England tour of India

[Arthur Crabtree]

Bit disappointing for C4. Paid for a five session game. Starting at 9am in Uk this might have been one to pick up viewers.

[sussexpob]

Bit disappointing for C4. Paid for a five session game. Starting at 9am in Uk this might have been one to pick up viewers.

Funny you say that; a friend of mine who hates cricket jokingly emailed me this morning saying "Thank God that sh*t is ovr, Frazier will be back now".....

[DiligentDefence]

Thanks for the photos SP They do illustrate far better than words. I certainly didn't want to underplay Axar's excellent performance but still think that the jury is out on the pink ball. One does wonder however how much teams practice with it.

If I were inclined to look at this statistically, then DN matches are producing far lower scores (26 per wicket scored to 31 per wicket normally in the period since D/N tests came in 2015). On top of that, there have been some very low scores; India out for 36, Windies out for 90, England for 58 and 82, Zimbabwe 90 odd, SL 80 odd. In fact in 16 total games over half the teams have sufferered a sub-100 run innings, which is very rare in modern cricket.

I admit that is a really hard sample to ignore. In fact when you go on a by team basis, Australia and Pakistan are the only teams that get near a decent level of scoring in their tests, and Pakistan's wicket average is boosted from one road innings.

But then judging it on the matches I can remember watching, the memory that sticks out is bad batting and technique to explain those scores. The ball might skid a little lower, or bite a little harder, or swing a little more, but I cant remember a DN where the ball was making things noticeably crazy or rendring the competition null and void.

Just my take, on my observations.

You may well be right and a lot of it is actually just in the mind of the batsmen.

[Red Devil]

Bumrah will miss the 4th test for personal reasons - he was also going to be rested fir the T20s I think.

India have Siraj and Umesh to come in, but if it's a similar wicket then maybe another spinner in Kuldeep, or alternatively if Hardik is fit enough to bowl a handful of overs then he could come in and add depth to the batting.

[alfie]

Hi Sussex...I get your take on the Axar performance...and I should be clear that I absolutely do not wish to diminish the credit for his work : I agree his skill in not only keeping an immaculate line and length but also producing subtle variations was worthy of the highest praise.
At the same time I think it is reasonable to suggest that this pitch/ball combination produced conditions a little out of the ordinary. It wasn't just Axar who cashed in : Joe Root 5/8 ?

It will be interesting to see if Axar (who did pretty well in Chennai , anyway !) is able to replicate his total mastery over England with the normal red ball. I'm afraid unless they work out a better method he may very well do so - and I really don't want another two day Test !

Incidentally : on batting generally, I am inclined to think that rather a lot of modern batsmen are conditioned to make hay on bland pitches and struggle on anything - seam or spin - that gives the poor old bowlers a proper (or sometimes overdone) advantage. But that is another subject for discussion...

[Durhamfootman]

You may well be right and a lot of it is actually just in the mind of the batsmen.

It has always been thus. When 'mystery' spinners came along (mystery spinners to my mind just bowl balls that rarely turn, but in a variety of ways.... but they still don't turn) and the England batsmen have spent years finding ever more convoluted ways of getting out to balls that are slow and don't turn. It is absolutely all in the head. As soon as someone even mentions mystery spin they think they're dead before they even walk out to the crease and start over thinking things.... playing for prodigious turn that just isn't there. I've never understood it myself

[Arthur Crabtree]

So many ways to bowl a straight onner. It's a real art. Remember Warney's slider? Of course, unless it looks like it's going to do something other than go straight on, it ends up in the crowd.

[Durhamfootman]

Warne could turn the ball prodigiously, so I'm prepared to forgive the batsmen who got out to the slider. Mendis hardly ever turned the ball throughout his career and yet somehow contrived to take nearly 300 international wickets across the 3 formats..... it feels as though half of them should have been at the expense of hapless England batsmen bamboozled by the hype and the fear, although they probably weren't

[sussexpob]

Incidentally : on batting generally, I am inclined to think that rather a lot of modern batsmen are conditioned to make hay on bland pitches and struggle on anything - seam or spin - that gives the poor old bowlers a proper (or sometimes overdone) advantage. But that is another subject for discussion...

Teams cant afford to hire one format cricketers nowadays, so players to some degree have to be able to thrive in T20 and OD cricket, and have to have techniques or abilities to score from balls pitched at all lengths and lines. Certainly in my view this has lead to a noticeable increase in players who are quite happy to not think about their body position, head movement or footwork, and are more focused on correcting it on hand-eye co-ordination and using their hands. When a pitch is docile, you get away with that because there is no great challenge to moving your hands into position or playing shots through the line of the ball; as soon as any type of movement comes though, you are always in trouble.

Its why I am loathe to criticize pitches being too helpful or the ball. Just looking in the last test match how many English batsman played spin with a clear gap between bat and pad, is evidence of the above. They dont move feet, they want to set their body and then react with hands, and they end up reaching out to the ball or missing the line. when they dont judge it.

And of course, aside from technique I do think modern struggle with pacing an innings. There was a period that most teams didnt attempt at all to try to bat out any period without trying to counter attack. I think teams have shown more inclination to bat time now, but the last test match is a good indication that there is two extremes in play and no middle ground. England's first innings had a stat show up near the end saying there was something like 210 dot balls from 260 sent down. So teams also need to find the medium between outright blocking and hitting boundaries; you dont see many teams milking the strike

[meninblue]

Australian spinner Nathan Lyon has lent his support to the pitch as he said that 'everyone in the world seems to start crying’ when the ball starts spinning.


"We play on seaming wickets around the world and get bowled out for 47, 60. Nobody ever says a thing," Lyon told AAP.

"But as soon as it starts spinning, everyone in the world seems to start crying about it. I don't get it. I'm all for it, it was entertaining.

"I was up all night watching it. It was absolutely brilliant. I'm thinking about bringing that curator out to the SCG," he added.

[GarlicJam]

I started watching the test when India were just ahead of England's first innings total, then started losing wickets - they lost something like 7/30.

The commentators were not complaining about the wicket, they were very enthusiastically stating that this is a fantastic test match. And while the spinners were dominating (even Joe Root), it was NOT a bunsen.

I went to bed then, so didn't see any of the England 2nd innings - but watched it the next night. I didn't see anything to suggest that the pitch was below par.

[bigfluffylemon]

So, presumably another raft of changes for England again. They can't bat as badly as they did in the third test (can they?) but the whole team apart from Root has looked clueless against decent spin, so they need to find a way, fast, or it'll be another drubbing.

Vaughan is being even more tiresome than usual in his commentary, but I do have to agree on one thing. The rotation policy is nonsensical - why are people in good form being sent home, and people with no match practice getting selected? You do have to conclude that England reckoned they were never going to win here, and are focussing on winning the T20 world cup this year. Winning overseas in India is the hardest thing in cricket at the moment, and it's probable England never stood a chance, but the first test shows they could be competitive. I'm not sure they put their best foot forward here (still don't agree with dropping Bess).

[Arthur Crabtree]

Not convinced the rotation works so well when it happens mid series and when series are so short anyway.

But I think it's reasonable that players can't necessarily commit themselves to 8 months a year isolation from their home lives. Perhaps this situation has highlighted the historic trauma of touring upon young cricketers, in that it has exaggerated a problem that has always been there.

[bigfluffylemon]

Not convinced the rotation works so well when it happens mid series and when series are so short anyway.

But I think it's reasonable that players can't necessarily commit themselves to 8 months a year isolation from their home lives. Perhaps this situation has highlighted the historic trauma of touring upon young cricketers, in that it has exaggerated a problem that has always been there.

Exactly. Skip a one day series. I note most of them don't seem to have any qualms about being in a COVID bubble in India for two months when it's the IPL and there is a big fat wad of cash at stake.

[Durhamfootman]

for some reason I thought the 4th test started today. It appears I got up too early.... 24 hours too early