Cricket 35: Bat first, bat often

[The Anti-Targ]

3 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

And that bugs me, to be honest. Sharing a title may be a bit too gentlemanly, a bit too old-fashioned for the modern world, but screw it. We're talking a sport where the "honourable draw" is an inherent part of the mythos of the game.

Yeah, if there was one World Cup where the honours should be able to be shared it should be Cricket.

[Paxter]

4 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

News reports saying Stokes asked the umpire not to count the boundary on that overthrow situation, but the umpire didn't agree. Cricket etiquette syas you don;t run overthrows if a throw to the stumps hits you and gets deflected into a runnable gap. So Stokes was right to ask for the 4 overthrow runs not to be counted. But the rules allow for overthrows even if the ball hits the batsman on the way to the stumps, so if the ball reaches the boundary the rules say the runs count. I don't imagine there's a rule allowing the batsman to request the umpire to basically deduct runs. So the umpire was right to refuse Stokes' request.

Yes that's my understanding - the umpire has no discretion once the ball crosses the boundary. It's different if the ball stays in play - in that case the batsmen can elect not to run. Perhaps the laws should be changed to remove the inconsistency, but we can't blame the umpire for responding to Stokes in the manner that they did. 

[williamjm]

As we were speculating, Roy has been called up for the Ireland Test and the Ashes training squad.

With Buttler and Stokes rested the squad for the Ireland match does seem to have (arguably) only 5 top order batsmen, which seems to leave a long tail. I guess the team might be Roy, Burns, Denly, Root, Bairstow, Ali, Woakes, Curran, Broad, Anderson and a debut for either Olli Stone or Lewis Gregory (I don't really know enough about them to tell who is more likely to be picked).

It would be a very English to do to win the World Cup then immediately lose a Test to Ireland.

From the extended squad the likely Ashes line-up might be Roy, Burns, Denly, Root, Bairstow, Stokes, Buttler, Ali, Woakes, Archer, Anderson, although given some of Broad's past performances against the Aussies I'm reluctant to leave him out. It is an impressive array of varied bowling options - Anderson is apparently averaging 9 with the ball in first class cricket this summer, which is not a statistic that Australian opening batsmen are likely to enjoy. However, I do worry about the English batting line-up on a pitch offering something for the bowlers, if Roy doesn't manage to adapt to Test cricket then that could be one of the weakest top 3s I can think of in an Ashes series even if there is some firepower in the middle order.

[Jeor]

44 minutes ago, williamjm said:

Anderson is apparently averaging 9 with the ball in first class cricket this summer, which is not a statistic that Australian opening batsmen are likely to enjoy. However, I do worry about the English batting line-up on a pitch offering something for the bowlers, if Roy doesn't manage to adapt to Test cricket then that could be one of the weakest top 3s I can think of in an Ashes series even if there is some firepower in the middle order.

One of the reasons I'm looking forward to the Ashes is that I think it is going to be a series where the bowlers dominate. Both sides have big question marks over the batting (Australia moreso than England I feel) and both sides have real, legitimate world-class bowling attacks in venues that should assist the bowlers.

It should be a series where getting a score of 400 really means something, and first innings totals are more likely to be 250-300. It could also mean that the truly world-class batsmen (primarily Root and Smith) are leaned on very heavily in order to produce good batting totals and it will be a return to the era of "cut the head off the snake" in terms of the importance of the captain's wicket.

Those sorts of Tests are always much better to watch, when there's danger for the batsmen lurking all the time.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

22 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I went to bed at 2:30AM after New Zealand's innings had ended, and the last thing I thought about for the game was "I wonder what happens if there's a tie?" And then I wake up 6 hours later and I find out. So I'm pretty sure I made the tie happen with the power of my mind. I wanted to know what would happen and the universe gave me my answer. Unfortunately I wasn't specific enough in my thought. When I thought "I wonder what happens if there's a tie?" I should have specified "at the end of England's innings". So the universe decided to answer the question of what happens with an absolute tie, which I think most people would have preferred not to find out by having it play out in the real world. So, sorry about that.

That's hilarious.  I assume you're a big fan of the sport?

Talking about speaking sports into existence, I've got a good one for you. I'm guessing you don't watch American football, but perhapps you know enough to understand this. My team's kicker had a chip shot field goal to win a playoff game, my step-father screams "we're gonna win" just before he kicks it and Blair Walsh went on to shank it. I punched him.

[The Anti-Targ]

9 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

That's hilarious.  I assume you're a big fan of the sport?

Talking about speaking sports into existence, I've got a good one for you. I'm guessing you don't watch American football, but perhapps you know enough to understand this. My team's kicker had a chip shot field goal to win a playoff game, my step-father screams "we're gonna win" just before he kicks it and Blair Walsh went on to shank it. I punched him.

If I was a big fan I would have stayed up all night to watch the England innings and called in sick to work. I used to be a big fan, when Cricket was shown on free to air channels. As soon as cricket went behind a paywall my watching of live games plummeted to pretty much zero. The NZ batting innings in the final was the only live cricket I've seen since going to the NZ-West Indies game in Wellington at the 2015 World Cup. The only sport I watch live now is Esport.

I know enough about American Football to know that the kicker spends all of 2 minutes on the field in most games and 99% of the time never comes into contact with any opposing player. It's the most pansy of all roles in any contact sport ever, but it still pays better than the captain of just about any national Rugby team.

Question: since kicker is such a low risk position has there ever been any thought given to making it a gender neutral position?

Sorry, shouldn't take the thread off topic.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

15 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Question: since kicker is such a low risk position has there ever been any thought given to making it a gender neutral position?

Sorry, shouldn't take the thread off topic.

First, Lol to the stuff I deleted.

Second, to answer your question, no, because a kicker still has to tackle on kickoffs. That said, if there was a woman who was amazing at field goals and could always get a touchback on kickoffs, maybe some team would sign her. But that woman would probably be on our national soccer team.

[ljkeane]

1 hour ago, Leap said:

I'd like to amend this to also stipulate that I hope Federer doesn't blow two championship points and end up losing

It’s ok, netball’s coming home this week.

[Paxter]

On 7/17/2019 at 4:38 PM, Jeor said:

One of the reasons I'm looking forward to the Ashes is that I think it is going to be a series where the bowlers dominate.

Really that has been the norm in test cricket for some time now and it makes for much more compelling viewing. 2018 had the lowest aggregate test batting average since 1956 (around 24 runs per wicket). That means your average, run-of-the-mill test bowler had a bowling average in the mid 20s, as compared to mid-30s several years ago. 

The dominance of the bowlers was particularly noticeable in the last Australian summer, as most Aussie pitches had been roads in the preceding years. 

[The Anti-Targ]

12 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

It’s ok, netball’s coming home this week.

I was just thinking this morning whether a "Netball World Cup" thread would get much traffic. I don't think there's a sports thread dedicated to any female majority sport. But I also think internationally Netball has way less profile outside of the countries that play it at a national level than Rugby and Cricket. I imagine synchronised swimming has more profile as a female majority sport, though a thread about that would get even less traffic than Netball.

6 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

First, Lol to the stuff I deleted.

Second, to answer your question, no, because a kicker still has to tackle on kickoffs. That said, if there was a woman who was amazing at field goals and could always get a touchback on kickoffs, maybe some team would sign her. But that woman would probably be on our national soccer team.

In NZ that woman would probably be playing Rugby, and finally getting paid after decaudes of it being an unpaid sport for women. But still getting paid soooo much less than a US women's football player (this is a Cricket thread, so football means what it means in the home country, not the USA).

Hmmm something about cricket to make this relevant to the thread... John Cleese thinks the Wolrd Cup title should have been shared. But then, he is the French Taunter. 

[Paxter]

4 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I was just thinking this morning whether a "Netball World Cup" thread would get much traffic. I don't think there's a sports thread dedicated to any female majority sport. But I also think internationally Netball has way less profile outside of the countries that play it at a national level than Rugby and Cricket. I imagine synchronised swimming has more profile as a female majority sport, though a thread about that would get even less traffic than Netball.

In NZ that woman would probably be playing Rugby, and finally getting paid after decaudes of it being an unpaid sport for women. But still getting paid soooo much less than a US women's football player (this is a Cricket thread, so football means what it means in the home country, not the USA).

Hmmm something about cricket to make this relevant to the thread... John Cleese thinks the Wolrd Cup title should have been shared. But then, he is the French Taunter. 

To be fair, there was a pretty decent dedicated thread covering the women’s World Cup of football.

[The Anti-Targ]

48 minutes ago, Paxter said:

To be fair, there was a pretty decent dedicated thread covering the women’s World Cup of football.

That's why I specified female majority sport. Though I think there's still only token coverage of female codes of traditionally male dominated sports, threads about women's world cups of things notwithstanding.

Tangentially related to cricket and still on the topic of women's sports, there are moves afoot to change the name of the Wellington ground that is the traditional home of cricket in Wellington from "The Basin Reserve" (which any self-respecting cricket fan should be well familiar with, even if only via TV) to "Support Women's Sport Basin Reserve". I fully support efforts to raise the profile of women in sport, so that women in far more codes can have decent paying professional careers in sport. But damn that name suggestion is attrocious.

The Basin is the symbol of how NOT mis-spent my youth was, because the only time I wagged school was to go and watch international cricket at the Basin. And most of the time that was actually with school permission (students who were in school cricket teams could go to international matches), so it wasn't really wagging.

[Jeor]

Soon after taking 7 wickets in an ODI, Ellyse Perry scores a Test century. She is one of the great world-class players and obviously the best all-rounder in the women's game today. It's a shame they don't get much of a stage to perform, virtually never playing any Tests and only the World Cup seems to bring the game any airtime.

[The Anti-Targ]

The final word on that overthrow decisions belongs to the umpire?

Quote

"I agree that there was a judgmental error when I see it on TV replays now. But we did not have the luxury of TV replays at the ground and I will never regret the decision I made. Beside the ICC praised me for the decision I made at that time."

Dharmasena said there was no provision in the law to refer the ruling to the third umpire as no dismissal was involved.

"So, I did consult the leg umpire through the communication system which is heard by all other umpires and the match referee. And, while they cannot check TV replays, they all confirmed that the batsmen have completed the run. This is when I made my decision," he told the Sri Lankan paper

He conceded that there had been "too many things on our plate" as a thrilling contest wound to a close.

So it seems they were cognisant of the rule (which is good, so it wasn't a knowledge deficit) and simply decided the batsmen had crossed. Personally I think Umpires should have more discretion to review decisions from TV replays when there are several moving parts which means attention is divided. Don't know where the benefit of the doubt should go though if even TV replay reviews are inconclusive. I guess runs are only awarded if it is known that batsmen have completed a run. So if you don't know for sure that run has been completed you can't award a run.

[Jeor]

Yes, I saw that from Dharmasena. Good of him to acknowledge that it was a mistake, but unfortunately there is no mechanism to review it as it's an umpire's ruling in the field which can't be overturned after the fact.

As we'd expect, Kane Williamson was a good sport about it. I read a news article somewhere which asked about the 5/6 runs decisions and he said it was probably like 200 other line-ball things that could have gone one way or another.

[Paxter]

Just on the women’s test matches - they really need to think about extending them to five days, as well as playing more of them. I can’t remember the last one that actually ended in a decisive result!

[Jeor]

Yeah, 4 day tests are a bit silly, especially considering that it seems in the women's game that the scoring is slower but the wickets also could take longer to fall (most players seem to be able to play their way into an innings). If you're going to a Test match might as well do it properly.

[Paxter]

Good to see that Australian batsmen are as vulnerable to the swinging Dukes as ever! Only Marnus (Jeor's favourite) made it to double figures in the first innings at the Rose Bowl. Neser (who is a smokey for the Ashes) picked up four wickets, with Jackson Bird chipping in with three. 

Let's see what Bancroft and Burns can produce now against Haze, Starc, Cummins and Siddle. 

ETA: The openers go early; now is Wade's big chance to guarantee an Ashes return. If he can make runs against this attack on a tricky wicket, surely they have to pick him?

[Paxter]

Lol. 17 wickets so far on Day 1 of a four-day match! Might not be quite the Ashes warm-up that the Australian selectors were hoping for. 

[williamjm]

29 minutes ago, Paxter said:

Lol. 17 wickets so far on Day 1 of a four-day match! Might not be quite the Ashes warm-up that the Australian selectors were hoping for. 

At least the bowlers might be warmed-up, but I imagine the England bowling attack will be looking at that scorecard with glee.

In a small bit of good news for the Australian batsmen it looks likely that Jimmy Anderson will miss the first Ashes Test, although England aren't short of bowling options at the moment. In his absence Olli Stone is going to make his debut against Ireland, along with Jason Roy.