Our pace bowling has been our weakest suit in the white ball game for a while. Even during and in the build up to the 2019 world cup it was discussed as possibly being our downfall. They're all a bit samey and predictable I feel.
Suspect Root will be encouraged to step down as captain as well tbh, but kept as a batsman. Clean sweep etc
we're short of three decent english 1-3 batsmen. the ecb utterly messed up the australian tour. not a warm-up game in site. stupid, short-sighted, ignorant, suicidal polices. the ecb should be fired. giles and silverwood = scapegoats for ecb incompetence.
For anyone that may not have heard it, this is a really interesting podcast about the Allen Stanford saga and his eventual downfall. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09wywvg
not the ashes, but. india just beat sri lanka by an innings and 222 runs within three days. batting first, india racked up 574 for 8 before declaring. the 9th wicket had added 103 by then. number 7 ravindra jadeja score 175no from 228 deliveries and was involved in three century partnerships.. sri lanka made 174. jadeja took 5 for 41. following on, sri lanka reached 178. jadeja took 4 for 46 and 8 wickets on the final day. motm could hardly go anywhere else. a good (3) day(s) at the office.
Just reached 300 in the first test vs WI. Thank **** for Johnny Bairstow who currently is undefeated approaching 150. No one else has got to 50. Selectors have finally seen sense and gone back to Johnny after realising their love fest with Buttler was going nowhere. A few of us on here have been saying this for a while. He has been our second best bat for a few years now, but out of form and then have messed about with him up and down the order, taking gloves off him etc. Personally I'd have given him the gloves too, but Foulkes is the better keeper and if he keeps getting some runs, then can accept that.
bizarre happenings in the 3rd test against the windies. england's batting failed to emulate their efforts from the 2nd test. root and bairstow managed a combined nil. england got to 114 for 9 with opener lees making 31. that left jack leach and saqib mahmood. they extended the innings by 36.2 overs, adding 90 in england's 9th best 10th wicket partnership. saqib top scored with 49 before he was last out, narrowly missing his first ever half century, though he did manage his first ever first class six and joined a short list of number elevens to top score in an innings. he's the twelfth to manage it and oddly the 7th this century. there were three in the last century and two in the previous one. the only previous england player to do it was steve harmison in 2005 more unusual was that jack leach was the second highest scorer. it's only the second occasion in tests in which numbers 10 and 11 have been the top two scorers in an innings. the first time was for australia in 1885. england 204 all out.
This fragility in batting is never far from the surface, just when you think they seem to be getting more resilient, up it pops again.
Same can be said for the WI pschye too, England should have got nowhere 150 let alone 200. WI heads dropped at the first bit of resistance from Woakes then Leach and Mahmood, they were playing for the new ball with a dozen overs still to wait.
Just listening to the TMS podcast, it seemed that the new ball was zipping around a bit on a greenish wicket, and once the ball softened then the bowlers toiled. I guess we have to wait and see how the WI bat today to really know whether it was a below par score.
One of the WI commentators said that the bowlers may be flagging a bit because 'it's been a long series', 2 tests? England were 9 down after 50 overs you'd think WI would be buzzing but not the case, fielding was a bit lackadaisical, field placings were very benign, very little pressure on the batsmen. On a slow pitch I could understand a defensive approach if it was nos 3 and 4 at the crease but not 10 and 11. But, as you say, lets see after both sides have had a bat.
It was a great innings by Mahmood but also a bit naive right at the end - he shouldn't have been chasing the personal milestone of a 50 in the last over of the day and should have been blocking everything. Would have demoralised the Windies even further if they'd had to take the field again this morning.
It just defies belief that our top order batsmen cannot work out a method to play the moving ball. Time and again they are caught like rabbits in the headlights, strange given that they must have been brought up on seaming wickets. Mahmood amazed me, I never thought he could hold a bat, but well done to him and Leach proved again that concentration and application are essential in any conditions. At least 204 is marginally respectable and gives our bowlers some hope that they can also extract something from this wicket.
