India tour of Eng, June 20 - Aug 4

[sussexpob]

Deep serves up an absolute pearl there. Swings in, moves away off the pitch.

England in huge trouble now

[meninblue]

Here is a batting wicket on which both teams have piled big totals . England could easily have survived less than 4 sessions since they started to bat in 2nd innings. Instead lose 2 wickets. Not ruling out a Joe Root 200 though.

What a wicket. Joe Root no more a hindrance for a whole day tomorrow.

Akash

[Arthur Crabtree]

Flat pitch with short boundaries could have been good for the England openers... if they could have got through the new ball.

Draw is still possible, if England don't dream about winning.

[sussexpob]

Not sure why Sky insist on hiring all England's ex-cricketers as soon as they retire, irrespective if they are as dull as dishwater. Stuart Broad is dressed like an 80 year on a Silver Sea cruise who is about to go to dinner with the Captain, and when asked about why he feels India have outplayed England so much, starts to initiate ex-player management speak by first inferring England had not actually been outplayed in this test, before rambling on about why Josh Tongue being taller than Akash Deep is the reason Tongue's superior bowling didn't pay

He was then called on his bowling expert knowledge to comment on use of the crease, and could only pony up "well, I think that its good". Thanks Stuart. Amazing insight.

[Arthur Crabtree]

That's poetry of heartbreaking eloquence compared with Captain Steely.

Though I can imagine a commentary team of Broad and his old pal Jimmy might prompt an uptick on the UK national mortality rate.

[sussexpob]

That's poetry of heartbreaking eloquence compared with Captain Steely. Though I can imagine a commentary team of Broad and his old pal Jimmy might prompt an uptick on the UK national mortality rate.

Cook is such a dweeb, it would be endearing if he didn't occasionally forget he was a dweeb and go into "lad banter done badly" mode to try and fit in. I had TMS on in the afternoon session while doing some housework, and Steve Finn is a less self-aware version of Cook. He's also a dweeb, but in his head he's Tom Cruise in Top Gun - he had a "you don't know what Mario Kartis" down with the kids moment, but not sure you can claim knowing a game 17 years old is really cutting edge finger on the pulse pop-culture stuff.

All pale in comparison to Jon Agnew. He is more bitter than Arnold J Rimmer, he couldn't be more biased if he tried and just hero worships England's players, and he seemingly has no knowledge of anything in the world. I have to assume he spends time away from the box watching paint dry ..

Treated us to a conversation about his love of marching band music this afternoon. Seems on point. Last test he was talking about eating Vietnamese for the first time like aliens had teleported him to a distant galaxy. "What did you have, Aggers".... "Oh I dont know, it was something cooked in a wok I assume"....

Probably get more inspiring conversation from the dead guy from weekend at Bernies.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I'm currently trying to imagine A&B remaking Orson Welles' legendary 30s radio broadcast of War of the Worlds which- allegedly- resulted in actual suicides. This may be one- I think- for Sky Arts.

Agree about Finn. Like Steely's less hip (...) younger brother.

[sussexpob]

I'm currently trying to imagine A&B remaking Orson Welles' legendary 30s radio broadcast of War of the Worlds which- allegedly- resulted in actual suicides. This may be one- I think- for Sky Arts

Might be a good idea. There was somewhere in South America where the broadcast apparently scared people so much when they assumed it was real, an angry mob ransacked the radio station and murdered the voice actors when they realised it was fake... might be a good way of getting Broad off TV, and making sure Anderson remains off TV

[Arthur Crabtree]

Yes, we need an angry mob.

[sussexpob]

Back to the game, after saying England looked a more mature unit last week, this week its like every single thing negative about bazball came back to roost. England might escape with a draw, but when you take even both games and how many sessions each team won, England would be incredibly lucky to be 1-0 up this time tomorrow. I don't want to be too reactionary, and I will say I am generally positive about Bazball and acknowledge the improvements its made to the team; nevertheless, many elements of it are built on sand, and the team management really need to review some of the ideas and change them.

The progression of this match has showed the weakness in Key's "pace buy wickets" nonsense. The whole idea is based on pre-empting flat pitches and conditions where it doesn't swing or seam, so one would be inclined to assume the fat controller at one stage considered how his stock of hulking fast bowlers would stand up to a physical challenge of a big score/lots of overs. Well, in the first innings England's thuderbolt delivering extremo, Carse, managed 24 overs in 155 bowled. In the second, he took the new ball, had a break overnight, then bowled one other spell in 3 sessions. Something tells me if 24 first overs innings gassed him in 19 degree heat of Birmingham, then there isn't going to be many heroic spells cutting through Australia in the second innings at Perth when its 42 degrees in the shade. Woakes was similarly gassed. Stokes bowled 19 overs in the first innings, and then could only bowl 2 overs in nearly 3 sessions before he finished off we a spell at the end. The reality was, as India started to crank up a score that looked ominous, it was a 10 over spell of Harry Brook and Joe Root on "buying a wicket" duty. And with Woakes, Stokes and Carse unable to do much work 2nd innings, Josh Tongue ended up bowling a 12 over spell... he went for about 85 runs in it. Let's all remember England have a player with 80 test wickets at 22 being cast out because the fat controller thinks he isnt fit enough to sustain long tests.....

Secondly, we need to talk about the spinner. At this point, does anyone believe the spinner Somerset leave out their team even when they field 3 spinners is the best we have? His figures in the series are terrible, and thats before we consider the fact they are made better by taking two slogging tailenders out with the score passed 570 in the first innings, and 2 wickets while India were declaration slogging. The left field pick is not paying dividends at all. He has conceeded 270 plus runs this test, and bowled like a drain.

Then there are the tactics on the field. The win the toss and field standard on pitches this flat is going to work against your favour more than it pays. And generally, England are becoming a little predictable in the field. The bang it in short tactic at the first sense of trouble really hasn't worked this series - I laughably listened to the comms saying Gill did get out in the first innings pulling a short ball..... yeah having scored 147, 269, 160 in 4 innings and slapped about 50 pull shots into the leg side boundary. Not sure I would consider this validation of the plan.

Then there is the pitches. I am not sure serving up pancakes for an Asian team with half a batting line up a few bad tests from having their career ended is peak pitch efficiency. Stokes and McCullum want featherbeds for slogging, but I guess in their wildest dreams India would never hope for such easy English conditions to bat in. I've seen world class batting line ups from India crumble in the face of a swinging or seaming ball... and yet, the coach and captain are dialling up their perfect scenario dead surfaces. Time to ditch these horrendously flat wickets. Oh, and the U-15 school cricket sized boundaries while you are at it- yeah, England hit big.... but India have the player with LO crickets highest ever average at a run a ball (who hit 11 sixes this test), and another who is better than any England player in the 50 over rankings, another with one of the highest test SRs, and the person who holds the record for most 6s in a test innings.... combined, they have made 8 centuries and 3 50s in 16 innings.... England would do well to remember they aren't the only team who can play attacking strokes in cricket, so giving kiddie boundaries and roads to Indian players is asking for trouble.

Finally, I was lost for words on the batting/general attitude. England nearly 250 behind yesterday evening, and all the players in the squad lining up for interviews to tell us they will go for the win, no matter what. And then, true to their word, faced with 608 to win in about 100 overs, you have Duckett slogging balls with Crawley already out, then he gets himself out after 25 runs in 15 balls. Deep then gets Root with a snorter, England 3 down after 10 overs and having survived two close DRS calls, and you have Ollie Pope still trying to come down the crease and baseball bat balls.

I guess England and their fans are somewhat high on their own supply at stages. Listening to the comms on TMS/Sky today, there was serious suggestions that England could chase it down or attempt it, as they have seemingly redefined what is possible after last week. There are two things in that which are mistaken - first is obvious, 375 is nowhere near 608. not even remotely comparable in the slightest. The second is, the idea of England redefining 4th innings scoring - since the late 2000s, every single test side apart from Zimbabwe (who have played 5% of the test matches of everyone else) have a higher 4th innings score at least once (in some cases multiple) than England have managed. The average wicket score in NZ in the 4th innings nowadays is (on last check, admittely a few months ago) 33, so even the average all out score is not that far off. It's not as unprecedent or ground breaking as people seem to think.

It was a great achievement to win last week, don't get me wrong. But achieving something 5% possible once or twice does not mean you suddenly become infallible and cannot only defy, but utterly annihilate 150 year old records that no one has got anywhere near... to win, England would have to beat the current record by 35%... nearly 200 runs. Even considering it makes you a moron. And that's before we add you have to do it in 100 odd overs at over a run a ball

And yet, England very much came out to have a sniff at it, and within 4.3 overs had both openers in the hutch and in deep sh**t. Honestly, in my whole life watching sport I could not name you a worse tactical decision than that. Its child think..... we don't accept we can never win, so we rather suicidally lose attempting the impossible than block out 100 overs on a pancake easily and go away 1-0 up. Stupidity beyond comprehension.

Can we please cut out the superhero stuff and get back to last weeks encouraging signs of mixing aggression with proper cricket? Its getting tiresome to listen to this dross about "we don't accept anything but winning".... yeah, I agree. Which is why 1-0 would be better than 1-1 you planks.

[sussexpob]

It's going to be interesting to see what happens next week if England have dialed up another road, and then rotate Atkinson and Archer in for Carse/Woakes as they have hinted strongly at. Wonder how many overs those two will get through after hardly playing a match in yonks, Archer has played one innings in 4 years!! Guessing Harry Brook pie o clock might be required again, and maybe considerably.... especially if Stokes himself cannot get through the overs like today.

[Arthur Crabtree]

England's chutzpah that they might chase any total, actually won them a small victory. It made India pointlessly bat on for an hour giving England a better chance to draw the game on a flat surface.

In a way, maybe it's a fair deal if they throw away some games using the same tactics that win them some. But attempting to chase this total was folly. A senior player/coach might have realised.

Though it maybe that the openers at least think they actually can't play any other way.

[meninblue]

Is it true that Ben Stokes said they will go for the target.


Also declaring that we will go for runs, neans that there will be no scrutiny on defensive technique of batsmen nor the temperament of batsmen to fight out a draw for 4 sessions. Hides the real problem in test cricket skills.

Yes this is India's worst bowling attack over years.Jadeja has always been ineffective outside Asia. Sundar and Nitish are all rounders. Only Siraj is good but he too is under fire for being selevced in recent times. But 608 is too much.

I think ECB has been successful in selling Bazball in England.

With WTC finals being conducted year after year in England, the England team should have looked to make the finals and win one of the 3 home finals played.

If Bazball is not getting a place in finals year after tear, then does the strategy needs to be changed to enter finals.

[Durhamfootman]

England play too much cricket in general and too many high profile 5 match money making series against top sides in particular to ever think about a WTC final. I suspect that no-one in and around the England team even bothers to waste any thought on it other than how much money hosting the final earns the ECB

[Durhamfootman]

and nor should they, because it’s a stupid, flawed concept with very little merit

Two of the three winners have come from the test nations who play the least number tests, in the shortest of series, against predominantly poor opposition.

It’s just a silly idea