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England Cricket 2023

So two sessions without a wicket for NZ. After putting England in. It's rapidly turning into another game of 'how to force a result'.
 
Brook's test average is now over 100 with a strike rate of the same. Absolutely insane.

I wonder if he would have got these stats anyway, without Bazball?
 
Watched the first few overs of brook and root last night. The pitch was visibly flattening out, and Wagner was coming on. I thought that we'd have done well if I woke up this morning to 230-7...

NZ bowling attack looks very ordinary.
 
Crawley is now officially the 10th worst opener in test history. I would feel for him a bit but the interviews I've seen with him suggest he has a massive ego and is apparently blissfully unaware of his precarious position. Or maybe baz has told him there's no way you're getting dropped. Which isn't good management, IMO, as much as I respect the guy's decisions so far.

 
Crawley's record is clearly awful but yesterday didn't tell us much. It was good bowling with the ball moving both ways off the seam. You needed some luck to survive that first hour.

Brook had some luck with a few miscues. But it was his day. And Root was back to just being Root.

I thought England did well to get to lunch three down with things definitely starting to look easier. But the rest of the day must have been disheartening for NZ. Wagner in particular. His usual tactic is being dismantled in this series and he is a bit of a one trick pony really, albeit it's a trick that has served him well up to now.
 
I can seriously see England declaring by Tea tomorrow and winning by an innings. The local cricket boards must be cursing this. England games are probably their most lucrative in terms of beer sales alone and dont come around very often.
 
It's sold out for the first three days, and I don't doubt that TV audiences are up. The NZ cricket board will be loving this. England games are always better-attended due to the travelling support, but I've not seen this ground this full for a test before. It's capturing the public imagination for test cricket.

But don't write off NZ just yet. They will know that days 2 and 3 will be very good for scoring. McCullum will know that as well. He has a triple century on this ground. If they can restrict England to under 500, they're still in this.
 
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I can seriously see England declaring by Tea tomorrow and winning by an innings. The local cricket boards must be cursing this. England games are probably their most lucrative in terms of beer sales alone and dont come around very often.
I doubt that they would declare in the first two days in the first innings in this test match (unless there is an injury problem). There is no advantage to it. In the unlikely event that they are still playing their first innings after the first session of day 3, that’s when there is an argument for it.
 
It's sold out for the first three days, and I don't doubt that TV audiences are up. The NZ cricket board will be loving this. England games are always better-attended due to the travelling support, but I've not seen this ground this full for a test before. It's capturing the public imagination for test cricket.

I read earlier somewhere they're charging the equivalent of £17 for all five days. It's good to see them doing something like that to make sure they get a crowd in - the administrators in places like Sri Lanka and the West Indies could learn from that I think.
 
It's great to see. Like Trent Bridge making the final day free last year precisely because it looked potentially so exciting. Although England is mostly terrible for squeezing punters dry and pricing out big chunks of people.

Generally, NZ and Aus both have much more affordable ticket prices than the UK. In Aus it's common for people to attend whole matches. Attending the whole match at Lord's for some matches would set you back more than £500. More than a grand for a family.

In WI, they set prices for the tourists, but surely the ticket costs are only a small part of a tourist's spend. They could do without it.
 
I read earlier somewhere they're charging the equivalent of £17 for all five days. It's good to see them doing something like that to make sure they get a crowd in - the administrators in places like Sri Lanka and the West Indies could learn from that I think.

You can barely buy 2 pints for that at the Oval.
 
I doubt that they would declare in the first two days in the first innings in this test match (unless there is an injury problem). There is no advantage to it. In the unlikely event that they are still playing their first innings after the first session of day 3, that’s when there is an argument for it.

They could be on 600 odd by tea. I can see them declaring before this pitch gets more dead.
 
tbh if they get a full day's play tomorrow and England bat well enough, I can't see them not declaring at some point after tea. If they're still batting by then, they're likely to have 600 plus.

The advantage involves the openers having to get themselves in twice against the new ball.

Batting into the first session of day 3 was already old-fashioned before bazball.
 
I think there's every chance they'll declare tomorrow if not bowled out tbh. Partly as LBJ says because you'd get two goes at the openers but also if it got to the point where they were nine down and the last pair was, say, Anderson and Leach, they wouldn't regard sending Anderson out to bat to scratch around for another few runs as worthwhile when he could be bowling.
 
tbh it's often not worth sending Anderson out to bat nowadays. You just risk him getting injured fending off a Wagner bouncer. He was never any good, but his 'form' has declined from a low base as he's got older. He hasn't scored 100 runs in a calendar year since 2014, and hasn't managed 50 runs since 2016.

Leach can more safely be sent out for a swing.
 
tbh it's often not worth sending Anderson out to bat nowadays. You just risk him getting injured fending off a Wagner bouncer. He was never any good, but his 'form' has declined from a low base as he's got older.

Leach can more safely be sent out for a swing.

Yeah, for a while he got fairly decent at not getting out didn't he but that's useful if you've got Brook or someone like that at the other end, not so much with another tailender. And as you say he's not so good at that even these days.
 
Guardian: "Here’s Ben Stokes, glancing his third ball off his hips for four, then dancing down the track and cover-driving on the up for four more. So a batter departs with 186 off 176 balls, and the run rate gets quicker."

:D
 
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