Third Test: England v South Africa, The Oval, July 27-31

[Arthur Crabtree]

Stokes dropped one in the gulley off TRJ (Toblerone is a good nickname by the way) might have been in the first innings.

[Durhamfootman]

a few years back, our announcer introduced him as Roly Tobeland Jones

[sussexpob]

a few years back, our announcer introduced him as Roly Tobeland Jones

I am sure it was an accident

[bigfluffylemon]

Good win by England. What has been most pleasing was the way it was achieved - by proper test match batting and adapting to the conditions in the first innings, and also the second, to a lesser extent.

Now for some consistency please. That would be nice.

Interesting how one of those nice little coincidences comes up - no test match hat trick in 100 tests at the Oval, two England bowlers have a chance to take one but don't, then the match is sealed at the third attempt to get a hat trick of the innings. You couldn't make it up.

Just listened to the podcast of Aggers winding up Boycott over his 100th hundred. Utterly hilarious. Boycott's harumphing when he learned of the wind-up had me in stitches.

[bigfluffylemon]

I also enjoyed Faf's post-match interview. The man's got an excellent dry wit, almost worthy of a Yorkshireman.

[sussexpob]

I watched the first couple of days then had to tms it. Boycott was actually on form this test, his deconstruction of Tim Westley technique was spot on.

[sussexpob]

Moeen's hattrick aside (that umpire decision on the last wicket was an abomination), one thing that is very encouraging is he has learnt over the winter to beat the bat on both edges. Its showing in his output because hes getting edges from right and left handers when he floats it up and gets people driving at the ball.

If he can learn control to strangle batsman a lot better, England might have fashioned a half decent spinner.

Bairstow still very inconsistent behind the stumps mind.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Boycott is still ok at critiquing a batter's game. Not so much on anything else though. Mainly, his irritable nature leads him to hasty conclusions which he spends the rest of the series justifying by distorting everything that happens. Plus all the another annoying stuff.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Moeen's hattrick aside (that umpire decision on the last wicket was an abomination), one thing that is very encouraging is he has learnt over the winter to beat the bat on both edges. Its showing in his output because hes getting edges from right and left handers when he floats it up and gets people driving at the ball.

If he can learn control to strangle batsman a lot better, England might have fashioned a half decent spinner.

Bairstow still very inconsistent behind the stumps mind.

Just surprising it wasn't Kumar Dharmasena's call.

Moeen was always able to go past the outside edge but then lost it by trying to bowl ever faster at his coaches' suggestion. When he came into the side he got a lot of drift. Maybe he's starting to bowl either way at different times.

[westoelad]

Boycott is still ok at critiquing a batter's game. Not so much on anything else though. Mainly, his irritable nature leads him to hasty conclusions which he spends the rest of the series justifying by distorting everything that happens. Plus all the another annoying stuff.

Thought the way Boycott took the windup on his 100 100s showed he's mellowed. There's no doubt he's probably the authority on batting and as such is worth listening to and tolerating his foibles.

[bigfluffylemon]

Boycott is still ok at critiquing a batter's game. Not so much on anything else though. Mainly, his irritable nature leads him to hasty conclusions which he spends the rest of the series justifying by distorting everything that happens. Plus all the another annoying stuff.

Thought the way Boycott took the windup on his 100 100s showed he's mellowed. There's no doubt he's probably the authority on batting and as such is worth listening to and tolerating his foibles.

I find him generally irritating, but his discussion of batting technique is generally sound, agreed. That said, even with their foibles I much prefer the TMS crew to the TV commentators. Warne is permanently irritating, except when dissecting technique and field placings for spin bowling, which is the only time he's worth listening to, and the rest of them merely state the obvious the entire time.

[westoelad]

Yes I suspect Warne would be the least popular of the commentators if a poll was carried out. He's also very fond of giving one to one coaching clinics on any aspiring young spinner, and making it public. Interestingly there's never been any noticeable improvement.

[sussexpob]

The term expert should be used loosely when discussing some people in the commentary box. What does Atherton's experience add to any discussion? He was a captain that overseen a decade of consistent failure, his average of 37 was sub-par standard for any decent team, he was part of a selection team that consistently showed utterly disastrous thought processes, and he was a caught cheat. Why should he be considered an expert on the game, he hardly displayed any great understanding of it. I think Warne has better ideas than virtually anyone when he reigns in his idiocy, but sadly he came from that Channel 9 Healy-esque stock that downgrades cricket discussion for boisterous nonsense. Certainly more qualified and displays more interesting points that the aforementioned England Captain.

I tend to find Atherton gets a good ride from people. He over complicates widely accepted points to try to make them sound original, and I find his fact knowledge on many of his articles is blatantly wrong or misunderstood, but he gets away with it due to the fact he knows most people also dont know about it. Take the recent article westo that you posted about his player development/scouting points. He seems to laud up the fact the ECB are investigating NFL style scouting, and the fact they have built a relationship with the Cleveland Browns as a positive.

If he knew anything about the Browns then he'd have known this is a team who in the last 20 years have drafted 5 Quarterbacks in the first round that were all big draft busts. The most famous, Johnny Manziel, was an alcoholic who will forever make lists till he dies of "biggest draft busts ever" (the Browns ignored the warning signs). They also signed Robert Griffin III who is also known as one of the biggest busts ever. They have consistently hemorrhaged top level draft picks and wasted them on rubbish. In NFL, the words "Cleveland Browns" is synonymous with failure. They are a laughing stock for their scouting and GM decision making. They have a 24 year streak (by far the longest streak, about double) in the NFL of not progressing in the playoffs. Athers made himself look very stupid mentioning them in the capacity of his argument.

In fact, the whole discussion about American sports was cringeworthy. Its well known in the NFL that scouts and selection models are basically no more effective than guesswork due to the style that they use attempting to use such small samples to rate so many physical and mental metrics. This draft, the rookie scouts blasted a cornerback for being slow and lacking top level agility and rated him to drop down the draft after his pro day, only for him to turn up to the combine and rank 1 in all speed and agility tests.

If you are ever interested in this sort of thing, there is an excellent podcast where an US radio guy gets the top stars in the NFL to read their rookie scouting reports. They are hilarious, they are always incredibly wrong.

The whole article sounded like a pseudo-scientific piece of pro ECB propaganda. It was a horrifying article. Very badly informed.

[Arthur Crabtree]

The commentator has two jobs. To describe/interpret the events on the pitch, and not to be a pain in the arse.

Surprisingly fewer manage the first, which should be the easiest part, given they are experienced and successful players, mostly captains. A few are good on their particular area, like Boycott on batting, Warne on spin, Holding on bowling.

As I've said before, I like listening to Vaughan and Harmison. But Vaughan is so unpopular as a personality that no one wants to support anything he says. And Harmison is incoherent.

Atherton does well because he's really not annoying so more people don't mind listening to him- rather than his being able to read the game as well as Vaughan. Though to be fair, he and Hussain do ok in the third man chair. Some people are irritating because we've heard what they think so many times and we've tolerated them too long (who wants to listen any more to Botham get bored in the third innings waiting for a declaration?). A big problem in the pain-in-the-arse category is that some commentators feel/are made to feel that they play a part in the promotion and future health of cricket and so become talking-doll cheerleaders (Hussain).

Vic Marks is the best, in my view, because he usually has something worthwhile to say and hardly anyone minds hearing him say it. Surely there are few who manage that. That's before we get to his facility for verbal expression.