to win batting 7th on it, but as Jim says they could fuck it completely by getting whacked around the park at 6 an over the rest of today.
Stolen from cricinfo:
That's pretty mad. Although Harry Cherrington Brook can break that record by getting >=125 off his next 176 balls.Stat alert: Fewest balls to reach 2000 runs in Test cricket: (where data is available): No. 1 BEN DUCKETT 2293 balls.
Well, this deteriorated rapidly.
When did Stokes last do anything? He's going to end up like my 2s skipper who was last good enough for the level about 4 years ago, but everyone likes playing for him so he stays.
Ashes last year I guess. Averaged 45 with the bat and bowled some match-changing spells.
Did fuck all in India.
West Indies at home he did fine but it doesn't count.
India 39/8 at home to New Zealand, all to seam, are they accidentally playing it in Derby?
Here we go...
Never know until both teams have a chance to bat on the wicket etc. etc.
No better feeling than rolling someone and then going past their score for no loss, I was going to say on day 1 but seems it's day 2, Trent Bridge/MCG ashes style.
46 all out for India in the end. I need Kohli pushed in front of a camera to talk about it. I should imagine India Cricket Twitter is currently peaking too.
Going to pretend we haven't just let Noman Ali take 8/46 and bowl us out. 1-0 England, should be a great third Test.
https://www.sporcle.com/games/Mither...sh-villages-vi
West Indian Cricketers or English Villages?
I'm a twit
I knew one of those on sight.
New Zealand taking 17 wickets with seam in India? Cant even imagine the state the of the next pitch.
24 of the 31 overs in the first morning bowled by the Indian spinners.Originally Posted by Danny
I don't think we're making day 3 in Rawalpindi. That ball to get Duckett ripped and basically rolled on the ground.
Rawalpindi looks a bit of a joke. I was fine with the Multan pitch, home advantage and all that, but having stuff roll along the ground on the first morning is pathetic.
Jim would be giving this thing bottom marks.
They'd got themselves into such a desperate situation in terms of losing repeatedly that they had to do this. This one of course has gone much too far because they aren't bright enough to think properly about what they're doing. We've won the toss and Leach will piss us to victory.
Jamie Smith is so good.
At cricket yes, sadly not so handy with the rubber johnnies and so he's missing New Zealand.
And of course they bring in Cox over Foakes. Bazball.
Us completely pissing away what should have been a winning position is somewhat tempered by India seemingly having turned to absolute shite. Gautam Gambhir with whatever is the opposite of the midas touch.
The fufteen-fuftees are on the brink.
Massive morale boost just in time for us to pitch up down there.
It's quite a good time for test cricket at the moment, with all teams seemingly capable of beating each other on their day.
Who would have predicted Sri Lanka and New Zealand revivals 6 months ago?
We needed India to hit the skids. Aussies next let's hope.
NZ-Eng will be a good series, NZ are the better team but Eng individuals well capable of getting at them too.
It should have been 2-0 last time we visited NZ. Would have been too if the umpires had given any of the approximately 50 wides Wagner chucked down in the last innings.
This piqued my interest as one of my kids does street cricket which seems like some sort of central or county initiative, so I wondered if it might be going in the bin, but fucking lol at the idea of 'cricket domes' without even getting into the price differential between the one that has been built and what the rest will apparently come in for. Are all national level sports bodies just absolutely useless?
Most of them are useless, but the biggest problem over the last 20 years (which no one talks about for some reason) is that football has culturally eaten everything and every other sport has to run uphill on ice just to exist. I hear that rugby is in huge long term decline. Cricket will be ok for a few reasons although the pro game isn't helping itself.
My understanding of grassroots rugby (at least in NZ) is that parents don't want to let their kids get all sorts of brain injuries and such.
Pickleball is the future.
I just opened cricinfo to discover that England played the West Indies today in an ODI. The second ODI in the series.
These schedules are all kinds of fucked up
The professional sport is absolutely fucked, which is a pity because the game remains quality.
I think at this point it would almost be better if the IPL went on a 6 month calendar spree, added another 8 teams and dominated everything, at least it would make some sort of sense and we'd all know where we stand.
Maybe J Kimber is right, and we just need to see franchise cricket totally split from the rest of the game.
There are 4 strands of cricket:
A. Legit franchise cricket (IPL, BBL, PSL, arguably Hundred)
B. Fixer funded franchise cricket
C. Trad cricket that can support itself (e.g. England test team, Surrey CCC, Ranji trophy, Aussie state cricket, Blast)
D. Trad cricket that cannot support itself (e.g. South Africa test team, Zimbabwe, Gloucestershire CCC)
There is a lot of naivety about B from the average cricket follower and indeed the media who are either too lazy to look into it, or looking into it is inconvenient for them, or it's just so shady that they can't prove anything. A lot of this stuff is increasingly T10 - a hotbed of fixing as you get a fast betting payout - and a lot of UAE/USA stuff. See all that quaint European Cricket League stuff that provides the funny viral clips? Why on earth do they have cameras and TV production at those games and why does it take place outside official board jurisdiction of ICC member countries? Because those countries are bound by anti-corruption rules in their ICC guise but if it's a shonky independent league then players can mill about on their phones as they please.
A and C are not a problem for anyone (apart from a small band of Telegraph readers who think all T20 is bad and WG Grace should be reinstated as England captain), the problem is massive flows of players away from D and towards B. A lot of it is agent driven but also cricketers are idiots and even where there are massive warnings about fixing problems and money not being paid, they will always take the instant cash or the remote chance of it because D really doesn't pay well at all. The BCCI have actually been pretty shrewd in blanket not allowing Indians to play in the shonky leagues because if they did allow it, literally 300 av to good players from the states would be going around the world boosting B leagues and completely undermining the A leagues. There are a few very suspect mini-leagues within India itself but presumably the BCCI have a handle on them.
The last hope left for the health of the pro game is that A and C decide that they really need a strong D to provide talent for them, and so choose (this is the big boards we're talking about) to financially stand up D even if it's out of fear that B will eventually come for them as well. This is also why the ECB want to sell Hundred teams to the IPL, because the financially stronger the network of A leagues is, the less B will be able to lay a glove on them. Getting Indian money into D will also be needed in the long run. Haven't the Delhi Capitals just bought Hampshire? Maybe it's starting to happen, very slowly.
The calendar matters too - we might roll our eyes at another West Indies v England white ball series but every day that Dan Mousley, whoever the fuck he is, is playing an ODI over there is a day that he is not turning out for the Sylhet Bank Robbers or similar in a T10 fixing frenzy, so it's probably a good thing.
Players complain about the 'schedule' when they are salaried but every last one of them will play every last extra league for every last penny (apart from the Pat Cummins level people who can afford to be the moral guardians of the game) so they should as always be ignored. Especially Sam Billings. He should be strung up from the base of old father time.
Should be a close finish in India today.
lol at India. Might have fucked themselves out of the world test final in the process.
Half of the Indian social media reaction seems to be blaming Virat for spending most of his time with his family in London rather than in India. I wonder why that is, fuckos?
Is it because they all moved there under the Conservative's immigration rules?
Jimmy signing up for the IPL
Aus v India off to a suitably incompetent start. Nobody knows how to bat these days.
India are suddenly pretty pathetic with the bat at Test level but it's been on the cards a while.
Bumrah is a total cheat code though. Practically unplayable.
Can we get a 2-day test match?
Have they rolled out an absolute minefield in Perth or is this a "just the way we play mate" type thing?
Australia's ODI series against Pakistan was mired with low scores as well, wasn't it? Whilst India were busy shitting it at home.
I didnt realize how "old" the Aussie team was. One player under 30 in that 11.
The cricket gods say NO.
Wicketkeeper Jordan Cox has been ruled out of England's series in New Zealand with a broken thumb.
Cox, uncapped in Tests, injured his right thumb in the nets before the second and final day of England's only warm-up against a New Zealand Prime Minister's XI in Queenstown.
Also, things looking a bit bleak for the cobbers.
Could be worse, they could be the Ivory Coast https://www.icc-cricket.com/matches/...vs-ivory-coast
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