Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

he rightly gonna be remembered for being the main man for the successes in two away wins that might not be achieved again in the near future.

Pope and Woakes are in the squad, Vince isn't. So no place for Rory Burns.

Bit of a surprise. So Root back to three.

Unless they bat Moeen there.

Should give Burns a shot on his home ground. They need to give a new opener a go.

Wow no new opener, if the series was live would be laughing my socks off that they still haven't fixed the top order issues and still giving india few easy top order wickets every game.
insane they not trying a new bat in a dead rubber against potentially new indian bowlers plus them not having the same intensity as the first few games.
doubt india will be as strong as they were in the 3rd test in SA where they were desperate to win to show some work in the series.

Although india would still like to win to make it 3-2 but sure it will be 100% intensity as the other games or the game in SA where india took it really seriously in that game.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/ ... eady-scrap
really good article here.

batting really need to improve.

Didn't think they'd drop Jennings for this one now that Chef has called time...he is presumably going to Sri Lanka ( some experience , has a century in Asia , considered a fair player of spin) ...and considering they've been unable to settle one opening spot I doubt they'd want to send two total newcomers on tour...
So for continuity I think it's logical he plays at The Oval.

Not that I'm a fan ; I don't think he's good enough. But I think he will get a few more chances to prove that - or the contrary

Sri Lanka tour may not be the worst place to try the new man - whoever he is. And wouldn't be shocked to see three potential openers , including Jennings , on the trip.

Think Moeen will bat three again this week. Not his spot , in my book. But he's said to fancy it , and anything to keep Root at four !

Fitness issues will be considered a bit differently thus time , I imagine , given the series is won . But the injured parties have had a few more days rest and recovery so anyone's guess...

Surely India will include Jadeja ? And quite possibly one of these new young fellows to bat : what have they got to lose ?

Disagree with that alfie.
Sri lanka is the toughest place to open the place.
Statically it is the toughest place to open in the test playing nations, even tougher than england.

you either get Swing with the humidity, Seam if they prepare green tops, india gets green tops and seam friendly decks, no idea why considering india are so much better than sri lanka in those conditions, surely you will prepare something sri lanka can bowl and bat with lol.
but with england it will be a turning conditions and with it turning early on, sri lanka will have spinners straightaway and it will have more purchase for the spinners and bounce more with the new ball and the turn isn't consistent with the new ball plus you add in the fact the new ball causes the turn to be faster as well so tougher for the opening batsman.

Sri lanka isn't an easy place to open.


Sri Lanka was the toughest place in which to open a Test innings.
http://www.espn.co.uk/cricket/story/_/i ... ss-phantom
can't find the article about sri lanka being the toughest place to open barring the comment in this one, but cricinfo had a peice on it earlier but sri lanka is a tough place to open though.
opening partnership hardly go past 50 here, think india vs sri lanka had a series where the highest opening partnership was 15 or something and you had Dhawan, pujara and Rahul plus vijay all scoring hundreds lol.
although that pujara innings was an all time great innings.

Good to see Pope back, im sure Mo will bat 3 though

More runs for Burns....

good article on pandya.

Dr Cricket wrote:Sri Lanka was the toughest place in which to open a Test innings.
http://www.espn.co.uk/cricket/story/_/i ... ss-phantom

Really nice article, thanks for sharing....

Good article and good post doc, thanks.

Arthur Crabtree wrote:Good post.

I wrote my views on his career when he went past the England run scoring record and not much has changed since, barring the steepness of the decline. I'm left with two contradictory thoughts. That he was the best good-pitch batter I've seen for England. And he was a monster in India.

Clearly time to go.

I'm not sure it's entirely fair to characterise him as a 'good-pitch batter'. Certainly in the last few years of his career he was. But most batsmen score more on good pitches than bad. And there might be a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem - do we call them good pitches because Cook scored runs?

I had a quick look at the stats, and for Cook's 'daddy' hundreds (over 150). He scored 11. England won 7, drew 3, lost 1. And one of those draws would have been an England win if bad light had not intervened to curtail the match 10 overs or so early. So all but two had enough in them that at least one side could take 20 wickets.

A lot of batsmen have much higher averages in draws than wins, indicating they only contributed on flat wickets. Cook's average in wins and draws is pretty close (less than 5 runs in it, and over 50 for both). He scored 16 of his 32 hundreds in England wins. When he went big, England usually won.

Dr Cricket wrote:Disagree with that alfie.
Sri lanka is the toughest place to open the place.
Statically it is the toughest place to open in the test playing nations, even tougher than england.

you either get Swing with the humidity, Seam if they prepare green tops, india gets green tops and seam friendly decks, no idea why considering india are so much better than sri lanka in those conditions, surely you will prepare something sri lanka can bowl and bat with lol.
but with england it will be a turning conditions and with it turning early on, sri lanka will have spinners straightaway and it will have more purchase for the spinners and bounce more with the new ball and the turn isn't consistent with the new ball plus you add in the fact the new ball causes the turn to be faster as well so tougher for the opening batsman.

Sri lanka isn't an easy place to open.


Sri Lanka was the toughest place in which to open a Test innings.
http://www.espn.co.uk/cricket/story/_/i ... ss-phantom
can't find the article about sri lanka being the toughest place to open barring the comment in this one, but cricinfo had a peice on it earlier but sri lanka is a tough place to open though.
opening partnership hardly go past 50 here, think india vs sri lanka had a series where the highest opening partnership was 15 or something and you had Dhawan, pujara and Rahul plus vijay all scoring hundreds lol.
although that pujara innings was an all time great innings.

Thanks , Doc ... Interesting. Without looking at the figures I'll take his word about the low scoring openers ... recall seeing some Australian tour matches where openers certainly did have a hard time. As you say , pitches will probably be turning from pretty early. And they have some very handy spinners ...

At the same time I stand by my thoughts that he might be better off starting there. Basically because this India series , with often challenging conditions and some excellent India seamers , has been pretty darn difficult for openers ... not sure Sri Lanka will be any worse than facing Bumrah and Shami at The Oval. Plus it will be out of country and hence a bit less pressure : people make allowances for new men on tour.

Anyway it remains to be seen if they actually pick him , I suppose They haven't shown any enthusiasm for doing so yet...maybe they will go back to the UAE experiment and have second spinner Moeen open the batting