Cricket 33: ODIs Still Aren’t Proper Cricket Edition

[Paxter]

8 hours ago, Jeor said:

Renewing Peever's tenure before the review was released was an epic bungle of the highest order, but at least he had the sense (or others had the sense to push him) to resign relatively promptly once the mistake had been recognised.

It seems to be that he was left with no choice, as the Vic, NSW and WA cricket associations all refused to back his renewal. Let’s not give Peever any credit! He did everything he could to stay in the job.

[Jeor]

11 hours ago, Paxter said:

It seems to be that he was left with no choice, as the Vic, NSW and WA cricket associations all refused to back his renewal. Let’s not give Peever any credit! He did everything he could to stay in the job.

Hmm, reading up on it yes it seems the state associations pushed him out. Good on them, at least.

I hope the bans stay in place. If they rescinded the bans then it will seem (rightly or wrongly) that once again the Australian team cares more about expediency and winning than about culture. Plus, hopefully anyone with PR experience over there will realise that it's better to do nothing about the bans and ride out the "let them play" arguments than to take action and risk a massive backlash.

[Jeor]

5/49 in the ODI vs South Africa.

Australian cricket really is in the doldrums here. We've just been thumped in the T20s coming off a losing Test series to Pakistan, it was probably too much to hope for that the ODI team might perform.

This will be a painful summer ahead with India visiting for a Test series.

[Paxter]

18 hours ago, Jeor said:

This will be a painful summer ahead with India visiting for a Test series.

I think the batting side of things could be very tough, with only the road-like quality of Australian pitches likely to provide any succour.

I'd expect Australia's bowlers to cause plenty of problems though (maybe even enough problems to win the series for Australia?) Only Kohli and Rahane have been consistent performers away from India. 

ETA: A shout-out to plucky Zimbabwe. They hardly play any test cricket and are not a great side, but they are making Bangladesh look second-rate in subcontinental conditions. Kudos. 

[Jeor]

8 hours ago, Paxter said:

I think the batting side of things could be very tough, with only the road-like quality of Australian pitches likely to provide any succour.

I'd expect Australia's bowlers to cause plenty of problems though (maybe even enough problems to win the series for Australia?) Only Kohli and Rahane have been consistent performers away from India.

I think it'll be a low scoring series, which should be good to watch. But home environment or no, I think when the game is on the line and there are crucial moments to be won, India has far more talent and experience to take those opportunities.

[Paxter]

1 hour ago, Jeor said:

I think it'll be a low scoring series, which should be good to watch. But home environment or no, I think when the game is on the line and there are crucial moments to be won, India has far more talent and experience to take those opportunities.

Don’t underestimate those roads! Last time India came out here, both sides made 400+ in virtually every first innings.

Anyway let’s see what happens. At least we aren’t starting the summer with the same familiar script as previous seasons.

[Paxter]

Interesting...with Bairstow injured, England have decided to bring Foakes into the side and have persevered with Ali at number 3. They've also decided to drop Broad and play Sam Curran to deepen the batting line-up. Rashid, Leach and Ali will be on spinning duties.

[Jeor]

21 hours ago, Paxter said:

Don’t underestimate those roads! Last time India came out here, both sides made 400+ in virtually every first innings.

Anyway let’s see what happens. At least we aren’t starting the summer with the same familiar script as previous seasons.

Hmm, it is true that Australian pitches will throw up big scores. Traditionally India-Australia series have been batting heavy. I remember seeing India score 700+ a few years ago when Tendulkar got his 241*. I just don't know that Australia will have many batsmen who can throw up big scores on the board. The Indian pace attack is much improved with guys like Bumrah etc so they could be reasonably dangerous, or at least have every chance of being as effective as our own attack.

[Paxter]

7 minutes ago, Jeor said:

Hmm, it is true that Australian pitches will throw up big scores. Traditionally India-Australia series have been batting heavy. I remember seeing India score 700+ a few years ago when Tendulkar got his 241*. I just don't know that Australia will have many batsmen who can throw up big scores on the board. The Indian pace attack is much improved with guys like Bumrah etc so they could be reasonably dangerous, or at least have every chance of being as effective as our own attack.

I don’t know if I’d expect India to bowl as well here as they did in England. Happy to be proven wrong though!

England already in a familiar batting heap against Sri Lanka. They’re going to have to bowl well here. Not sure why they took such an aggressive approach - Root charging Herath was a poor way to be dismissed.

[Paxter]

So it seems like England now have three wicketkeepers to go with their zero decent opening batsmen...

Well done Foakes!

[williamjm]

10 hours ago, Paxter said:

So it seems like England now have three wicketkeepers to go with their zero decent opening batsmen...

Well done Foakes!

At this rate it almost feels like Joe Root might end up being the only specialist batsman in the team. It's an impressive debut from Foakes, hopefully he can go on to a well-deserved century tomorrow.

[The Winged Shadow]

Can we permanently close this thread. It's too depressing 

[Paxter]

1 hour ago, The Winged Shadow said:

Can we permanently close this thread. It's too depressing 

Haha is this because of the Zim win, England being decent or Australia sucking some serious ballsack?

[The Winged Shadow]

8 minutes ago, Paxter said:

Haha is this because of the Zim win, England being decent or Australia sucking some serious ballsack?

All of the above!

It was okay there for a while as England was bottling it, but they recovered 

[ljkeane]

So England look like favourites to get their first away win since 2016, at Galle. Probably not the ground I'd have picked as likely to see England break their streak at.

[Paxter]

3 hours ago, ljkeane said:

So England look like favourites to get their first away win since 2016, at Galle. Probably not the ground I'd have picked as likely to see England break their streak at.

Yeah a good performance after England's recent travelling woes. I was particularly impressed by Foakes - it will be interesting now to see what happens when Bairstow is fit. 

The only (slightly party-pooperish) comment I would make is: Sri Lanka look really, really bad. And will only get worse with Herath's retirement. I'm actually scratching my head as to how Sri Lanka has managed to maintain a respectable test ranking with the current team.

[ljkeane]

17 hours ago, Paxter said:

I'm actually scratching my head as to how Sri Lanka has managed to maintain a respectable test ranking with the current team.

A decent proportion of test sides don't play spin well and the general trend towards more and more attacking batting means teams tend to dig themselves a big hole they can't get out of. I'm just a little surprised England haven't fallen into the same trap.

Good innings from Keaton Jennings, even if he did get a bit of luck with a poor non review on 60. He's probably cemented his place as England opener when they're playing in the Subcontinent. All he needs to do now is show he can produce in English conditions.

 

[williamjm]

5 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Good innings from Keaton Jennings, even if he did get a bit of luck with a poor non review on 60. He's probably cemented his place as England opener when they're playing in the Subcontinent. All he needs to do now is show he can produce in English conditions.

It's an impressive innings and he seems to do well in those conditions, but I'm worried that it might just end up confusing the top order selection even more. This will probably cement his place for a while, but we've still got to see whether he'll be able to deliver in conditions that help the seamers.

[Paxter]

6 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Good innings from Keaton Jennings, even if he did get a bit of luck with a poor non review on 60. He's probably cemented his place as England opener when they're playing in the Subcontinent. All he needs to do now is show he can produce in English conditions.

Yes it's an interesting one. I guess England may just need to accept that their test selection will have to be 'horses for courses.' So you could have Jennings, Rashid, Foakes and Leach as locks on slow, spinning pitches in the subcontinent and West Indies, while the likes of Woakes and Broad come into the reckoning in England, NZ and South Africa. 

[Jeor]

Australia break the ODI losing streak, squeaking past South Africa with an unlikely win.

South Africa has one big problem with its ODI side in that none of their bowlers actually really bat. Rabada and Steyn are probably fine to bat at 9 and hold up an end but neither of them is really an ODI-style 7 or 8 as they don't play shots. It's a far cry from when the Springboks used to be able to count on a never-ending parade of all-rounders like Klusener, Pollock and Kallis to make one of the deepest batting lineups in world cricket. I still remember when they used to have Pat Symcox batting at 10 or 11 and he scored a Test century.