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Cricket: ODIs Aren’t Proper Cricket Edition


Hereward

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England doing what Australia used to be able to do. Find a shit ton of 2s and 1s during the middle period to keep 6+ runrate going through the middle period. This current aussie lineup are hopeless at doing this, specially without Smith. So many damn dot balls because they either block or look for boundary. It was so damn frustrating to watch. Specially when you see England come in, and Morgan and Root pile on the 2s and get 7-8 runs an over with almost zero risk and no boundaries.

Aussies got too many of this T20 big hitters who are expected to get boundaries and are kind of shit at turning over strike. Previous squads had Clarke, Smith, Hussey etc who took this role and played the middle overs really well. Hard to see anyone in this team, other than Smith, who actually looks to work the ball for 2s constantly.

Got to give it to England, they have batted really well. While they also bowled well, I think it was more awful batting plan of Australia than any amazing England bowling that restricted Aus to such pathetic totals. But they bowled well and fielded well and stuck to their plans. And the batters really took on the aussie bowlers, specially Starc.

On a more positive note, Bangladesh beat SL in the tri-nation series, so I am pretty happy!

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Great stuff from England. No indications that they're going to let up so I imagine they will take the series comfortably, Australia will be lucky to get one victory out of five the way things are going. England really look like a well-run team. I like Morgan as the captain and it's clearly an easy transition for Root to go back to being "just" a top order batsman. Their team is balanced and everyone covers a lot of roles -  good mixture of hitters and accumulators, they bat deep into the order, and they have some good (!) spin options and variety in their bowling.

TWS has the truth of it. The Australian batting lineup is hopeless at turning over the strike. Smith is the only one who can regularly get singles. The rest are all just big hitters who swing for the fences, lots of dot balls in between and overs 25-40 are normally wasted and wickets are lost.

Our ODI bowling attack is also a bit blunt. The Test attack of Starc, Cummins, Hazlewood are great in ODIs but the second stringers backing them up aren't anything to write home about. Richardson, Coulter-Nile and Tye haven't become big wicket-takers and the usual barrage of all-rounders (Marsh, Henriques, Faulkner) are underwhelming medium pacers.

Having said all that, they'll probably go out and do the exact opposite of what I'm lamented but that's the glories of ODI cricket!

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This England one-day team is brilliant. The changeover from the Test team has been a godsend for them. Morgan comes in as an established captain and Root gets to relax into being a frontline bat again, and Roy, Hales, Buttler to various extents have done well.

They had no business setting 300 this innings. 4/107 and 6/189 and yet Woakes and Buttler combine for a massive partnership involving six 6s and a mountain of boundaries towards the end. I didn't realise Woakes' batting was actually that good - I thought he was a bit of an accumulator but apparently he can hit them.

Australia bat deep - Starc 8, Cummins 9. Lots of big hitters - Warner, Finch, Stoinis, Marsh. But for a chase of 300 they're going to need to pick up lots of singles as well.

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Wahey, England win and take the series.

That's a really good effort from England already effectively a bowler down on their first choice lineup without Stokes, to lose Plunkett and have to bowl Root for nearly 9 overs and still win shows how resilient the ODI side are.

ETA: On the other hand not a great effort from Australia. By the sound of it 300 was roughly a par score, they really shouldn't have been struggling to chase that down once England had lost one of their front line bowlers.

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Also shows how shit this Australian team is. I don't remember many Australia ODI team being this hopeless. Dropped catches, can't hit boundaries consistently, can't take 2s consistently. All muscles and zero brains. The amount of time the Aussie batters tried to hit the ball out of the park instead of trying to place the ball is infuriating. Smith's field placement was absolutely rubbish in the last 10 overs. So many easy 2s.

But credit to England, they bowled well, batted well and fielded well. The deserved winner. Australia has a lot of soul searching to do before the next world cup.

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Great win from England. They overcame major problems in both innings - 6/189 and yet got 300+, and then Plunkett breaking down in his second over. They effectively had to bowl 50 overs with only two seamers, and managed to milk 29 overs of spin. I know it's the SCG, but to defend an ODI total while bowling 60% of your overs with spin, the majority of which would be considered "part-time" shows the resilience of this England team.

Agree with TWS again on this Australian team. This game was especially ugly. Heaps of dropped catches, the vaunted bowling attack (full strength with Starc, Cummins, Hazlewood) gets smashed to all parts in the last ten overs, and the overrated batting once again fails to fire against a severely weakened bowling attack.

That being said, get a couple more decent players and the Australian team could be very good. Top order is good with explosive Finch/Warner combination, and the pace bowling is good too. But they need a reliable accumulator in the middle order to pair up with Smith (maybe promote Payne?) to milk the middle overs before the big hitters come in (Marsh/Stoinis), and a good frontline spinner who can take wickets (to be fair Zampa did bowl well at times).

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5 wickets for 8 runs to start off an ODI innings, you don't see that every day. England did amazingly well to get so close to 200 after that and still made a game of it.

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Huh, India get the win in South Africa. I thought the Proteas looked fairly comfortable when I left this morning.

I think India look reasonably well set up to be successful outside the Subcontinent at the moment, they've got a pretty good set of fast bowlers. If they give themselves some decent preparation time they could be competitive against England.

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SA bottled that game thanks to a rather spectacular batting collapse. Went from 140 odd for three to 160 odd for nine. Really happy that we managed to wrap this series up because I felt that this was India's best chance for a Test series win in SA (they have a seam attack comparable to SA's and a better batting lineup) but they blew it with a poor performance at Centurion on a favourable pitch. SA's batting remains fragile with a long tail: Amla, de Villiers and du Plessis have been inconsistent and as a result there is no-one we can count on to hold the batting lineup together (at least Australia have Smith). Our opening partnership is also pretty weak; it's basically guaranteed that we lose an early wicket.

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I watched that collapse last night and it was pretty spectacular. Amla and Elgar fended and sparred for ages and managed to lock it down but they weren't scoring any runs. Once that gate opened with Amla's wicket there was no stopping it. Great win for India and a good experience for them bowling overseas.

I agree the batting of South Africa is quite thin. They are playing de Kock at 6 and Philander at 7. While Philander is fairly useful and reliable with the bat, he really should be a dangerous No. 8 and not batting as high as 7. They also don't have the next generation of batsmen coming through. De Villiers, Amla and Du Plessis are all 33+ with no one to take their place, which doesn't bode well.

South Africa have been spoilt by Jacques Kallis over the past two decades so I think they're still adjusting to the idea of having a balanced bowling attack. Currently they are carrying five frontline bowlers and expecting Philander to fulfil that dual role but he's really a bowling all-rounder and not a batting one. In my mind they should carry four frontline bowlers (one of which is Philander batting at 8) but they've been so used to having that extra fifth bowler, it probably doesn't help that none of the current top 6 in South Africa are decent part-timers (maybe Elgar a little bit).

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I too was fearful of an India win going in to this series. South Africa are a dangerous side on their day but still seem ripe for the plucking as they struggle to transition from the Kallis/Smith/Steyn era. Australia will fancy their chances over there in four (!) test matches.

On the ODI side of things: the score line tells a story of two teams in dramatically different positions. England has a strong squad packed with all-round talent and led by a motivated captain with a clear and singular goal to achieve success at a major tournament. Australia is an unsettled side that has seemingly put ODIs on the backburner while the nation is primarily occupied by home test series and the BBL. And its captain is visibly exhausted from carrying his team in the test arena and probably struggling for motivation when he dons coloured clothing.

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On his day, Smith can bat quite well in ODIs and fulfil that Joe Root-style nurdler role (which is clearly needed in this Aussie side of generally unrefined bashers) but he was clearly exhausted and out of sorts in this series. It was mentioned in commentary it has to be one of the few times that both Warner and Smith have gone through a five-match ODI series and neither scored a half century.

Given Smith's supremacy with the bat in Tests, I wonder whether it's time to split the captaincy again. It's clearly worked for England, and it would stop the ODI team from being the afterthought that it currently seems to be. Finch is the right age and in good nick, he captains the T20 side so he'd presumably be the man for ODIs. Smith could still play or he could retire from ODIs altogether to preserve his Test batting.

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  • 5 weeks later...

It’s been a bit of a depressing period for test cricket recently, especially for England, but the South Africa - Australia test series starts tomorrow and it promises to be quite good. It’ll be interesting to see if the Proteas can overcome home disadvantage.

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14 hours ago, ljkeane said:

It’s been a bit of a depressing period for test cricket recently, especially for England, but the South Africa - Australia test series starts tomorrow and it promises to be quite good. It’ll be interesting to see if the Proteas can overcome home disadvantage.

Apart from the Ashes & Ind vsSL Test cricket has been pretty damn good. For the first time in history all 60 wickets fell in a 3 match test series when India and SA played each other. SL beat Pakistan in Dubai which was nothing short of a miracle .

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Pretty sedate start to the Aus-South Africa Test. Hard to say what's going to happen based on that first day's play.

I love it how Smith scores a fifty but his batting average will actually drop.

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6 hours ago, Jeor said:

I love it how Smith scores a fifty but his batting average will actually drop.

Let’s hope the trend continues!

/Smith hate

As for the test match, I think Australia is in the slightly better position. Bowling is easily South Africa’s strength, so anything around 300 could be deemed a success for the visitors. Then the pressure will be on a lineup that had its struggles against India. 

A shout-out to Maharaj: he is exactly the kind of bowler England so badly needed in the Ashes. I’m a fan.

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Australia are definitely on top now after a pretty disappointing effort from all bar de Villiers in South Africa’s first innings. It’s hard to see the Proteas digging themselves out of this hole.

It is good to see AB de Villiers playing test cricket again though, he’s such a class player. I’m not sure how much he’s going to do it in the future so it’s worth appreciating while we’ve got the chance.

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