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Cricket 40: Paines in the Ashes


TheLastWolf

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43 minutes ago, williamjm said:

I would have probably picked Moeen in place of Current,  but it's hard to argue with results. Things going very well for the English bowlers so far. 

Yeah, you definitely can't argue with those results. 124-7 is pretty much perfect for England. I think the pitch was actually a lot better to bowl seam on than I thought it was going to be and, by the look of the side they've gone with, India weren't expecting it either so credit to England on that one.

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Some contrasting leadership decisions being made. SA have made a good call to relieve the reluctant QdK from captaincy duties, opting for Elgar in tests and Bavuma in limited overs. Meanwhile, West Indies have dumped Holder as test captain on the basis of one good series from Brathwaite.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think Brathwaite is a good quality player and a decent captain. But is it fair to drop Holder as skipper when he should rightly be credited with the team’s test resurgence in recent years? Harsh. 

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On 3/14/2021 at 6:29 AM, Paxter said:

Some contrasting leadership decisions being made. SA have made a good call to relieve the reluctant QdK from captaincy duties, opting for Elgar in tests and Bavuma in limited overs. Meanwhile, West Indies have dumped Holder as test captain on the basis of one good series from Brathwaite.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think Brathwaite is a good quality player and a decent captain. But is it fair to drop Holder as skipper when he should rightly be credited with the team’s test resurgence in recent years? Harsh. 

It might not be the biggest reason for the sad decline in West Indies cricket but it does feel like many years of odd selection decisions and the board often seeming to be at war with its players has probably been part of the problem.

In other news, I see Afghanistan managed to bounce back from the 2-day defeat to win their next match. I hadn't realised before that they had won more Test matches than they had lost in their short Test history.

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Looks like Billings didn't dislocate his shoulder in the end but maybe Iyer did?

Weird match in the end. England basically had it won at 135-1 needing 5 an over but have managed to end up losing comfortably. I suppose their two 'keep the scoreboard ticking over' batsmen are normally Root and Morgan and with no Root and Morgan carrying an injury they managed to get themselves in a bit of a tangle.

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7 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Weird match in the end. England basically had it won at 135-1 needing 5 an over but have managed to end up losing comfortably. I suppose their two 'keep the scoreboard ticking over' batsmen are normally Root and Morgan and with no Root and Morgan carrying an injury they managed to get themselves in a bit of a tangle.

I agree they really should have won it from that position. England are perhaps a bit too dependent on their (admittedly impressive) top order.

I did like how enthusiastic Krunal Pandya seemed to be about everything, that was an impressive debut innings.

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10 hours ago, williamjm said:

England are perhaps a bit too dependent on their (admittedly impressive) top order.

I actually don't think that's really an issue with the 50 over side. It didn't work out yesterday but Morgan and Buttler coming in at 5 and 6 is pretty good. On the other hand maybe it is an issue with the T20 side? Moving Buttler to open is fair enough, you want to give your best batsmen as much of an opportunity as possible in T20s, but having moved him there they do seem to be struggling a bit to replace him down the order.

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Oh my.... 

Why all have been silent for sooooo long 

Maybe it's the Ind Eng ODI series. Crushed me. 

Couldn't decide who to support in the last game. Sam Curran was phenomenal. Poor kid missed a well deserved century and team win fightback... 

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We prefer 'proper' cricket around these parts.

The West Indies/Sri Lanka Test series has been well contested. Looks like both matches will end up being drawn although the WI are in the driver's seat but rain will probably ruin any chance of them taking 10 wickets.

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2 hours ago, Consigliere said:

The West Indies/Sri Lanka Test series has been well contested. Looks like both matches will end up being drawn although the WI are in the driver's seat but rain will probably ruin any chance of them taking 10 wickets.

Watching Rahkeem Cornwall bat is a lot of fun. He's like the guy you get playing club cricket who's the best player in the second team but isn't fit enough to go up to the firsts, only he's playing test cricket.

On the less fun front Sachin Tendulkar's had to go into hospital because of Covid apparently.:frown5:

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I just work a lot, unfortunately! But I do mainly watch test matches and can't be arsed with t20s. I'm glad we won the ODI series against England though. .That was satisfying.

Debating getting tickets for the NZ/ England v India games but I haven't looked into it yet. They're probably mostly gone by now, tbh.

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On 4/2/2021 at 4:19 PM, ljkeane said:

People in this thread generally pay a lot more attention to test matches than limited overs stuff. I suppose the IPL have a little more focus on it this year in the lead up to a T20 World Cup in India.

I do too! But cricket is cricket. As a fervent lover I can't bring myself to discriminate. But I get your point. Thanks 

On 4/2/2021 at 5:50 PM, williamjm said:

It does seem to be a quiet couple of weeks for major cricket matches at the moment, although I think there's still plenty to come this year.

Agreed. Bang WI was OK 

22 hours ago, Consigliere said:

We prefer 'proper' cricket around these parts.

Test aficionados. Loyalists. Lovers. = my friends 

20 hours ago, ljkeane said:

On the less fun front Sachin Tendulkar's had to go into hospital because of Covid apparently.:frown5:

He said "as a precaution"

1 hour ago, Raja said:

I just work a lot, unfortunately!

Understood mate! 

1 hour ago, Raja said:

But I do mainly watch test matches and can't be arsed with t20s. I'm glad we won the ODI series against England though. .That was satisfying.

Inner peace 

1 hour ago, Raja said:

Debating getting tickets for the NZ/ England v India games but I haven't looked into it yet. They're probably mostly gone by now, tbh.

Too bad 

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It's actually hard for me to see many of the matches because of the time difference, so limited overs cricket is nigh-impossible for me to follow unless I make it a priority (and there's a lot going on in my life right now, unfortunately). Or, like the last England-India series, it wasn't even carried on the one cricket channel I have access to, so I couldn't have watched it at all! 

But anyway, hopefully will be able to fully engage soon!

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5 hours ago, Raja said:

I just work a lot, unfortunately! But I do mainly watch test matches and can't be arsed with t20s. I'm glad we won the ODI series against England though. .That was satisfying.

Debating getting tickets for the NZ/ England v India games but I haven't looked into it yet. They're probably mostly gone by now, tbh.

For a marquee series like England v India I'd usually expect having to book the previous winter to get tickets, although in these times people may have been reluctant to plan so far in advance. I haven't even tried to look because I don't know if I'll be vaccinated by then although I guess the typical Test cricket demographic might have a big overlap with the priority groups so that might not be a big concern for most of them.

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