ljkeane Posted January 28 Share Posted January 28 As I predicted earlier India never had a chance batting last up against Tom Hartley. Fantastic win for England. I didn’t give them much chance coming into the series looking at their bowling options. I gave them no chance in this test after conceding a big first innings deficit. Great performance. Great day of test cricket all round. williamjm 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Posted January 28 Author Share Posted January 28 (edited) 11 hours ago, Impmk2 said: May have spoken too soon about Smith. Nail biting stuff Haha yes that was a classic knock from Smudge. Only eclipsed by one of the truly great fast bowling performances by Joseph. 11 overs on the trot and seven wickets against the World Champs. It was a lion-hearted performance. Just a shame there weren't more people at the ground to witness it. Brisbane crowds are a disgrace and I would rather see Melbs given two tests! And I may have spoken too soon about England's attack too. But really the story of that test match was the Ollie Pope innings. That Joseph/Pope double whammy may be the best test cricket we will see this year. I am still in a state of disbelief that the Windies won a match in Australia...miracles do happen! Edited January 28 by Paxter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigFatCoward Posted January 28 Share Posted January 28 Very much a casual fan, but that run out by stokes was fucking beautiful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted January 28 Share Posted January 28 (edited) 13 hours ago, ljkeane said: Amazing win for the Windies. Absolutely heroic effort from Shemar Joseph after getting carried off last night he’s come back to pick up 7 wickets and bowl them to the win. Apparently it was a day for players in their first series taking 7 wickets in an innings to win an unlikely victory. Two great wins there for the Windies and England. Hopefully the Windies can manage to make victories like this more than an occasional occurrence, although they still have plenty of weaknesses they need to address. As ever, it's a shame that there's no deciding test match. Edited January 28 by williamjm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeor Posted January 28 Share Posted January 28 Very happy for the Windies to get that win. It will mean a lot to the players and to the long-suffering fans who've seen some pretty poor displays over the past 20-odd years. Nice to see Brian Lara in the commentary box enjoying the win too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Posted January 28 Author Share Posted January 28 (edited) Yes, Ian Smith was so excited he rather stole Brian's moment on commentary. A heroic win that is still really sinking in. The declaring from behind must be haunting Pat slightly. But really, Australia may not mind the loss. It's a healthy reminder that they need to focus on improving their batting, particularly as some of their more reliable batting stars age. And we needed a bit of balance after a largely one-sided summer. Edited January 28 by Paxter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeor Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 I don't think Cummins really should be blamed for the declaration. It was a 9th wicket declaration at an opportune moment in the game, and any of the criticism could only come with the benefit of hindsight. As it is, Australia had plenty of other chances to win the game or at least pull ahead and they didn't take them, and they had many other reasons why they did so poorly (batting). So that mutes the issue of a 9th wicket declaration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Posted February 1 Author Share Posted February 1 (edited) 21 hours ago, Jeor said: I don't think Cummins really should be blamed for the declaration. It was a 9th wicket declaration at an opportune moment in the game, and any of the criticism could only come with the benefit of hindsight. As it is, Australia had plenty of other chances to win the game or at least pull ahead and they didn't take them, and they had many other reasons why they did so poorly (batting). So that mutes the issue of a 9th wicket declaration. Yeah and I think 4/5 test wins for the summer is still top marks to Cummins, particularly when the batting line-up largely did not fire. Pakistan and Windies weren't easybeats and could have snagged more wins if they'd fielded or batted slightly better. I can't remember an Australian summer with fewer test hundreds than that. And one was from the outgoing Warner. Wow some big outs for the next test in Visakhapatnam. No KL, no Jadeja and no Leach. Weirdly enough, Leach might be the biggest of those outs as he is so hard to replace. But England will obviously relish an Indian batting lineup sans Virat, KL and Pant. Good series on our hands with 4 tests to go :). Edited February 1 by Paxter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljkeane Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 15 hours ago, Paxter said: Wow some big outs for the next test in Visakhapatnam. No KL, no Jadeja and no Leach. Weirdly enough, Leach might be the biggest of those outs as he is so hard to replace. But England will obviously relish an Indian batting lineup sans Virat, KL and Pant. Good series on our hands with 4 tests to go :). India have a weakened side obviously but they should be fine. On the batting front Safaraz Khan has a first class average of basically 70 ffs. In terms of replacing Jadeja Ashwin and Patel are useful lower order batsmen so they can just pick Kuldeep Yadav if they want. Alternatively if they want a batting all rounder they could go with Washington Sundar who's still probably a better spinner than all of England's options. England on the other hand really should be screwed. Playing in India they've lost their one spinner of anything approaching test class so they're going to go with an attack of three spinners with a combined 3 tests experience between them and unimpressive first class track records. Oh, and a 41 year old seamer who didn't even do particularly well in English conditions last time out. They really should have no chance but I given up trying to apply logic to this England team so who knows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Posted February 1 Author Share Posted February 1 Haha. Yes India have deep reserves as they showed by winning that 'Gabba test with a second-string team a couple of years ago. And England did win the first test last time only to get destroyed in the rest of the series. But something about India looks off to me this time. I could be wrong. But I think they need something brilliant from Rohit and/or Ashwin in the next test to inspire them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Posted February 2 Author Share Posted February 2 Important toss to win for India. They can really try to grind England today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljkeane Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 England probably should have gone with two seamers here by the look of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IheartIheartTesla Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 (edited) Good debut from Bashir, and of course one of the Indian greenhorn's, Jaiswal, did great obviously. Critical to get a high first innings score as the pitch deteriorates, I imagine. India does poorly in 4th innings chases, so batting first was also key. Edited February 2 by IheartIheartTesla Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljkeane Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 399 to win. We’ve got them right where we want them. williamjm 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 3 hours ago, ljkeane said: 399 to win. We’ve got them right where we want them. It's difficult to entirely count this England team out of any game, but that's a very tough challenge to get the remaining 332 runs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IheartIheartTesla Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 Especially with Root being 'out', but I'm sure he'll come out to bat if the situation demands it. I have to say, the grounds so far have made for intriguing matches so kudos to the groundspeople. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljkeane Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 Yeah, this has been an excellent test wicket. England were never getting 399 but if Marais Erasmus had given Gill out on that umpire’s call lbw on 4 we’d have had another thriller. Still, it’s been a pretty good effort from England, it’s just Jaiswal and Bumrah have been the two stand out performers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 12 hours ago, ljkeane said: Still, it’s been a pretty good effort from England, it’s just Jaiswal and Bumrah have been the two stand out performers. It definitely keeps the series feeling competitive, unlike the previous tour where they won the first match but were hopeless for the rest of the series. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Posted February 7 Author Share Posted February 7 Amazing performance from Bumrah. Some really top-notch quality test cricket on display in this series. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljkeane Posted February 15 Share Posted February 15 Joe Root putting Rohit Sharma down on 27 feels like it might be the key moment on what’s apparently shaping up to be a flat pitch. England had India on the ropes and they’ve let them off the hook. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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