The Cricket Thread

The Welsh SHOULD do it , but it’s not over yet !

 

Bairstow and Brook have both batted very well. But there's only one MOTM here.

 

Brilliant spell by Qais Ahmad. Unplayable.

 

Bairstow should stick his pride, and give Banton the gloves. With one less out-fielder, you need your best and quickest guys on the rope. And Bairstow is one of the very best in the world. Screw "wanting to keep".

 

I like this rule. This should be interesting.

 

Well done you Welsh, I wonder how many of you know how to sing Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau?

 

Unfortunately for him (and for Fire), it might end up being a one-off. If the other six sides have any sense, they'll look at the rest of this Fire bowling attack and realise that there are runs to be had. And hence no need to take any risks against Ahmad - just see him off, milk him if possible, but don't take risks.

It's always the problem when you've got one star bowler mixed with a lot of "meh".

 

Absolutely. Jake Ball did OK, but you wouldn’t want any of the others trying to halt the momentum of a determined run chase. I suppose they’ll be relying on Bairstow, Banton and co. getting them enough runs to defend, or to chase any total down.

 

And the problem for them there is that they only have Bairstow for one more match (against Brave, annoyingly!) until they lose him to England.

Good luck replacing him!!

 

Indeed, and if Ollie Pope gets fit, he’ll be off to England too, most likely.

 

Supporting London Spirit in the Hundred.

Hope they can get off the mark today.

 

Granted the pitch is in his favour, but Parkinson's wicket of Cooke earlier will take some beating for ball of the competition.

 

Just thinking about who might come into the various XIs to replace the test players after Tuesday:

Birmingham - N/A (Woakes is injured.)
Spirit - Crawley and Lawrence out. Maybe Rossington and Reece in?
Manchester - Buttler out. Maybe Ackermann in? (They haven't been selecting Robinson so far anyway.)
Superchargers - Stokes out. Maybe Vilas in until Du Plessis becomes available?
Oval - Sam Curran out. Maybe Clark in, assuming that Mahmood (who Clark replaced today) is fit again?
Brave - N/A
Rockets - Root out. Maybe Wright in?
Welsh - Bairstow out. Maybe Lloyd in? (Pope hasn't been available so far anyway.)

 

I've got to say I was expecting a lot more big hitting in this format but it's spin to win. I can't stand the graphics but I get it's trying to help the newcomers. Hopefully now everyone has played we start seeing some higher scores.

 

It'll be interesting to see if any grounds begin to creep their boundaries in.

I also wonder how much the heat wave is causing the lower scores and spin dominance. The wickets are no doubt dry and parched, even more so with the daily double-headers. Hopefully the recent rain - at least in the south - will help on that front going forward. That said, Manchester using a used pitch yesterday is hopefully a rare occasion - I'm sure they'll have their reasons, but that really needs to avoided. Stokes was right to criticise it. I would rather big boundaries, but fresh pitches.

 

2 massive wickets there!

 

And Rashid’s on a hat trick!

 

Stokes probably has to be taken down here

 

Hales could barely be any further from his comfort zone. This is not his role at all. Fair play to him if he somehow pulls it off.

 

No real surprise that Rashid is the one batter who can play against this spin.