Beefy's Corner - The Off-Topic Chat Thread

Indeed, I like having Morgan, Buttler and Bopara all down there. They can't all fire every game but with that line-up more often than not one of them will. I really like Bell, but I think if you open with Cook and Pietersen with Trott at 3 as a safety blanket in case Pietersen gets out, we'd have a really nice ODI lineup.

 

Why's the Hope Powell thread closed? I must respond to Ducky!

 

Respawn have said they may release TitanFall on the PS4.

 

Indeed, they have been saying for the last few days that they are open to PS4, just that they are a small start-up developer so wanted to focus on just XB1 and PC. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the big hit at launch that people expect it to be that they will be working on a PS4 version to be out about a year later. Then I imagine probably sequel two years later that would be on all platforms. My guess anyway.

 

Battlefield 3: Close Quarters DLC is currently available for free! Get on it DTLW and anyone else who has it.

 

It's the only exclusive I liked on the XBox One so it will be good if they do.

 

Yep, looks like it could be a real blockbuster. If I was Microsoft I'd be hurling money at Respawn to try and tie them up.

 

I just wonder what Naughty Dogs next game will be.

 

Yeah, very intriguing, I was expecting Sony's big swing at their conference to be a new Naughty Dogs game, turns out they didn't need to because they just took huge shots at MS instead haha.

 

Yeah they didn't need to roll out many exclusives or anything tbh. Xbox basically lost it on their own.

 

And Kulasekera completely out does him.

Not surprising really. In all honesty, if Ravi can hit runs like that...

SL though are doing what we should have done. Take advantage of wickets in hand. That last over just masked things for us. We should have smashed 300 from the platform that was set, given the new rules.

 

Indeed, I would like us to have more flexibility. I don't mind batting at 5 an over for the first 35, but then we need to be aggressive from there on out, rather than just moseying along at the same pace and then swinging in the last 5. Needs to be a lot more open to promoting Morgan and Buttler.

 

Thank you for reminding me. My fat ps3 takes so long to download i need to leave it overnight haha

 

Even below those two, I was very disappointed to see Bresnan come in ahead of Swann. Even ahead of Broad.

It's a shame that Morgan doesn't seem able to build an innings - at least not when setting a score, any way. Without KP, Root is really the only person in the top four that I look at as someone who can flick the switch themselves in the last 15 overs, rather than just let the middle order hit those late 4s and 6s. So without KP, it would have been ideal had Morgan been able to bat in the top four, but it just doesn't seem to suit him.

Look at Sangakarra here, look at Guptil against us. Look at Dharwan for India. It's not just about the middle order upping the run rate late on. Someone from the top order really needs to be there and do it themselves too.

In decent conditions, against a decent batting line-up (which Australia's is not!), you wont defend under 300 too often these days. Two hard balls, only four men on the boundary, more and more batsmen growing up on t20 cricket. Even in 40 over county cricket, which doesn't even have the two new balls yet, 300 isn't much beyond par.

But hey, if the Cardiff pitch on Sunday was anything like the NZ-SL then we wont need to worry about how many late runs we smash. Play Swann and Tredwell, and then them cause havoc.

 

To be fair, Bresnan has a better average, high score and strike rate than Broad and Swann in ODIs, but other than that I entirely agree with you, without KP we have no aggression in our top four, and we need play to the situation not the 'team plan', it's just as simple as that. It's all very well being a 'method' team, but you can't go week in week out with the same batting order and same approach, targeting 280 and expect to defend that regularly. In the modern game you can't approach ODI's with an adjusted Test Match team and approach, you need to have an entirely different mentality.

 

Didn't know this but the guy behind Day-Z has said his game won't be going to the XBox One as they charge £60k for a licence and £10k every time the game gets updated. Were as with Sony it will be free so he will be bring it to the PS4.

 

Agreed on the cricket. The problem with Cook, Bell and particularly Trott is that they can't up their scoring rate and really blitz teams. A run a ball is generally about the best they can do and that's just not good enough these days.

 

I told you Trott was slow.

 

Oh, don't get me wrong, Bresnan is comfortably the better batsman, and I'm not at all surprised that the stats appear to support that. But over a short three, four, five over spell, if you asked me who is more likely to play the quick-fire boundary-laden cameo between Swann and Bresnan, I would go Swann every time.

I know county cricket is a much, much lower level than international cricket, but Swann has opened in limited overs cricket for Notts before as a pinch hitter. He can come in, and tee off. And if he'd been bowled first ball, well so what.

 

Run a ball is fine, I mean Sangakarra's fantastic knock then was run a ball, and Sangakarra's (generally accepted as one of the best batsman of the last decade) career strike rate is lower than Trott's. The problem is what's going on at the other end, a classic Trott innings is fine as long as the person at the other end is scoring at higher than 100 SR, particularly once you're getting past the 25th over, the problem for me is like the other day against Australia, Bell was set in the 80s and Trott was at the other end slowly accumulating in the 30s and 40s. That's the situation where Trott and others need to be flexible and press on, even if it comes at the cost of their wicket as it will allow opportunities to our more aggressive players.