Re: English cricket hits rock bottom again!!!!
 

Two days played and two days we have been outplayed thus so far..:(:td:

Re: English cricket hits rock bottom again!!!!
 

tbf this young Pakistan team look quite handy and are on the way back up. They are also taking Test cricket seriously, unlike us.

Re: English cricket hits rock bottom again!!!!
 

Heads need to roll springs to mind for our ragbag of misfits..:td::(

Re: English cricket hits rock bottom again!!!!
 

And who would you pick Den ? We're playing the best, though Roots captaincy has been very disappointing. We need someone with a bit of fire, Stokes is a the man if he's found Not Guilty in the court case ( which given the video footage would seem unlikely).

Re: English cricket hits rock bottom again!!!!
 

Seems like losing the toss is the way to go.:rolleyes:

Re: English cricket hits rock bottom again!!!!
 

Amazing how the toss can have such a large effect on matches..

Re: English cricket hits rock bottom again!!!!
 

It’s not the toss in the past two matches but the strange decisions made by both toss winning captains.:confused:

Re: English cricket hits rock bottom again!!!!
 

I think both decisions were right but the batsman have been poor. Always bat if you win the toss, first law of Test Match Cricket.
Credit to Michael Vaughan for putting the wind up our bowlers, suggesting they should be dropped.

Re: English cricket hits rock bottom again!!!!
 

As I suspected, a flawed axiom these days. ;)

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine...ry/691061.html

Re: English cricket hits rock bottom again!!!!
 

Aside from the statistics (my eyes glaze over some of it) isn't it usually a good idea to bat last (4th innings) as the crease / outfield has softened some by day 4 or 5 where as it starts off quite a lot firmer / bouncier?

The boys division used to go down and practice at big stadiums at my old school and the only thing that they said made it difficult was chasing down a big total. (Though those pitches were not kept to professional standards of course).

Re: English cricket hits rock bottom again!!!!
 

Batting in the fourth innings is 'in most instances' the hardest, especially if the opposition have one or two top class spin bowlers.

When the pitch is hard and fast it helps the quicker bowlers but also helps GOOD batsmen score quickly. By the 4th or 5th day the pitch has become worn and the fast bowlers foot marks give the spin bowlers a huge help, especially against left handed batsmen.


The problem yesterday was that at 10:30 the sun was out and at 11:00 when the game started the clouds had rolled in. Everyone knows that when you have warm, muggy conditions and cloud cover at Headingly the ball swings and seams prodigiously.


Batting fourth is only easy when you have a very small total to aim at, quite a lot of the wins from sides batting second involve the side batting first batting badly and getting a very low score, conditions and usually the pitch improve on days 2 and 3, the team batting second then makes a massive score, batting the other side right out of the game so that they succumb by an innings or have no sort of total to bowl at in the fourth.

Re: English cricket hits rock bottom again!!!!
 

Well you can forget about a fourth innings Jim..:D:D

Re: English cricket hits rock bottom again!!!!
 

:cleader::cleader::cleader:

Re: English cricket hits rock bottom again!!!!
 

Lol...if only cheerleaders existed in cricket like 15 years ago...I could have claimed to be into cricket, too and gotten like 4 to 5 days off school, too. (Well it was closer to 3 as they started on Thursdays and played through weekends...)

And yeah, they never made it to a day 5, lol.

Re: English cricket hits rock bottom again!!!!
 

No Test matches till August now, Should have been a 3rd Test with Pakistan to decide things. Instead they've squeezed in a pointless money making one day series with the Aussies. They are killing the game.