The barmy army is more about the trip itself I would imagine. Bit similar to going to a away day even when we have been awful for the day out. It's a holiday. For me the only thing anyone in that team is now playing for is themselves. To keep a place in the team, which is fine and perfectly understandable we have been drubbed in 3 tests so player selection invariably becomes a issue. Maybe it's just me but I just have little interest in it. As someone else said it's like been relegated then winning a couple of games. Who cares the season is a failure. Losing the series with 2 games to spare is a massive failure. For me it's up there with losing 4 1 and saying we won the second half! That's how I see it.
Historically the best batsmen in a team bat at 3 or 4 being protected from the new ball Bradman, Tendulkar, Viv Richards Kohli and in current teams Joe Root and Steve Smith . Steve Waugh and Adam Gilchrist were automatic picks for Australia at 5 and 7 their position in the batting order does not reflect the quality they produced Gilchrist could have opened in Tests but as a top class wicketkeeper it would have been onerous to ask him to open the batting as well.
All good points , its about utilising batmen to get the best out of their abilities & trying to reduce the risk elements but I will always say that your top order batsmen are the best , they might not always get the volume of runs that a class middle order batsmen would but they are there to lay the foundations & thus allowing middle order men to prosper
Depends how long the opening batsman last if your 20 for 2 the numbers 3 and 4 are facing the new ball against bowlers who are confident. Interesting development of reverse swing first demonstrated by Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram whereby the aim was to keep the game quiet when the ball was new and then with fast inswinging yorkers and full deliveries create havoc with a ball which was scuffed up and deteriorating with reverse swing..
Number 4 coming in after 80 overs regularly? Think that's a tad optimistic haha. Would also mean having to face a new ball actually and in all likelihood a fresh days play.
I was quoting 80 overs in answer to a previous poster who compared Pieterson to Cook regarding the new ball , basically I was saying that Cook faced the new ball every innings whilst unless there was a collapse then it would be 80 overs old before Pieterson had the pleasure
I do not know what point you are trying to make, my comments were revolving around the comparison between Cook & Pieterson & thats why facing the new ball was brought up
The point I'm making is the statement "it will be 80 overs old is widely inaccurate. Once a ball is 80 overs old the fielding team have the option of replacing it with a 2nd new ball. Which they nearly always take. Secondly it is very rare for any side in modern test cricket to face 80 overs without losing 2 wickets. You are sort of right that a lot of the time the ball may have been 15-25 overs old when he came in. I just found the "80" made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
You have beaten me, I give up , I was discussing the comparison between Cook & Pieterson & obviously you are not , so well done, I have thrown the towel in
You said the ball would be 80 overs old before pieterson would face it. That was all I was picking up on. The fact that it never would be. Not once will that have happened
I I did not say that, I said that every time Cook went out to bat he faced the new ball , where as when Pieterson comes out , very often its an old ball he is facing as they do not change it until 80 overs as gone & therefore it is difficult to make comparisons between the two
Fair enough maybe I mis read it. Apologies this conversation has gone on too long. And as I said I think Pieterson is a right dick so I hardly want to defend him anyway.
