Paxter Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 Hundreds to Sibley and Stokes. Not the most champagne cricket but after their performance at Southampton this is something for the batsmen to be proud of. Stokes looks extremely determined with bat in hand these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljkeane Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 Potentially big trouble for the Windies with Joseph going off injured mid over and Gabriel already not looking right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 18 minutes ago, ljkeane said: Potentially big trouble for the Windies with Joseph going off injured mid over and Gabriel already not looking right. Things going from bad to worse for the visitors. You get the feeling that this Sibley/Stokes partnership could be the turning point in the series. Very demoralizing for the Windies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljkeane Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 Broad going with a bandana is an, er, interesting look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 Pretty much the worse start to this test match imaginable for the Windies. Southampton another false dawn after all! Credit to England though, they have utterly dominated this match since Stokes came to the crease yesterday. Losing the toss is the way to go in this series... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mosi Mynn Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 Great partnership between Sibley and Stokes. Sibley is great for the team, a real stickler. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 I was listening to the Sky podcast yesterday and there seemed to be an undercurrent of negativity about Sibley’s style of batting. Absolutle poppycock in my opinion. “It’s not how you score runs that matters, it’s how many.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Thursday Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 4 hours ago, Paxter said: I was listening to the Sky podcast yesterday and there seemed to be an undercurrent of negativity about Sibley’s style of batting. Absolutle poppycock in my opinion. “It’s not how you score runs that matters, it’s how many.” To me the criticism you could level is that on the second day they needed to up the pace and he didn't seem to have another gear. It's still really good that he got the runs to be clear! But even in test cricket you do have to be able to balance crease occupation and run rate, and that seems to be something he still has to learn. I think the main reason this is coming up is the third day being washed out. It's going to be a tough ask to take 19 wickets in two days to win the game, and if they'd been in a position to declare an hour earlier on Friday they might have stood a better chance. Some of that is hindsight but on the highlights I watched of Day 2 one of the commentators did mention that rain was forecast and that England might need to crack on, so it wasn't completely unpredictable. ST Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 3 hours ago, Sir Thursday said: To me the criticism you could level is that on the second day they needed to up the pace and he didn't seem to have another gear. It's still really good that he got the runs to be clear! But even in test cricket you do have to be able to balance crease occupation and run rate, and that seems to be something he still has to learn. It is the sort of the criticism that makes me think of basically every innings Jonathan Trott ever played. There are situations where it can be a valid criticism but overall I think England should be very happy if they could discover another Jonathan Trott. I think it can be a bigger problem if you have two similar players at the crease at the same time, but in the current England line-up it's more likely that Sibley would be batting alongside a player who would be capable of some aggressive accelaration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljkeane Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 I think there's clearly far more positives then negative around the emergence of Sibley for England. They need a solid player or two to try and stiffen up their batting lineup and if they can get a player in the Trott mold that would be brilliant. I do think there some valid concerns about Sibley that he'll need to work on though. Being a conservative batsman is fine but I'd note that Trott never scored a hundred at quite as glacial a pace as Sibley's from this test and the fact that he got out almost as soon as he tried to up the tempo isn't ideal. He needs to be able to vary his style a little bit as circumstances require but they noted on Sky that he's actually got a respectable record as a T20 batsman so presumably he does have more shots in his locker, he's just choosing not to bring them out at the moment. A bit more of an issue for me is how much Chase was able to tie him down, he's going to need to be able to at least rotate the strike a bit more if he's going to be any use against sides with better spinners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Winged Shadow Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 I think the fans and pundits need to be patient with him. The runs will come as that will be the next step in his development, the first being staying in the crease, which is where most of the English top order had failed over recent times. I think they are going in the right direction with the recent selections by finding players who are patient and can stay for the long haul. Then once they get use to that, then they can develop on the scoring front. You know everyone is going to turn on them if they collapse a couple of times, so i think staying in the crease even with slow runrate is a better outcome than trying to focus too much on scoring and starting a collapse. edit: specially since there aren't that many outstanding candidates to begin with..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 Brathwaite again a thorn in England's side. Shame he didn't go on to make a ton but Brooks has taken his place nicely. Obviously the rain has been a major factor but the Windies have a good chance now of retaining the trophy. Agree with everything written about Sibley - England is in a "beggars can't be choosers" situation. They should be happy to have unearthed a potential replacement for Cook. It's up to Stokes, Buttler and co to be the right foil for these slower guys at the top of the order. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljkeane Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 A flurry of wickets for England with the new ball to bowl the Windies out and give themselves half a chance. I think by avoiding the follow on the Windies have probably done enough to avoid defeat though. ETA: England going with the Stokes and Buttler opening partnership. ETA2: Well that didn’t last long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 Fascinating last stanza of this test. I think England will get across the line comfortably though. Valiant stuff from Brooks and Blackwood again. ETA: The ICC has made a partial call on the T20 WC. We will have T20 WCs in both '21 and '22, with a question remaining over the order in which Australia and India will host. Australia wants the '21 event, which was originally India's. The 50-over WC scheduled for '23 has been moved back to Oct (originally scheduled for the start of the year). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 That was all a little too easy in the end for England. A comprehensive win. The decision (I think Stokes') to play both Archer and Wood in the first test is all the more perplexing after watching the Windies struggle against the "line and length" of Broad and Woakes. Anderson will no doubt come back into the reckoning for the deciding match. But the real difference in that match was England's batting. Runs on the board in that first innings made all the difference (slow run rate notwithstanding). England looking better already sans Denly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljkeane Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 6 minutes ago, Paxter said: England looking better already sans Denly! In fairness Crawley got a grand total of 11 runs as his replacement. Looking at the score in the morning I thought it was going to go embarrassingly wrong for the Windies, at least they fought back and made it somewhat respectable. Still, they really should have gotten a draw out of the game with the position they were in yesterday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 1 hour ago, ljkeane said: In fairness Crawley got a grand total of 11 runs as his replacement. Looking at the score in the morning I thought it was going to go embarrassingly wrong for the Windies, at least they fought back and made it somewhat respectable. Still, they really should have gotten a draw out of the game with the position they were in yesterday. Fair call on Crawley! But yeah, I agree RE: Windies. I'm annoyed as it's looking like that first test may have been another false dawn! They didn't really get close to even saving this test despite winning the toss and losing a day to rain. Disappointing stuff. They will need to ring the changes in the next match as their bowling looked shot in this match. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 1 hour ago, Paxter said: But yeah, I agree RE: Windies. I'm annoyed as it's looking like that first test may have been another false dawn! They didn't really get close to even saving this test despite winning the toss and losing a day to rain. Disappointing stuff. They will need to ring the changes in the next match as their bowling looked shot in this match. I'm not sure winning the toss necessarily helped the Windies in this match, I think choosing to bowl seemed a questionable decision at the time and looks even more so with the benefit of hindsight. Gabriel definitely seemed to have run out of steam, perhaps not surprisingly given his lack of preparation. In retrospect they might have been better off resting him for this test, although I understand why they didn't want to rotate their main strike bowler. I'm not sure who the likely replacement would be from the squad? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 36 minutes ago, williamjm said: I'm not sure winning the toss necessarily helped the Windies in this match, I think choosing to bowl seemed a questionable decision at the time and looks even more so with the benefit of hindsight. Gabriel definitely seemed to have run out of steam, perhaps not surprisingly given his lack of preparation. In retrospect they might have been better off resting him for this test, although I understand why they didn't want to rotate their main strike bowler. I'm not sure who the likely replacement would be from the squad? Chemar Holder is the obvious replacement, though he'd be playing his first test. There is a lot of hype around him (first-class strike rate of around 40!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Thursday Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 45 minutes ago, williamjm said: I'm not sure winning the toss necessarily helped the Windies in this match, I think choosing to bowl seemed a questionable decision at the time and looks even more so with the benefit of hindsight. Gabriel definitely seemed to have run out of steam, perhaps not surprisingly given his lack of preparation. In retrospect they might have been better off resting him for this test, although I understand why they didn't want to rotate their main strike bowler. I'm not sure who the likely replacement would be from the squad? The Windies' squad is very light on bowling depth. They've got two reserve quicks (Reifer and Chemar Holder) who've played a grand total of one test between them. I think their first choices would have been Sheldon Cottrell and Keemo Paul, but as I understand it both of them declined to travel (which is fair enough given the circumstances). It's a shame they aren't able to field a full strength side, particularly given the embarrassment of riches England have in the Seam department in comparison. I caught a bit of TMS today and they seemed to think the pitch they'll be using for the next match will probably take spin pretty well. They thought they might give Rakeem Cornwall a game for the last one - seems like a reasonable call if they can't be sure all their seamers will be fit. ST EDIT: X-post with Paxter. Sounds like he's heard more about Chemar Holder than I have! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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