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Cricket: ODIs Aren’t Proper Cricket Edition


Hereward

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Wagner had 4 scoring shots in 103 deliveries. That's dedication!

The Aussies will need that sort of application if they're to draw this match.

EDIT: Losing two wickets in the first over of the day won't help. Didn't stop NZ though..

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And Handscomb bizarrely gets out exactly the same he did the first time - trying to leave the ball but getting bowled as it ricochets off the bat.

At this rate it'll be a moral victory if Australia can get to lunch.

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So New Zealand snap a 35-year spell to beat England at home...and South Africa go 13 years better with a 48-year drought broken against the Aussies!

The series will be remembered for all the wrong reasons, but that really was a fantastic performance from the Proteas. A lot of people were down on them after the loss to England, so this summer has been a real turnaround. Probably the best aspect was the continued emergence of so many good young players: KG, Markram, Ngidi, Bavuma. The old guard of Amla and Du Plessis barely figured (although AB chimed in!)

The less said about Australia, the better. The bowlers were valiant, but the batting has been shown to be the sham that it is and has been for a while.

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That was great spell of bowling by Philander. Too bad this series was marred by the ball tampering incident. It was a well contested series up to that point but that incident not only deprived the Aussies of their best batsmen but took much of the fight out of the remaining players as well. It's been very one-sided after that.

It's ended up being a very good summer for us, first beating India and now Australia. Better than I could have hoped for since we were not without our own problems going into those series. 

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Is it only cricket fans, and perhaps only test cricket fans at that, who can appreciate a hard fought draw? Maybe Chess fans, who can appreciate a hard fought stalemate. Football too maybe.

Crossing codes, I had an argument with my nephew over the All Blacks/Lions series last year ending in a draw, with the final game being a draw. I was OK with it being a draw, and I think it's partly because I am a fan of test cricket and a tense draw is in a test match, and a drawn test series is totally fine and I appreciate everything that went into the drawn result. But these days for so many people a draw is an unacceptable outcome. THERE MUST BE A WINNER! OK series-wise both the AU/SA and NZ/ENG test series had a winner, but a drawn series is always a possibility.

Anyway, just curious about whether you think it's correct that people who are fans of sports that regularly end in drawn games and series are less bothered by draws in sports where is happens less often (or would happen from time to time if overtime wasn't invented). Ort are you as miffed about draws outside of test cricket as everyone else?

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The only thing I’d say in defence of your nephew is that (as I understand it), the Lions very rarely tour, so it would be nice to see a win/loss result when they do. In contrast, the cricket test teams usually play each other every few years, so a drawn series can always be followed by a “result” series in the nearish future.

Overall, I must say I don’t mind drawn matches, but drawn series irk me (I’d rather watch a deciding test!)

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Yeah, I think the length of time between Lions tours makes a drawn series feel like a letdown. Luckily only two Lions series have ever been drawn. It's a different case when teams play each other every year or two but the B&I Lions only tour every four years and rotate between the Southern Hemisphere's big three so having a series winner becomes more important. 

 

I'm okay with drawn Test series provided that the series consisted of at least three Tests. A 1-1 in a two Test series royally pisses me off. 

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Some pretty damning stats that don't look good for Australia going forward:

1. First time in 48 years that they've not scored a Test century in a series (I'm assuming this is 2 tests or more or somesuch)

2. In the last 50 Test matches for Australia they’ve made 71 hundreds, 41 of them have come from Steve Smith or David Warner. Smith has made 22, Warner has made 19.

3. Fourth worst runs defeat in history

The bowlers did ok (Cummins especially) but the batsmen are a complete farce. Problem is, it's not always easy to bring in good batsmen especially with the way the first class game is going in Australia. 15 years ago we had too many with people like Brad Hodge and Adam Voges not getting nearly enough Tests that their talent deserved, but now the cupboard is completely bare.

 

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The updated team rankings for tests:

https://www.icc-cricket.com/rankings/mens/team-rankings/test

  1. India
  2. South Africa
  3. New Zealand
  4. Australia
  5. England
  6. Sri Lanka
  7. Pakistan
  8. West Indies
  9. Bangladesh
  10. Zimbabwe

Not that New Zealand will start getting four or five test tours again anytime soon (seeing as we've played one four test series in 34 years - in 1999 - and we haven't played a five test series since a tour of the West Indies in 1971-72).

 India 44 5,313 121
1  India 44 5,313 12
       
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Five Test series are very rare these days though. Off the top of my head, I recall only two series' that encompass five Test matches - The Ashes and England vs India. New Zealand should be given more three Test series at the very least though. Looking here it's pretty disappointing to see how many two Test series NZ have played over the years.

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Man those rankings are brutal - it feels like only the other day that Misbah was leading a kick-arse Pakistan team to number one...now they are seventh! Or maybe I’m just getting old.

On NZ: my understanding is that they will only have two-test series at home from this summer onwards. Devastating.

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9 minutes ago, Paxter said:

Man those rankings are brutal - it feels like only the other day that Misbah was leading a kick-arse Pakistan team to number one...now they are seventh! Or maybe I’m just getting old.

Seeing the once mighty West Indies only a point above Bangladesh in the ratings also feels odd for someone who started watching cricket in the early 90s.

1 hour ago, Raja said:

I hope we're not pants again in England this summer 

I suspect Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad are probably already looking forward to the prospect of bowling to Indian batsmen in English conditions.

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I think Pakistan is suffering badly from not being able to play in Pakistan. There are bigger problems in the world than the Pakistan cricket team not being able to safely host visiting teams. But not being able to safely host visiting teams is a symptom of some of those bigger problems. So the sooner these bigger problems get sorted the sooner the Pakistan cricket team can get to working its way back to the top half of the test rankings.

I love that NZ is number 3 right now, but I feel like that's an artificial situation, we don't have the population or player base to really sustain a ranking above #5 in the long term. Au and England being below NZ in the rankings will not last more than a year, if that.

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8 hours ago, williamjm said:

 

I suspect Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad are probably already looking forward to the prospect of bowling to Indian batsmen in English conditions.

I don't expect a win, I just want it to be at least *slightly* competitive when the batsmen go out there. 

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9 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I love that NZ is number 3 right now, but I feel like that's an artificial situation, we don't have the population or player base to really sustain a ranking above #5 in the long term. Au and England being below NZ in the rankings will not last more than a year, if that.

Well, one might argue that population hasn't really been a factor in All Blacks dominance of rugby, but it would be greedy to think that NZ could buck the trend in two different sports...!

I really wonder how many Test series make a profit. Even watching the South Africa vs Australia series, there weren't massive attendance figures. It seems clear that the reason we don't have long Test series anymore is because they don't make money. If they did, we'd see more of them. I guess they're trying with pink ball Tests to have more spectator friendly hours, perhaps they get more TV revenue if it's in primetime etc. But somewhere in the ICC and on national boards they've got to have someone thinking about how to get more revenue from the Test matches.

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