England Cricket 2014 (Test, ODI, T20)

[Santino]

Blew it. Could have done it off the fourth ball of an over, too.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

England about to draw level.

It's barely even worth armchair-captaining is it? 'Speed up now and get a couple of hundred lead, then give them a couple of tricky sessions tomorrow.'

 

[The Octagon]

Amazing scenes in Abu Dhabi. Alastair Cook has lost his mind. As Babar is coming in, Cook throws off his glove and helmet, switches to a right-handed stance, runs down the pitch, misses and gets stumped. Livid with himself, he shows his anger by slapping Ben Stokes as he walks off.

You know that hasn't really happened, don't you? The reality is what we've seen for 13 hours. Defending Babar, then a sweep for a single.

BBC live text person thinking about taking their own life

 

[littlebabyjesus]

England have done better than Aus or nz in abu dhabi who both lost. I see this as a positive performance overall. Borefest yes. But an encouraging Borefest. When England won in India cook and pietersen got the runs. Here it can be cook and root.

 

[paulhackett]

Oooh..

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Maybe a flicker of a chance of England at least taking a shot at a win here?


And there's the last wicket. 99 runs to get, possible?

 

[two sheds]

Well fuck me

 

[Spymaster]

Going to run out of light. Pakistan are going to develop problems with shoelaces, run-ups, and fielding positions.

 

[two sheds]

Come on, that just wouldn't be cricket .

 

[Spymaster]

Come on, that just wouldn't be cricket .

They're having a conference at the moment.

 

[Spymaster]

Ooh look, surprise surprise, pace on.

 

[two sheds]

This isn't cricket

 

[two sheds]

That wasn't cricket



Stunning turnaround by England though. I really thought we were sunk after the Pakistani first innings.

 

[yardbird]

I'd call that blatant time wasting!
Weak umpiring I think.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

This isn't cricket

It really is. Always has been.

Absurd really, but we don't have a Steve Bucknor there to punish the Pakistanis for timewasting.

They bowled eleven overs in the hour. I've seen worse in that situation, and England would have done exactly the same.

I don't quite understand why they changed the rule, tbh. Last time in Lahore when Thorpe won in the dark, the rule was that the batsmen were offered the light. Now, they're just taken off.

 

[Spymaster]

8 overs to bowl, floodlights on, and they walk off.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

8 overs to bowl, floodlights on, and they walk off.

England bowled slowly as well, though. A fair thing to do would have been to have taken off any overs England were short when they bowled, then told Pakistan 'right, as long as England want it, you're staying out there till you've bowled x number of overs'.

As it is, I don't think there's any high moral ground here. Not for the first time, common sense loses out.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Alternatively, you tell both teams 'there are 90 overs in a day, and if we have to finish under floodlights, that's what we'll do, every day, no matter what. And no boohooing about it.'

But, if one team has bowled slowly on that day, and the other hasn't, the team that hasn't will get an option of bad light at a certain point. So you don't get teams penalised for the opposition's slow over-rates, but if your over-rate is slow as well, you lose that privilege.

 

[two sheds]

Stop being reasonable

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Stop being reasonable

tbf it was dangerous out there, on that pitch.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Anyhoo,

Well done England, and well done Adil Rashid.

And please, please, please take Ian Bell out of the slips. This isn't the first time he's fucked up there.

 

[paulhackett]

Anyhoo,

Well done England, and well done Adil Rashid.

And please, please, please take Ian Bell out of the slips. This isn't the first time he's fucked up there.

An England team taking shape. Sort of. Rashid plus Broad and Anderson and Stokes. With Moeen batting at 1 or 2 and Bairstow able to keep if needs be.

Bell must be on his way out. No need to keep him as the experienced player with Cook and Root there. Chuck Taylor in. Bell's eyes are going, which is why the catches aren't sticking. And to be fair, he knows it

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Boycott reckons Moeen will never make it as an opener as his technique is too loose. I'm inclined to agree, tbh, and I'm not sure it's best use of him. Mind you, neither is 8. Looking at the numbers, Moeen and Stokes's test records, both batting and bowling, are remarkably similar. Both of them are essentially batting all-rounders, good enough to bat at six or seven, not quite good enough to be a full-on frontline bowler - yet, at least. It's quite a good dilemma to have in some ways, but fitting those two into one team with a batting keeper is quite tricky. The team's looked unbalanced all year, really. Jack Russell must look on enviously. He would have slotted right into this team as a brilliant keeper who can bat at 8.

 

[redsquirrel]

Moeen can easily bat higher than number 8 but I was really impressed with him at the position during the summer, if England can find a specialist opener then I think there's an argument for him to go back to lower order.

The team does have quite a weird balance to it but to be fair that's not totally the managements fault, they've got to pick the best team from what's available. I'd far rather see them pick players for what they are rather than what they could be or people want them to be.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Moeen can easily bat higher than number 8 but I was really impressed with him at the position during the summer.

He did well, but I can think of at least two instances when he was last man out and clearly felt (probably correctly) that he had to swing t20 style. That is a bit of a waste really, and he knows that he's with the tail as soon as a wicket falls the other end, every innings.

eta

It's not just a waste - it also potentially stops him from developing as a test batsman.

 

[butchersapron]

Trial kicked off today.

Not guilty. Blimey.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Fuck's sake. Yeah, McCullum, Vincent, Vettori et al are all liars. ]

And Cairns was learning how to become a gemologist. Course he was.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Not guilty. Blimey.

Been following the case quite closely.

Possible explanation for how he got off: The judge directed the jury that they had to believe at least two out of three of McCullum, Vincent and Vincent's ex-wife (why two of them, I'm not sure). He also warned them to be 'careful' with Vincent's testimony because he was an admitted match-fixer. Vincent's ex is presumably tainted by association with him.

So he got off, basically, because one of the key witnesses admitted to having been recruited by him. Bizarrely, it needed two people who refused to cheat to come forward. Successfully recruited people don't count.

I'm still staggered by the verdict. Cairns' defence was piss-weak - hardly anyone he cited in his explanations, like the diamond dealers, would come forward and speak up for him.

 

[butchersapron]

He's now making money off it:

Chris Cairns wins substantial damages over MCC slur on Brendon McCullum video

London's famed Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) has paid Chris Cairns substantial damages for wrongly linking him to match-fixing, in addition to making a public apology.

Former Black Caps cricket captain Cairns, 46, was understood to have been paid out a five-figure sum in British pounds, after his solicitor Rhory Robertson took action against the club.

 

[redsquirrel]

.