Do enjoy the tournaments. England are actually quite exciting to watch these days with Morgan root butler stokes hales so could stand a half decent chance of doing well. Bowling ng is where we are being let down, topley Rashid, Jordan just haven't been good enough on consistent basis
I just find it really difficult to get into, having grown up with Test cricket and county games. Its almost like a 3 minute game of footy. I've always considered Test cricket to be the purest form of the game
Sometimes... But watxhing ABDV when on form is something else. To say he swings the bat and hopes is a massive injustice to the skill he has
Yes thats one guy true. He has massive skills at all aspects of the game and yes the cream rises to the top in all forms. thought on the other hand when you tell a bowler to bowl this line, no higher than this, no wider than this and bowl it as quick as you can to get the 20 overs in. well... thats where i have the issue. A buttler, morgan, stokes can walk out reasonably expecting to face a very similar type of ball and go hard at it. if a ball dares go a bit high is a wide, if is if not even outside the tramline sits wide, even if its hittable. There are no slips its hit and field deep really. the 20/20 game negates a) shot selection by batsmen, they play on the front foot quite a bit, the range of shots (traditional shots) is lessened b) bowlers are no more than ball delivery mechanisms. there to be smashed. you don't see the battle between batsman and bowler here. its put it in the chokehole mostly. wheres the inline body stuff, the ball round the visor, the swing game, the variation of bowling. c) tactical fielding. Even in fielding the game is changed. its they will be running get it and power it in, there's not the field positioning and cutting of easy runs as you are told how many can stand where. On the bright side however. a) it is a faster game with more action b) it does encourage innovation in shots like the opening of the batface and deliberately lifting over keeper etc. we've seen huge creativity out of some batsmen changing grips and so forth c) it sharpens the effort levels and you see fielding being and urgent intense trade (though chasing the ball) I just prefer the test game but over 5 days you can't really say hey speed it up in delivery can you? The test game is where you see the best bowling but equally you see when a pitch is "too good" people whining about it and wanting pitches that disintegrate making the team who wins the coin toss win the test. What i am not sure about is 50 over game v 20 over... are both forms needed.. .really? 50 over games is a full day. you've the same kind of battering of the bowlers going on and same issues. I would say hey just figure out what is right length of game the fan wants to see cos frankly 20/20... meh... its short and a bit too focused in favour of the batting.
Shall we start posting pics of cheerleaders to make this thread interesting? Just going off MILK's idea here.
A win for Oman over Ireland is not looking unlikely by any stretch of the imagination. Only 3 wickets down and going at just over 7 an over. Now that really would be funny