India tour of Eng, June 20 - Aug 4

[sussexpob]

I hope England get reprimanded for that. Just embarrassed by it. How damn well entitled are they? As if a guy in the 90s is accepting a handshake before he reaches a maiden ton, he bats at 8 usually, he might never get another chance....even asking was embarrassing, and then the blue language being thrown around from England being heard clearly on TV.

Really poor behaviour. I expect Stokes to apologise after

[sussexpob]

I guess what upsets me most about this behaviour is the fact England are so self-praising about how they are reinventing entertainment and fair play. Well Mr Stokes, after a low-order number 8 bats out over 200 runs to save a test match, I think its good for the game that he go on and make a hundred, have his moment. You sullied that with 30 mph underarm nonsense, making a mockery of the game and tarnishing the lads first test hundred moment.

I dont want to hear you or that nighthawk nob lecturing anyone ever again about the spirit of the game. Nada.... total farce. You should all be embarrassed with yourselves.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Yes it's disappointing. Fair enough England putting on part timers though.

Though I think Rudyard Kipling would feel they would be more of a man to leave on the bowlers and quietly bowl looseners while Indians got to their tons.

[sussexpob]

Ben Duckett this summer seems to slowly transitioning into Dave Warner. Lots of chat, and most of it picked up on the mic isn't of the intelligent, playful type. Just infantile swearing and faux macho nonsense. I'd hope someone has a word with him and tells him to shut his trap. All for a bit of needle and chat, but constantly walking from his fielding position to past the bat just to call someone a c*ck is not it.

Bazball has its occasional backwards steps, they are followed by some forward steps - I hope England cut this out. I doesnt appeal to me at all

[sussexpob]

BBC posted footage of TMS online with a very pro-England take, and Agnew commentating like India should be embarrassed with with 100s because they are doing it Vs Village cricket stuff.

When are they going to bin off this total n*bhead. TMS has become the cricket equivalent of Goebbels propaganda division

[Arthur Crabtree]

Agnew is only 65, surprisingly. He's going to be around for decades yet.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Seems MPV told Agnew he was barking up the wrong tree!

[sussexpob]

Seems MPV told Agnew he was barking up the wrong tree!

Wasn't on the FB post. It was only Agnew animatedly bemoaning the farce of India batting on. Fair play to MV.... Maybe he knows what it's like to do something worthwhile in test cricket

[sussexpob]

Meanwhile, England have some difficult questions to answer before Thursday in terms of the bowlers. Stokes has bowled himself into the ground admirably, but he's now dangerously close to breaking down, and you can see he is utterly exhausted. With an away Ashes coming up, I expect England to wrap him in cotton and keep him away from the ball in the 5th test.

The big problem is Brydon Carse, who broke the record for the worst series average a pace bowler has ever had taking as many wickets or more as he has this series. Lets be honest here, the stats are not just bad, they are historically worst case scenario bad. The debate shouldn't be whether or not he plays in the Oval, it should be whether or not he ever plays for England again. I concede that he bowled a bit better than his returns in the first test/half the second, but as time has gone on he's looked ragged, unthreatening, and his bowling output in overs reduces. He has to be replaced.

Same with Archer. His first ball with the second new ball this test was 79.9mph. The fire of last week quickly gave way to medium pace. He's clearly knackered after so long out, and is already burned out. I don't think we can pick him again without some rest. And then we get to Woakes... who has never bowled this much in an English summer, and also looked knackered and in need of a rest.

Finally move onto the spinner, I am not sure Dawson did enough to retain his place with 1/140 and 45 wicketless overs on Day 5. Jack Leach has back to back 6-fors in consecutive games for Somerset, Rehan Ahmed took 10 wickets and scored a century last week, as did Hartley as well..... all the previously capped spinners are suddenly hitting form, while Dawson has been rubbish all year. Time to end this experiment.

All in all, we could see a completely new attack at the Oval. I guess Atkinson is now fit?? Maybe Wood? Who else? And will they have to drop a batter if stokes can't play? Maybe drop Pope for Smith to move up?

Assuming fitness, Id think there is a possibility of....

Wood for Archer
Cook for Woakes
Atkinson for Carse
Rehan for Dawson

And then the question of whether you risk Stokes or not, or even if its a question with a thigh and side issue. The last thing England want is a 4 man attack with two pace bowlers with horrendous injury histories coming straight into a test after injury cold, and no viable 5th bowler option. I can't see any other way if Stokes bowls... one of the batters has to go

[Arthur Crabtree]

Overton has been recalled to the squad. So he must have a chance of playing.

Rehan is tempting, but feels like a kneejerk response to one good CC2 game. I'd pick Leach. If Atkinson is fit he plays anyway, regardless of other factors. But my guess is they'll just bring in Overton, Atkinson or Tongue in for Carse.

[sussexpob]

Additionally, I think Rob Key's masterplan for England is starting to show some cracks. The idea that we produce flat wickets for batsman, and that pure pace defeats all in such conditions doesn't feel like England are operating at anywhere near peak efficiency. Better or more experienced Indian teams have failed to play well when confronted with the swing and seaming ball in the past, but while England might benefit from playing shots on flat decks, the pitches have also turned a questionable Indian batting line up into a record breaking one. No team has ever scored this many 350 plus scores in a series. Gill is one score away from all time records for series runs. Jadeja is averaging over 100 for the series. KL Rahul, a player who averages low 30s, has been turned into peak Gavaskar. I dont have confidence any of these batters would be making big runs if these were undoctored, traditional English pitches.

You are left asking the question of if these pitches turn Jadeja into Bradman, Rahul into a world class opener, and turn a supremely talented prospect like Gill into a record breaking run scorer overnight despite not, as yet, fully realising his batting potential in tests..... then what is a seasoned world class pro like Steve Smith going to do ? Would we ever bowl out a fully fit NZ on such a deck?

The same works both ways. Chris Woakes had the best average at home for all England players in history with a significant haul of wickets, but these pitches have turned his accurate seam bowling into a slog. Carse has not made up for that with pace, he's been even worse. Only Stokes, with his ability to find swing both ways where others could not, has had a good series - but its come at a toll, and we can't rely on this in the future with injury and fitness concerns.

The pace plan seems to be one of diminishing returns based on time. Flat pitches make long tests, make more overs to be bowled - and with that, the very weapon you are utilising becomes less effective. Even assuming Key is right (even though evidence does not support it), and high pace is effective, the fact is no one can sustain it for a period. Archer dropped off 12 mph in the space of a test. Carse's pace has dropped to nothing remotely nasty, and twice in this series when England failed to win the game and needed a bowler to come and steam in and break the game, Carse was too gassed to throw the ball to.

This has been consistent with England pacers.We have had a decade of the same endless cycle of Mark Wood coming back from injury, sending down 4 overs of nuclear bomb bowling, and then by spell 3 he is back to comfortable medium pace. And not only is not sustainable in a match or over consecutive matches he plays, but its often followed by injury. Archer did it for a very short span and didnt play for 4 years. Atkinson did it for a year and has missed an entire summer (and has missed a total of 4 summers with injury before he turned 25). The workload turned Carse in 10 tests into turning out an all time worst bowling series.

Its easy to demonstrate this in the stats of the bowlers. How do these quicker bowlers perform when pushes deep into long innings? Assuming a 5 man attack, a team scoring a normalish rate, and batting dead historical averages, you would expect about 100 overs for an innings to be bowled, spread over 20 overs each. How do these pace bowlers perform when pushed to such a hardly abnormal amount of overs?

Wood averages 41 per wicket
Archer averages 38 per wicket
Carse averages 58 per wicket
Atkinson averages 30 per wicket
Josh Tongue 34 per wicket (removing Ireland from analysis)
Olly Stone - never bowled more than 15 overs in a game, let alone 20
Jamie Overton - 85 per wicket

You could say that its normal that longer innings mean higher averages because bowling more indicates higher runs being scored, but then you compare it to the non express quicks in the team....

Ben Stokes is 27 per wicket - 4 runs better than his average.
Jimmy Anderson is 29 per wicket in his career, but when you consider the first 5 odd years of his career he was an express pace bowler and remove that..... no +/- difference in the last 15 years of his career.
Chris Woakes is a decimal place under his career average in such situations.

There is a clear separation here. Not only do the quicker players fade off in multiple games played in series, they also fade off with increased bowling inside individual games.

Rob Key's idea therefore their pace makes up for flatness of pitches is doubly wrong, because the conditions make their expected value even less than normal. The very counter is actually true - express paceman are effective in the shortest of bursts, on helpful pitches. These are shorter innings, their pace is near top level, they bowl less... and what you get out of the them is therefore somewhere near their peak performance. On flat decks, medium-fast/fast medium pace bowlers do not have to strain themselves so much, and remain consistent when pushed into bowling more.

The really frightening thing is the prospect of England going all in on Key's plans like he has suggested, and turning up in Australia with 3 express bowlers and no man to carry the long yards. What happens if you get Wood, Archer and Carse all gassed out after a 60 over bombardment hasnt worked on a flat deck? You either flog them to death, or you are bowling Harry Brook. England have made up for this with only two on the basis Ben Stokes puts in 12 over spells, but Ben isn't doing this every test, and he's pretty open about what its done to his body.

Really, for this plan to work you essentially need a rotation of 8 express bowlers in a 5 match tour. By a 2nd game, the pace and effectiveness has all but worn out, so they have to be swapped consistently.....

How many teams in test history have 8 pace bowlers of sufficient test quality fit at any given time? The West Indians in the 1980s probably could manage it, but I don't think Mark Wood or Jofra Archer can be compared to any of those players

[backfootpunch]

They've kind of put themselves in a bit of a hole by not resting/dropping woakes or carse for the 4th game

Now they have a choice between changing the entire attack or picking bowlers who are fatigued

Surprised no potts in the squad I really dont rate Overton at all. He's like thakur and reddy, not good enough in either discipline to influence a game.

I'd imagine the most dissapointed person after yesterday will be liam Dawson. He had 2 left handers in and a huge patch of rough outside their off stump. But simply couldn't hit it often enough.

Had we picked leach I think we'd have likely won the game.

We were one wicket away from potentially skittling them and Dawson didn't deliver with plenty in his favour..

[backfootpunch]

One thing I'd say about the pitches being made to suit our batting strength is i think they've got that completely the wrong way round.

If batting is your strength you make pitches hard for batting and back them to score runs

If bowling is your strength make the pitches flat and back your bowlers to still take wickets

[sussexpob]

Overton has been recalled to the squad

Probably felt after Day 5 at OT they needed someone with a proven track record of saying offensive things to Asian batters, but mistook him for his brother.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Yes, I expected England to bring a couple of pace bowlers in for Old Trafford. I guess they gambled on winning the series there.