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Cricket: Industrial Action Edition


ljkeane

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Heh, Roy out obstructing the field, rightfully so for me, in the T20 against South Africa. England are making hard work of what should be a straight forward chase at Taunton.

In other news the Australian players union have rejected the latest offer from Cricket Australia.

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1 hour ago, ljkeane said:

In other news the Australian players union have rejected the latest offer from Cricket Australia.

What happens if they can't reach agreement by the time of the Ashes? Are Cricket Australia going to do what the West Indies board did a few years ago and rustle up a team of youngsters and fringe players? Hopefully not, English cricket would never live it down if they lost to a B team.

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Yeah, it's a massive game of chicken. Who knows how it will play out. I think Cricket Australia has a slight advantage in that they are a single entity with a single message. Corralling all the players and getting them to say and think and do the same thing is going to be a tough ask for the union when the deadlines start getting closer.

The Women's World Cup is on...I really enjoyed watching the England vs India match.

Maybe this will sound sexist, but I kind of like the fact that women's cricket isn't a slogging six-fest that the men's game has become. 250 seems like a tough total to get (equivalent to 300 in the men's) and the style and tempo of play is reminiscent of a time when there was a more even contest between bat and ball.

 

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7 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Livingstone really hasn't had a good time of it in the chances he's been given in these T20s. 14 off 16 or something like that at Taunton and now a golden duck.

He seems to have a modest record in domestic T20 cricket so I'm not sure why he's in the team, I guess they must see some potential in him.

It was an impressive debut from Dawid Malan who looked well on the way to a century before he was dismissed. I imagine we'll be seeing quite a bit more from him. Mason Crane's leg spin also looked useful.

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You guys probably get sick of me saying this, but I have absolutely had it with pointless bilateral ODI series. This Windies v India tour is a case in point. Five meaningless one-dayers between mismatched teams, followed by a single T20I. Not even a one-off test match, which probably would have been more interesting as subcontinental teams have historically struggled in the Caribbean.

It's boring, low-quality stuff and exactly the reason why T20 domestic leagues are flourishing at the expense of the international game. At least the England v SA tour had some sense to it: an ODI series to warm up for the Champs Trophy, then some hit and giggle T20s to spark the international season before the tests. But this West Indies tour is just garbage.

/rant

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It's not completely pointless, Pax...after all, it does fill the coffers of both cricket boards. :P

I assume the reason behind it is more financial than cricketing. Much better to have five ODIs spread around various different venues, than to have a couple of Test matches where the groundsman prepares a rubbish pitch that only sees 3 days of play attended by a smattering of people. Maybe I'm stereotyping, but West Indian pitches aren't particularly well-renowned for their consistency or quality.

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Pretty crazy match in the WWC last night. Sri Lanka were comfortable beaten courtesy of an excellent Lanning century, but not before Sri Lanka's Chamari Atapattu made 178* in the first innings. The next highest score for Sri Lanka was 24!

Just on Lanning - she averages 54 in ODIs with a SR of nearly 97. A once-in-a-generation player.

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England team has been selected for the first South Africa Test, with a couple of possibly surprising calls.

The squad is Cook, Jennings, Root, Ballance, Bairstow, Stokes, Ali, Broad, Roland-Jones, Anderson, Wood, Dawson. Ballance gets another chance, he's apparently been in great form in county cricket but in the past he's shown a weakness against Test quality fast bowling which I think South Africa could exploit, even with Dale Steyn missing. Also not sure why Dawson is in the squad, it feels a bit unlikely they'd want to play two spinners and although I haven't seen him play his record does seem fairly modest.

It feels like they might be quite dependent on the more experience members of the squad, although it's a good opportunity for some of the younger players to impress.

I'm going to the Saturday of the Lord's Test. I don't think either England or South Africa are at their strongest right now, but it should be a good contest.

 

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Some slightly odd selections in the England squad. I'm not convinced Ballance is up to test cricket. I don't really see the point of Dawson in England and they've got a lot of seamers, which probably reflects the number of fitness concerns they have.

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It's going to be a fascinating series. Despite South Africa's impressive win in Australia last summer, they are still in something of a transitional phase having gone through three test captains in two years and with stars like AB and Steyn facing uncertain futures. They may be on the verge of a fourth captain if Elgar is forced to stand in for Faf at Lord's.

Meanwhile I agree that England has picked a somewhat bizarre squad. Poor Hameed finds himself dropped despite a healthy average in his first three tests. I understand that Ballance has the County runs on the board, but he has been a patchy test performer. And the Dawson selection is odd.

Overall I'm expecting an England series win on the back of superior batting, primarily from the likes of Root and Bairstow. I think South Africa's batting will rely too heavily on lower order fightbacks from De Kock and Philander to pose any major difficulties. Duminy is a particular vulnerability - he averages just 26 against England.

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16 hours ago, Paxter said:

It's going to be a fascinating series. Despite South Africa's impressive win in Australia last summer, they are still in something of a transitional phase having gone through three test captains in two years and with stars like AB and Steyn facing uncertain futures. They may be on the verge of a fourth captain if Elgar is forced to stand in for Faf at Lord's.

Meanwhile I agree that England has picked a somewhat bizarre squad. Poor Hameed finds himself dropped despite a healthy average in his first three tests. I understand that Ballance has the County runs on the board, but he has been a patchy test performer. And the Dawson selection is odd.

Overall I'm expecting an England series win on the back of superior batting, primarily from the likes of Root and Bairstow. I think South Africa's batting will rely too heavily on lower order fightbacks from De Kock and Philander to pose any major difficulties. Duminy is a particular vulnerability - he averages just 26 against England.

It looks like Faf is now going to miss the Test, which seems a big blow for South Africa, they might be very reliant on Amla for experience in the top order. At least they should have a good pace attack, Rabada looks like a great talent and Morkel and Philander will provide plenty of experience.

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4 hours ago, williamjm said:

It looks like Faf is now going to miss the Test, which seems a big blow for South Africa, they might be very reliant on Amla for experience in the top order. At least they should have a good pace attack, Rabada looks like a great talent and Morkel and Philander will provide plenty of experience.

Agreed, Amla will have to perform well for South Africa to win. He hasn't been in the greatest form this year, but he has a superb record in England, with three hundreds, including two at Lord's.

Meanwhile, the CA vs Players saga rumbles along. It looks likely now that Australia A will not tour South Africa, and the tour of Bangladesh is also in serious doubt. I think one of the parties will blink before the India tour, but who knows how it will play out. I feel sorry for the less well-paid players - they have families/mortgages etc. but now have no income (and there won't be any back pay). It's easy for the likes of Warner to sit in his two million dollar mansion while the Shield and female players go unpaid.

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On 7/3/2017 at 4:21 AM, Paxter said:

It's going to be a fascinating series. Despite South Africa's impressive win in Australia last summer, they are still in something of a transitional phase having gone through three test captains in two years and with stars like AB and Steyn facing uncertain futures. They may be on the verge of a fourth captain if Elgar is forced to stand in for Faf at Lord's.

Meanwhile I agree that England has picked a somewhat bizarre squad. Poor Hameed finds himself dropped despite a healthy average in his first three tests. I understand that Ballance has the County runs on the board, but he has been a patchy test performer. And the Dawson selection is odd.

Overall I'm expecting an England series win on the back of superior batting, primarily from the likes of Root and Bairstow. I think South Africa's batting will rely too heavily on lower order fightbacks from De Kock and Philander to pose any major difficulties. Duminy is a particular vulnerability - he averages just 26 against England.

 

 

 I hate to say it but I too don't see an SA win. There is a huge leadership vaccuum without Faf, Steyn, AB, and is Domingo even in England? He came back home for personal reasons, so who is leading the team? 

 

 There will be good performances from individuals - agree on the rearguard fightbacks - but I don't think it will be enough.

 

 But who knows, maybe JP will finally - after 8 years - justify his place?

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Looking forward to the first test of the English summer! Finally the pajama party of the IPL/Champions Trophy is over.

England will play two spinners at Lord's for the first time since 1993!

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Ah, it's a sports lover's delight....Test cricket, Wimbledon and the Tour de France all at the same time. My TV remote will be working overtime.

I rate England at a slight advantage due to home conditions etc, although this is really the matchup of two flawed teams.

With two decent bowling attacks in English conditions, and a lack of world-class batsmen (Root and Amla aside), I'm looking forward to an "old-time" Test series where we don't have automatic first innings totals of 400+.

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Good start for South Africa, though they still have to remove Stokes and Root, as well as bat well! Plenty of time for England to come back in this one.

To me, Ballance is not the right man at No. 3 heading into an away Ashes series.

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Root and the middle/lower order having to bail out the top order once again. I didn't see his dismissal but apparently Ballance didn't look great, at some point you probably just have accept that despite their first class form a player isn't up to test cricket.

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