Yeah, helluva long shot @Malone. I know you have the knowledge and @wingnut is into cricket but probably shares @EddieMonsoon’s antipathy towards the three hour slogfests.
Demolition job in the end. I don’t know what the fatality rate from Covid-19 is in India but seeing 60-70,000 noisy and excitable people crowded together with very few wearing masks feels surreal.
Covid is still pretty high in India, so to see that many in the crowd with no distancing and not all wearing masks seems extremely strange and a little bit mad to me !
Shame about the result, they gave us as much as a smashing today as we did them on Friday
We go again on Tuesday. Is Mark Wood injured again? And has Jack Leach returned home? The bowling today wasn’t up to scratch and Stokes dropping that catch was a collector’s item. Combination of dew and sweat making the ball like a bar of soap perhaps.
Wood does have an injury to his heel and Leach isn't anywhere near the 20 over squad.
I think the evening dew changed the pitch and the outfield. Good knowledge for the World Cup but it does add a lottery element to a competition that shouldn't have. Twenty over cricket us more random than the longer forms in any case.
I don’t mind 20-20 but to me it’s the equivalent of watching 5-aside football. It can be a good, entertaining watch but bears little resemblance to ‘proper’ football.
@bookertease said:
I don’t mind 20-20 but to me it’s the equivalent of watching 5-aside football. It can be a good, entertaining watch but bears little resemblance to ‘proper’ football.
Agreed. It is just too much of a lottery to me. One individual performance has too high a weighting. Yesterday I watched England bat then turned it off.
So glad Sky are using there own commentary team and not taking the international feed Channel 4 did for the test series.
It's no different to football in that sense, where one individual great performance (great solo goal) can effect the result.
I think it's probably the most exciting format now, especially once you delve into the tactics and match-up side of it. For example, India holding back from bowling Washington Sundar yesterday whilst Roy and Bairstow were at the crease since he has a much better record v left handers (Stokes, Morgan and S Curran next 3 due in).
Kohli only had 5 bowling options so was forced into bowling Sundar to the right handers, both took him and I think Bairstow hit one 6 before they both mis-hit one and were out. On another day one of those overs goes for 20 and England race on close to 200.
Hopefully Wood will be back fit tomorrow, he was certainly missed.
I agree Holmer Blue. Test matches all the way. Twenty twenty games are for Sun readers with the attention span of a gnat. A slogfest pure and simple.The twists and turns of a Test match are absorbing and I’ve been hooked on Test matches since laying in the grass as a child listening to John Arlott on my trannie....transistor radio that is. I have watched many test matches live, particularly Ashes games Down Under and I do not miss a single ball ever.
@bookertease said:
I don’t mind 20-20 but to me it’s the equivalent of watching 5-aside football. It can be a good, entertaining watch but bears little resemblance to ‘proper’ football.
Hey, don't knock 5-a-side - Let's not forget Wycombe Wanderers have been reigning Evening Standard 5-a-side champions since 1995. From memory it's why we bought Chuck Moussadik.
Cricket has a real opportunity to grow this Summer due to the lockdown and a lack of rugby and football over the winter. Will the ECB think about this in their strategy, probably not.
Free to air test matches should be the norm for the national side, or at the very least two or three a summer but money comes first for the ECB and their elite player programs. Most county boards "talk" about participation but are really only interested in elite pathways.
There is now a severe lack of grounds in the chiltern / thames valley area. Particularly as municipal pitches are too costly for local councils. Also, as the balls are being hit further grounds are becoming too small to use and we lost our school pitch of 30+ years a few years back when an oak tree was taken down and balls were occasionally hit into a new build property that had been there 5 minutes.
The Hundred can do one but 2020 has its place in creating interest in the longer form of the game. I just wish it wasn't at the expense of the County Championship. I occasionally tune into T20 internationals but try not to miss a ball of the test matches!
@Croider said:
It's no different to football in that sense, where one individual great performance (great solo goal) can effect the result.
I think it's probably the most exciting format now, especially once you delve into the tactics and match-up side of it. For example, India holding back from bowling Washington Sundar yesterday whilst Roy and Bairstow were at the crease since he has a much better record v left handers (Stokes, Morgan and S Curran next 3 due in).
Kohli only had 5 bowling options so was forced into bowling Sundar to the right handers, both took him and I think Bairstow hit one 6 before they both mis-hit one and were out. On another day one of those overs goes for 20 and England race on close to 200.
Hopefully Wood will be back fit tomorrow, he was certainly missed.
You make some great points but imagine have the same tactical decisions being taken over five days where there is time for ebb and flow. Time for a great innings to be appreciated rather than rushed. To see great bowlers practice their art rather than being slogged out the ground by heavy bats.
Quite often in test matches captains have four bowling options to ration over a day and a half.
The days when mainstream tv showed limited over county cricket, and you could gauge those knocking on the door for the Test Team.
Now players come into the side, that I wouldnt have the foggiest about.
I would have like to have seen Dom Bess at County level, as his performances in India, were like something I've never witnessed at Test level.
Totally inability to find any regular length, you were pretty much assured of a gentle full toss, every over.
Dom Bess's form was strange as in all my years of playing cricket almost every team had a horrible slow bowler who pitched every ball on the same spot.
I used to play with a chap, who was president of the club.
He would often bowl himself from the off, his mixture of very slow wides, full tosses and long hops were dispatched to all sides of the ground. Then when, every other over, he would pitch one the correct line and length, he would do a spin towards the umpire and yell 'What a peach'.
We didnt win many games, when this chap imposed himself on us.
Lovely story @ChasHarps. And I imagine there are many other amusing anecdotes amongst those of you who played the game (or still do) at grass roots level.
I only ever played in the lunch hour at school. Even that was only for half an hour or so and on no more than three or four occasions. My standout memory is of this large bespectacled bowler coming towards me at impressive pace as I waited in what I felt was a very correct and professional looking stance, only to hear a hissing sound as the ball passed (totally unseen by me) and thudded into the wicketkeeper’s gloves, some twenty yards to my right, a couple of seconds later. The bowler was David Sayer who went on to play for Kent and, very briefly, for England.
I’ve enjoyed reading all the preceding comments, mostly from people who are much more knowledgeable about the game than I am, and I don’t feel so bad now about starting a thread that I thought die an early death.
I’d like it to be known that I am not a Sun reader though!
When you used to see the opposition before a game, there always seem to be a rotund barrel of a player.
If that player didnt bat high up the order, sure as eggs he was a decent spin bowler.
Psychology a tubby spinner, was winning the mind games already, due to his poor physical condition you would convince yourself he was gonna spin it, like Embury and Edmund's.
In all my years of playing cricket, and I did quite a lot, slow bowlers always used to get more wickets than the fast bowlers ! Fast bowlers dont tend to bowl straight at the stumps, so even when the batsmen did miss as it was too fast, it wouldnt hit the stumps. Slow bowlers would generally bowl straight or get hit to the fielder stood waiting on the boundary !
I've lost count of the amount of times the teams I've played for have said " look at him, he's so slow and cant spin it" then at the end of the game he'd probably have 5 or 6 wickets
What a surprise... just been announced that today's match and the other 2 remaining T20 matches are to be played behind closed doors after a big rise in cases in that area of India
@micra said:
Yeah, helluva long shot @Malone. I know you have the knowledge and @wingnut is into cricket but probably shares @EddieMonsoon’s antipathy towards the three hour slogfests.
I am quite happy with the 20/20 county matches but feel that they are played at the wrong time of the season and detract from the County Championship which should have priority. As for the new 100 competition that is the worst thing thought up so far and will not, I feel, attract hordes of new followers to the game.
I must be honest @wingnut and confess total ignorance about ‘the 100 competition ‘. Is it 100 balls (odd!) and is it intended purely for county matches? I’ve been a great fan of 3 day (?now 4 day) county matches since the early ‘fifties when, during Maidstone Cricket Week, I used to walk the few hundred yards from school to the Mote cricket ground to watch the last couple of hours play. In my mind’s eye I can still see the scoreboard on one occasion showing not out batsmen (the two Arthurs - Fagg and Phebey) both on scores approaching centuries.
I’ve always loved Test cricket and, when working in London in the ‘sixties and ‘seventies, I often used to walk to the nearest radio & television shop in the lunch hour to watch (in black and white) a few minutes of the latest test match. No sound of course and it could be frustrating waiting for the scoreboard to be shown.
I’ve enjoyed many of England’s T20 matches, not least the hugely enjoyable World Cup series a few years ago, and the odd County T20 when Kent have been playing (and usually losing!). The short/very short versions, sadly, are set to become the norm and, if that’s all that’s available, I’d rather watch that than nothing at all.
What on earth were the Indian authorities thinking about when they allowed 60,000 plus spectators in to those two T20s ?
Surely not the money.
The 100 is indeed 100 balls a side, and competed for not by counties but by new 'franchises,' with youth friendly names such as the Birmingham Bad Bashers and the Hampshire Heavy Hitters. Something like that anyway.
Comments
I only posted that to get him out. Thanks @drcongo for allowing my indulgence.
As long as that means something to someone eh son?
Yeah, helluva long shot @Malone. I know you have the knowledge and @wingnut is into cricket but probably shares @EddieMonsoon’s antipathy towards the three hour slogfests.
Demolition job in the end. I don’t know what the fatality rate from Covid-19 is in India but seeing 60-70,000 noisy and excitable people crowded together with very few wearing masks feels surreal.
Covid is still pretty high in India, so to see that many in the crowd with no distancing and not all wearing masks seems extremely strange and a little bit mad to me !
Shame about the result, they gave us as much as a smashing today as we did them on Friday
We go again on Tuesday. Is Mark Wood injured again? And has Jack Leach returned home? The bowling today wasn’t up to scratch and Stokes dropping that catch was a collector’s item. Combination of dew and sweat making the ball like a bar of soap perhaps.
Think Wood was rested for Tom Curran, mad if you ask me, the fastest bowler we have ! Dont think Leach is in the one day squad.
Wood does have an injury to his heel and Leach isn't anywhere near the 20 over squad.
I think the evening dew changed the pitch and the outfield. Good knowledge for the World Cup but it does add a lottery element to a competition that shouldn't have. Twenty over cricket us more random than the longer forms in any case.
Just not cricket...
I don’t mind 20-20 but to me it’s the equivalent of watching 5-aside football. It can be a good, entertaining watch but bears little resemblance to ‘proper’ football.
Agreed. It is just too much of a lottery to me. One individual performance has too high a weighting. Yesterday I watched England bat then turned it off.
So glad Sky are using there own commentary team and not taking the international feed Channel 4 did for the test series.
It's no different to football in that sense, where one individual great performance (great solo goal) can effect the result.
I think it's probably the most exciting format now, especially once you delve into the tactics and match-up side of it. For example, India holding back from bowling Washington Sundar yesterday whilst Roy and Bairstow were at the crease since he has a much better record v left handers (Stokes, Morgan and S Curran next 3 due in).
Kohli only had 5 bowling options so was forced into bowling Sundar to the right handers, both took him and I think Bairstow hit one 6 before they both mis-hit one and were out. On another day one of those overs goes for 20 and England race on close to 200.
Hopefully Wood will be back fit tomorrow, he was certainly missed.
Test match cricket all the way for me, I could happily sit and watch all five days... not that many go the distance these days
I agree Holmer Blue. Test matches all the way. Twenty twenty games are for Sun readers with the attention span of a gnat. A slogfest pure and simple.The twists and turns of a Test match are absorbing and I’ve been hooked on Test matches since laying in the grass as a child listening to John Arlott on my trannie....transistor radio that is. I have watched many test matches live, particularly Ashes games Down Under and I do not miss a single ball ever.
Hey, don't knock 5-a-side - Let's not forget Wycombe Wanderers have been reigning Evening Standard 5-a-side champions since 1995. From memory it's why we bought Chuck Moussadik.
Chuck Moussadik had been at Adams park a number of years before we entered the Evening standard 5 a sides.
Cricket has a real opportunity to grow this Summer due to the lockdown and a lack of rugby and football over the winter. Will the ECB think about this in their strategy, probably not.
Free to air test matches should be the norm for the national side, or at the very least two or three a summer but money comes first for the ECB and their elite player programs. Most county boards "talk" about participation but are really only interested in elite pathways.
There is now a severe lack of grounds in the chiltern / thames valley area. Particularly as municipal pitches are too costly for local councils. Also, as the balls are being hit further grounds are becoming too small to use and we lost our school pitch of 30+ years a few years back when an oak tree was taken down and balls were occasionally hit into a new build property that had been there 5 minutes.
The Hundred can do one but 2020 has its place in creating interest in the longer form of the game. I just wish it wasn't at the expense of the County Championship. I occasionally tune into T20 internationals but try not to miss a ball of the test matches!
You make some great points but imagine have the same tactical decisions being taken over five days where there is time for ebb and flow. Time for a great innings to be appreciated rather than rushed. To see great bowlers practice their art rather than being slogged out the ground by heavy bats.
Quite often in test matches captains have four bowling options to ration over a day and a half.
The days when mainstream tv showed limited over county cricket, and you could gauge those knocking on the door for the Test Team.
Now players come into the side, that I wouldnt have the foggiest about.
I would have like to have seen Dom Bess at County level, as his performances in India, were like something I've never witnessed at Test level.
Totally inability to find any regular length, you were pretty much assured of a gentle full toss, every over.
Dom Bess's form was strange as in all my years of playing cricket almost every team had a horrible slow bowler who pitched every ball on the same spot.
I used to play with a chap, who was president of the club.
He would often bowl himself from the off, his mixture of very slow wides, full tosses and long hops were dispatched to all sides of the ground. Then when, every other over, he would pitch one the correct line and length, he would do a spin towards the umpire and yell 'What a peach'.
We didnt win many games, when this chap imposed himself on us.
Lovely story @ChasHarps. And I imagine there are many other amusing anecdotes amongst those of you who played the game (or still do) at grass roots level.
I only ever played in the lunch hour at school. Even that was only for half an hour or so and on no more than three or four occasions. My standout memory is of this large bespectacled bowler coming towards me at impressive pace as I waited in what I felt was a very correct and professional looking stance, only to hear a hissing sound as the ball passed (totally unseen by me) and thudded into the wicketkeeper’s gloves, some twenty yards to my right, a couple of seconds later. The bowler was David Sayer who went on to play for Kent and, very briefly, for England.
I’ve enjoyed reading all the preceding comments, mostly from people who are much more knowledgeable about the game than I am, and I don’t feel so bad now about starting a thread that I thought die an early death.
I’d like it to be known that I am not a Sun reader though!
When you used to see the opposition before a game, there always seem to be a rotund barrel of a player.
If that player didnt bat high up the order, sure as eggs he was a decent spin bowler.
Psychology a tubby spinner, was winning the mind games already, due to his poor physical condition you would convince yourself he was gonna spin it, like Embury and Edmund's.
In all my years of playing cricket, and I did quite a lot, slow bowlers always used to get more wickets than the fast bowlers ! Fast bowlers dont tend to bowl straight at the stumps, so even when the batsmen did miss as it was too fast, it wouldnt hit the stumps. Slow bowlers would generally bowl straight or get hit to the fielder stood waiting on the boundary !
I've lost count of the amount of times the teams I've played for have said " look at him, he's so slow and cant spin it" then at the end of the game he'd probably have 5 or 6 wickets
What a surprise... just been announced that today's match and the other 2 remaining T20 matches are to be played behind closed doors after a big rise in cases in that area of India
?♂️?♂️?♂️?♂️?
I am quite happy with the 20/20 county matches but feel that they are played at the wrong time of the season and detract from the County Championship which should have priority. As for the new 100 competition that is the worst thing thought up so far and will not, I feel, attract hordes of new followers to the game.
I must be honest @wingnut and confess total ignorance about ‘the 100 competition ‘. Is it 100 balls (odd!) and is it intended purely for county matches? I’ve been a great fan of 3 day (?now 4 day) county matches since the early ‘fifties when, during Maidstone Cricket Week, I used to walk the few hundred yards from school to the Mote cricket ground to watch the last couple of hours play. In my mind’s eye I can still see the scoreboard on one occasion showing not out batsmen (the two Arthurs - Fagg and Phebey) both on scores approaching centuries.
I’ve always loved Test cricket and, when working in London in the ‘sixties and ‘seventies, I often used to walk to the nearest radio & television shop in the lunch hour to watch (in black and white) a few minutes of the latest test match. No sound of course and it could be frustrating waiting for the scoreboard to be shown.
I’ve enjoyed many of England’s T20 matches, not least the hugely enjoyable World Cup series a few years ago, and the odd County T20 when Kent have been playing (and usually losing!). The short/very short versions, sadly, are set to become the norm and, if that’s all that’s available, I’d rather watch that than nothing at all.
What on earth were the Indian authorities thinking about when they allowed 60,000 plus spectators in to those two T20s ?
Surely not the money.
The 100 is indeed 100 balls a side, and competed for not by counties but by new 'franchises,' with youth friendly names such as the Birmingham Bad Bashers and the Hampshire Heavy Hitters. Something like that anyway.
Hell’s Bells. Might have to draw the line!