Thanks for reminding me the game was on! Once football starts my interest in cricket dips a bit, especially with Yorkshire doing so badly of late. 39 for 4 now and England test cricket is in a sorry state when we have to play JB at 4 and BS at 5.
One of the co-commentators made a point a few minutes ago about England’s openers, this series in particular. They aren’t building up anything like decent runs, and it’s the same personnel.
Feels like England of the 90s. Any international team with Bairstow, Stokes and Butler as your middle order would look good in One Day and horribly weak in Test matches. Jennings isn’t even a decent county player. One good season letting him average 30 in first class. That we are selecting him says a lot about dearth or talent. Glad we’ve gone back to the tried and tested policy of destroying our best player by making them captain. Always seemed to work in the past....
India are bowling moderately well, but its all relative... if you can get a modest amount of movement, our batsmen absolutely fall to bits. I'm really surprised there has been such minimal criticism of the coaching the last few years. And now we have some truly random selector behaviours that aren't helping. I feel for our bowlers. they have to give superhuman performances to give us any hope of staying in a game. They managed it in the first 2 tests when India showed the same poor technique as we had. We'll see if the last test was a positive blip for them, or if they've improved technique and patience.
I think we should be more complimentary of India's bowling attack as well as criticising our batting . If any team makes 300 its like making 400 in normal conditions .
Precisely. No collapse.... just the norm for this team. Maybe when we come to bowl this afternoon, we might actually catch one or two chances. we live in hope.
Victor Meldrew alert. I don't watch much first class cricket these days due to not having Sky so I can't really qualify my opinion on what's wrong. However, I went to watch Kerry 2nd XI last weekend. Bar two of them on either side there wasn't anybody that could bat their way out of a paper bag yet one of them attempted the "ramp" shot! Needless to say he made a complete hames of it and nearly got himself out. WTF! Just bat properly for heavens sake. One day and 20 20 has a lot to answer for. If it's a choice between a team of chancers that might win a one day world cup occasionally or a side that can actually win Test matches I know which I'd prefer.
Butler - point in case. Utterly embarrassing shot, just can’t help himself chasing a wide swinging ball. Complete idiot. Do well to get to 120 at this rate.
Stokes gone, 86-6, lbw failing to get any sort of stride in. Another wicket, another aspect of dreadful technique exposed
He probably spent the first half of his split second reaction time trying to work out if he could reverse sweep it or something.
I'd be very interested to see what the coaching is like 1-1 with batsmen now. As a kid it was drilled into me to play straight, watch the ball, get weight moving forward and a big stride in. As a result, I found I got most of my runs to straight drives and as I got in, cover drives. You watch now, and footwork doesn't seem to have the same emphasis and its all in the hands and so many shots aren't clean hits with the oversized sweetspots on modern bats. On a flat pitch, that's all fine. To a swinging ball, its fatal.
We used to play day in day out in a covered guinnel. Anything other than a straight drive past the bowler was a waste of time.
Maybe that's why Yorkshire players tended to play straight! I did the same, or in the back yard. Nothing quite develops reflexes like having to throw a ball against a wall and then play a shot to it!