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Cricket XXII - A Cook's Tour


Stubby

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There are certainly some positives to take away from this innings. But it's only one innings in an otherwise dismal series for them to date. One swallow and all that.

I think England's batting is gradually getting a bit better with each match, the scores are on an upwards trend. At this rate they'll probably only lose in Sydney by 50 runs.

And the Ashes return to Australia! For a while too, as the next series won't be for another 3-4 years I think due to these two being back to back.

Congratulations, Australia. The next Ashes is in (English) Summer 2015, so it's not that long to wait.

Looking deeper at his stats I think he's still mainly a batting all-rounder (or at least England played him as one, putting him in at No. 6). 115 wickets in 61 first-class matches suggests that despite the sub-30 average, he doesn't bowl as much as a frontline bowler, and 9 batting centuries suggests he comes in up the order whenever he plays first-class. England could probably do with one of those in the absence of any of their current Top 6 being able to passably bowl (since Flintoff and Collingwood are gone).

I think there was a long period where he didn't bowl due to injury but did still bat, when he first made his ODI debut he was playing as a specialist batsman because he wasn't able to bowl at the time. I agree he could be a very useful all-rounder, especially given the huge workload that Anderson and Broad have had over the last couple of years. He looked nervous batting in his first Test but he seems to have got over that quickly enough, scoring a century in his second Test should secure his place for a while.

Completely agree with this. It's time to play someone different. Variety is the spice of life and all that.

We've still got the inevitable ODI/T20 series against Australia to get through, after all it's been almost three months since the last ODI series between those two sides. After that there's the World T20 in Bangladesh and just to make sure the players don't get any opportunity to rest an ODI series (but no Tests) in the Caribbean. Next proper cricket is at home vs Sri Lanka who will probably enjoy late spring English conditions as little as they usually do followed by India who will hopefully be more interested than they were on their last tour.

Probably the upcoming Australia vs South Africa Test series sounds more interesting than any of England's schedule.

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I don't want to be unduly pessimistic, but I can't help but be a little uneasy about the praise being poured on Stokes by the media. Vaughan said while he was batting that a century early in your career is a great career boost for an all-rounder, but couldn't it equally be a millstone? It's not uncommon for players to have an outstanding performance early in their Test career which they never quite recapture, while pressure gets heaped on (both from outside and from the player themselves) because they have a legendary performance which people are always expecting them to repeat. It's also the sort of thing which, if Stokes does tail off in future, could see him get selected for a lot longer than he ought to be. We've already seen people being selected on long-past performances this tour (Tremlett). I do hope it doesn't happen, and he is just as good as he looked in the second innings here (although the rest of his batting/bowling hasn't been anything to write home about) but I do worry all the same.


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Adelstein,



It seems that Stokes has that one quality that is required in a Test player - grit. I agree that it's a bit early to be hailing him as the next Lance Gibbs (which one on-line writer did during this innings) but he does look to have potential. I think he will prove to be a handy player in the English squad.


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I don't want to be unduly pessimistic, but I can't help but be a little uneasy about the praise being poured on Stokes by the media.

There is certainly some cause for concern, given that he's only 22. Flintoff's career numbers don't look that impressive because he had a very slow start to his career, a result of being picked too early and having some pretty bad numbers first up. Whether Stokes goes the same way or not...well, it's hard to tell.

I do think that all-rounders tend to be picked when they're younger though, and there's cause to pick them when they're younger. You don't find very many 'old' all-rounders because the strain on the body tends to wear them out by the time they get to 30 and they end up specialising (eg Steve Waugh, who started as an all-rounder - or Imran Khan, Kapil Dev and Ian Botham whose bowling all tailed off and Imran I know played as a specialist batsman sometimes). Flintoff himself retired fairly young after injuries. So while Stokes is working out, may as well pick him and see how he goes.

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A good century in testing conditions . The pitch was prepared to have a little more pace and bounce than normal . All the 3 fast bowlers have bowled pretty well . It has been a very patient innings . Go Kohli!!!

India has taken belting in SA IMO, but i still think India on their day can beat any team in the world.

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I was surprised you weren't posting more frequently during the ashes, quite frankly. ;)

haha, luckily for the England team I was asleep for most of it! Not even my powers of jinxing could affect the highlights afterwards...

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Should be a fascinating day's play in Johannesburg. The fast bowlers have been disciplined and accurate most of the time. The Indian batsmen have been extremely cautious but maintained decent run rates through capitalising on freebies from Tahir and Duminy. If not for some lazy drives outside off and a poor runout, India would be in a almost dominant position. I'm looking forward to see how Dhoni bats tonight. A quick fifty from him and the odd slog from the tailenders could give India a first innings score of around 350, which is apprarently an undefeatable position to be in at this particular ground.


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