The England test team doesn’t have many strengths these days. But it can win, and usually does, if the groundsman prepares an archetypal seamer’s wickets and the weather Gods feel sympathetic enough to provide overcast skies. This is the brew that’s been hiding our general frailties for a few years now. And this very specific elixir – this time gobbled up gratefully by Broad and Woakes – came to our rescue once again at Lord’s on Friday.
Ireland needed 182 for victory this morning, and once canny observers looked up at the skies, and noted the typically overcast conditions, they realised it was an extremely difficult task. Forget all the hype about Ireland pulling off a sensational chase. It was never realistically going to happen unless England bowled particularly badly and a couple of Irish lads played out of their skin. The Ireland team simply doesn’t have enough (or any?) quality batsmen.
Ireland’s demise was quicker than most of us expected – we can thanks Woakes and Broad for hitting the right areas immediately and relentlessly – but an England win was always on the cards. And now the management can spin their usual positives faster than a gambler spinning online pokies nz. Yes, it was a good comeback in the end, but we played quite poorly for six of the game’s eight sessions. And extremely badly in the first one. England’s batting is a mess, and deep down everyone knows it. The fact that Jack Leach was named man of the match – for his batting – shows what strange and unsettling times we live in.
What astonishes me is that so many observers are putting down England’s lamentable showing in the first innings, and their fairly mediocre performance in the second, to burn out or exhaustion after the World Cup. I’m sorry to break this to you guys, but we’re about to embark on five test matches in the space of about five or six weeks. Things aren’t going to get much better from a burn out perspective. If tiredness is going to be the excuse now, what are they going to say in early September?
What’s more, the notion that England should have rested even more players from playing this week is bizarre. Do they really want all their key players to go into an Ashes series without playing (in some cases) a single first class match this year? It’s ridiculous. I would’ve told Stokes and Buttler to play their best, win in three days, and then put their feet up.
The bottom line is this. The Ashes start next week. And never before in the history of English cricket will we field such an underprepared side. It’s a massive casino online usa style gamble. And the schedulers have been reckless with our Ashes dreams. Our only hope is that several members of the Australian squad have also been involved in the World Cup and might feel similarly jaded and under-cooked.
There is one caveat to this assumption though. Aussie captain Tim Paine (and batting coach Graeme Hick) have been quietly preparing for for this series for quite a long time. What’s more, a few of the Australian squad – James Pattinson and Cameron Bancroft immediately come to mind- have been playing a lot of first class cricket recently and look in very good form. England, on the other hand, will have been preoccupied with the World Cup and will have to concoct all their strategies at very short notice. It’s totally inadequate.
Talking of the Australia squad, what do y’all make of it? It’s pretty much as we expected. The batting looks weak, with two notable exceptions, but the bowling looks absolutely stacked. Australia could pick any three of Starc, Hazlewood, Cummins, Pattinson, and Siddle without weakening the team at all. And then there’s the possibility of Jhye Richardosn, who’s one of the (if not the) most exciting fast bowling prospects in the world joining the squad at some stage.
At this point my gut tells me that the series will be decided by three factors (a) who wins the crucial tosses, (b) whether Root and Buttler can score as many as Smith and Warner, and (c) whether Australia’s less celebrated batsman – the likes of Head, Bancroft, Harris, Khawaja, or whoever they pick – can chip in with more runs that England’s collection of unproved (or just not very good) batsmen.
I expect both attacks to cause absolute mayhem so I think the bowling will be a score draw.
Before I sign off, I’d quickly like to acknowledge that this was a 4-day test – something I haven’t mentioned this week. What a load of absolute bollocks that idea was. May it never be repeated.
James Morgan
Written in collaboration with Casino US and Casino NZ
So, if you or anyone actually watched the Irish batting you’ll see they kept trying to drive balls that were only moving a little but enough down the ground.. anyone , even amateurs know you need to go more off side or you’ll Nick it. Shock horror, they nicked it time and time again or simply missed straight ones or were out slogging
The only English batter who even tried to play test cricket was leech.. the rest, as usual… (so nit a one off at all!!!) we’re out playing classic white ball innings stuff where it’s a few dots and must do something.. must be positive.. must put the pressure on the bowler and all that utter rubbish..
England were simply god awful and got away with it as Ireland are utterly utterly dire
Ashes will be fun but only because both sides are crap
Not that you’d know that.. Bairstow.. mr avg 35 but 29 for years now is ‘world class’ and keeps being lauded as. Top order bat
Stokes.. another who avg 35… yet everyone says he’s ‘world class’ and ‘quality test bat’
Our top three is pathetic.. so pathetic we’ve brought in a white ball tonker in the hope he ‘comes off’
To be fair to Stokes he is also a good third or fourth seamer and a wonderful fielder. He should certainly be in the team (batting 6 or 7). He’s no Jacques Kallis (who is?) but he’s a good all rounder.
Otherwise I am afraid I agree with your (slightly jaundiced) views. It’s not great when you expect the team to be 40 for 3.
I didn’t say stokes wasn’t good enough to be in the team, he’s the 4th seamer who can bat . He’s a 6/7 and if he bats there and bowls then fair enough.
If he isn’t bowling enough he doesn’t deserve to be in the side as he’s not a test quality batsmen in his own right
What a load of absolute bollocks that idea was. May it never be repeated.
If Test cricket and Lord’s are synonymous to you it’s probably escaped your notice that shorter Tests and three, two even one, match ‘series’ are rapidly becoming the norm. Traditional Test cricket is now only played between England and Australia. There has only been one 5 day, 5 match series THIS CENTURY which didn’t feature England or Australia, and, for the most part, both.
This Test revealed the stark reality that you can’t put almost all of your resources into white ball cricket yet still produce Test batsmen. Even before this (mis) match started, it was clear that England were fielding a batting line up which, Root excepted, was not of Test standard.
The main bollocks of the idea, as I said on an earlier thread, is the scheduled expectation of bowling 98 overs in a day.
Sadly, where are the test batsmen in the form of Strauss, Cook, Trott, Bell , collingwood going to come from ?? Amateurs now don’t play any format which promotes batting.. pros are so focussed on money which is in the white ball format so promote hitting within their ranks (counties like Northants, glos etc literally only bother with white ball).. then we expect these players to be able to change years of learning and conditioning of the mind and technique .. no chance to all but a rare rare few ..
Until the formats promote proper batting where patience, technique, discipline are rewarded test cricket will continue to decline both in quality at first but in popularity a speople won’t be interested in elongated Odis
Foo foo it all people want but it’s true.
Yes, used to be a difference between T20 and ODI, such that there were three types of the game, each with its own style.
Now that ODI has become T50 it is no surprise that Test Cricket is losing, with a rebrand to T5day (or more like T4day or T3day).
Sad, sad, sad.
RIP Test Cricket.
Oh, for the days of hiding under the covers with a crystal radio listening to the (real) ASHES!
One benefit of this match was that it gave Woakes a chance to adjust back to red ball bowling. That it took him a full innings to do so does make me worry about how the likes of Stokes will adjust (as a bowler) with no games before the 1st test. It also confirmed my long held belief that in English conditions pure pace is much less important than control and the ability to move the ball late and with variation. But I fully expect the selectors to go something like Anderson, Broad, Stokes and Archer (if fit) and ignore Woakes – just as they did for the military medium, from the hand, inswingers of Sam Curran last year. And they will probably go with Curran if not Archer.
Sky had a “last man stands” show on.. great fun watching players battle for the draw.. Anderson, Finn, onions , oanassar … just don’t see that anymore.. no collingwood or prior heroics.. Ponting 166 and nearly saving Aus..
The modern player would ‘counter attack’ and hit and hope .
Formats and white ball is killing the game. It really is jut a hitting fest.
Women’s game tonight is yet another pointless one sided affair .. one side scores too many and the other 99% of the time just collapses.. zero drama, zero tension.. zero interest
These games won’t ever bring in crowds or new players
The problem can be encapsulated within Roots Press interview where he blamed the pitch for the batting travails, not a shred of blame on the once again hapless upper order batting.
Our ‘leader’ hides from responsibility with where he insists upon batting even though it is clearly counter to England’s best interests , when we fail, it is always the fault of somebody else. Sadly we have a side which epitomises the leader, gutless and an excuses culture.
On the flip side Leach who showed such commitment will almost certainly be one dropped for that cardinal sin but Roy did impress but needs to against sterner opposition, however given that Root has said the pitch was impossible to bat on, Leach and Roy I assume are the second and third comings of Mr Bradman!!
Here’s what I can’t understand:
Root started his career as an opener. So he should be perfect for no. 3. Instead, he’s hiding down the order, terrified of the new ball, and sending mediocrities like Denly ahead of him.
If Kane Williamson can bat at 3 for NZ, why can’t Root do it for Eng?
Kane is slightly different to root. Kane is better at dealing with the new ball but less effective than root, at being ‘busy’.
Had to describe really but they are very different, different skill sets
No. 4 is hardly ‘hiding down the order’. Root has a higher batting average at no.4 than at no. 3…
PS He’s not Kane Williamson. Not a sensible comparison!
This fascination with root moving up the order… you know he’s pretty crap against the moving ball right !?! He’s a natural 4/5 (similar to bell).. why waste him just because englsnd , the ECB and counties cba to produce proper batsmen
Root is pretty crap against the moving ball. What planet are you on?
Even the likes of Boycott and Atherton praise him as one of the best technicians they’ve seen.
His entire technique is based around waiting for the ball and playing it off the pitch, the most obvious way of playing a moving ball successfully. That’s what makes him a stand out player. The problem he has is a tendency to play too many shots too soon, due to his increasing exposure to white ball batting. It’s not a technical problem, it’s a mentality one that he shares with pretty much every county cricketer, but would we have won the World Cup without his contributions?
We all know what the problem is, it’s how to address it with the players we have available. To me it’s a question of replacing the idea of dominating the bowler with one of thou shalt not pass.
With Mr Ed and Taylor as the brain’s trust and Bayliss in the wings and their fettish for bits and pieces players, this is not going to happen in a hurry. You need an obdurate temperament for this, very difficult to develop in an increasingly hectic environment, where instant entertainment is the key.
Good points but I do think Root plays slightly too much between point and gully to be an effective opener. Therefore he’d worry me slightly at 3 too. I think he could be a very good 3, for all the reasons you say, but he’s a world class 4.
“I do think Root plays slightly too much between point and gully to be an effective opener”
Well, he got into the England team as an opener, so…
He as also dropped as an opener.
I think if Root is comfortable at 4 then that’s where he should play rather than come in when England are one down in the second over. I see that Foakes, Leach are omitted and no chance for Sibley. Mmm. So we keep a currently hopelessly out of form Burns, Bairs tow and Moen ( who I wouldn’t pick currently in a county 2nd eleven). Christ, Leach must have felt on top of the world and is dropped. The policy of one day “all rounders” continues in this closed shop old boy if your face fits network. 30/3 or worse.
He can come in with England 2 down in the fifth over then.
In the winter I made a comment about him coming in one ball later. Unfortunately, when they tried Moeen at 3, that was prescient!
A top three of Burns, Roy and Denly is a disaster waiting to happen. I don’t care about “Root’s a natural four” (whatever that is); he simply must bat at 3.
Very simple question for all the naysayers – who else is better qualified to bat at three?
I seem to remember a certain Geoff Boycott’s favourite shot was the punched square cut through point and gully, often using the pace of the ball to help it on its way. In the absence of anyone else who seems capable of playing the ball late, Root at his best, seems better suited to No 3 than any of the available alternatives.
Lots of good players are strong through point i.e. the cut. I’m talking about defence more than anything else. Root often defends with quite an open face and some teams, including Australia, believe he has a weakness there. Boycott played very straight. I think more of a concern, at the moment, is Root’s tendency to fall over and lose his balance – thus making him an LBW candidate. It’s a fact with Root that he averages more and more the lower down the order he goes.
I’m thinking more of what’s best for the team. That is trying to avoid the losing of early wickets and surely players with the tightest technique should be at the top of the order. For me Root’s style doesn’t square with middle order strokeplay. We have plenty of those type of batsmen, what we need is someone who can play the moving ball, which means playing it late off the pitch. Root is clearly the best available at doing this, so for the sake of the team should be prepared to sacrifice his comfort zone
We lose early wickets and even at four he’ll be in against the new ball.
Good to see Broad with that glint in his eye and Stone bowling with the hostility and accuracy he regularly does for Warwickshire. We need their competitive drive, especially with Archer, Wood and Anderson doubts.
I’m sure the Edgbaston pitch will be more batsmen friendly than Lords.
Anyone watching over the last few days could see their was a massive hangover from 7 weeks of white ball batting, even Root showing signs of this frailty. I’m not using this an excuse, but most of those not involved in the campaign played noticably better and at least Woakes woke up a bit today.
The worry for me is the form of Burns, for whom there is no obvious replacement. Roy only knows one way to play and was pretty lucky against Ireland that his cavalier approach yielded so many runs. I don’t think the general batting malaise is a technical issue so much as a mentality one. When you’re in white ball mode all your instinctive reactions as a batsmen have to be tuned into that. How to you come down from that adrenaline rush of runs to letting potential boundary balls go for the sake of staying in to build a foundation, especially with all those gaps you never get in white ball field settings.
Sorry but despite poor batting on both sides and seamer friendly conditions you can’t tell me that was a good Test wicket. 2 and a bit days, 40 wickets. Come on.
Agree totally. This year’s Lords wickets have been disappointing and there isn’t much time to reverse the trend before the Ashes test. It’s certainly produced incident, but mostly at the expense of good cricket.
The Ireland wicket was only half way into the third day, normally a good batting day and was already behaving like a day 4 or 5 pitch, regularly seaming with variable bounce.
We don’t need a road, just a surface that doesn’t deteriorate so quickly.
Correct and not an isolated event at Lord’s. the three World Cup strips were dreadful.
There is a new groundsman at Lord’s this year I believe.
Hopeful not from the Steve ‘must put the hoses on’ Rouse school. I’ve seen players running off the field at the end of play to avoid being soaked by sprinklers whatever the weather.
Any half decent gardener will tell you that if you Over water grass it doesn’t develop the roots you need to hold the subsoil together, as they have no incentive to go deeper to find water. Hence leaving more grass on the surface for fear of exposed soil crumbling.
I don’t think that makes much of a difference – wickets take a long time to develop. I think there are two key issues. First, we are used to Tests being played on one of the three centre strips. The square at Lord’s is larger than at most grounds to accommodate the number of matches played there and the further you get from the centre, the more variable the quality. This one was played further from the centre than any other Test I have seen.
Second, pacé Geoffrey, with floodlights and modern draining systems we are playing Tests in conditions which the likes of Dickie Bird would never have allowed (remember the Centenary Test?). Such conditions favour bowlers, especially those used to English conditions.
Having said that, this result came about because of rank bad batting and, some excellent bowling.
Having been a groundsman’s assistant, admittedly only at amateur league level, I beg to differ. It’s the quickest way to produce specific bowler friendly conditions. If you know what you’re doing you can alter the nature of a wicket from one week to the next, as we frequently did, depending on the bowling personnel available, merely by watering at different rates. Then you shave different amounts off the surface to encourage either seam or spin, or both. Another trick was to sow different types of grass on different areas of the square, so you had a natural aid to producing the strips you wanted.
Good wickets will only delvelop over time if you let the right sort of grass develop strong roots evenly over the whole square.
An experienced international side being 85 all out and 70-7 against a country trundler attack on a pitch where a nightwatchman scores 92 and his partner 72? No, it might not be a free scoring run fest but in no way does that account for Enland’s display with the bat. Jonny Bairstow, bowled and LBW for a pair – was that down to the pitch? Moeen Ali playing at a delivery sailing over the stumps, players chasing wide deliveries and edging off to slip. Blaming the pitch is weak and cowardly and goes a long way to explain why England have only managed a score of 400+ once in, what is it, 3 years? The statistics and performances simply aren’t on England’s side to dismiss this as a “blame the pitch” test match
Nobody’s dismissing poor technique by blaming the pitch, but you expect a better surface from ‘The Home’ of the game. We’re not asking for a road, just something that holds up for a couple of days. Half way through day 3 the wicket should still be decent for batting in a test match. What’s bothering folk is that this is becoming a disturbing Lords trend under the latest groundsman.
I don’t think anyone on this blog has not been openly critical of our test batting in recent years.
So we can blame the groundsmen but not the players involved because that’s not how they do things. Constant excuses made for this pampered lot and I’m sick of it. Joe Root blames the pitch but can’t even bring himself to say he should have done more. The wicket was perfectly fine for most of day 2 when England were 171-1. Even Alastair Cook was bemused at the collapse.
How many English wickets that fell would you put down to a treacherous pitch? Enough’s enough of this nonsense, it is time for Joe Root to either grow up and lead or step aside and let someone else do it because this current England side is a lads on tour closed shop. Jonny Bairstow since beginning of 2018 has faced 40 deliveries that were going on to hit the stumps from pace bowlers, and got out 8 times – it’s not the pitch’s fault if he is trying to smash it out of the ground
No one is using the groundsman as an excuse for rank bad batting and no one on this blog was bemused by England’s collapses against Ireland, the general consensus being it was the weakest top 6 most can remember, but you expect a better prepared wicket for a test than one that behaved like a day 4 pitch much of the time with a lot of variable bounce by day 3, when conditions were treacherous. A normal test pitch in this country should be at its best of days 2 and 3. It is concerning that the home of this great game doesn’t seem to be able to produce test standard pitch, by that I mean one that doesn’t deteriorate markedly after a couple of days.
It will be interesting to see what happens during the second test there next month, as the weather is due to remain unsettled for some time, which will affect preparation.
All this debate about whether Root bats at no 3, centres on England’s inability to find a specialist no 3 who can play good Test Cricket. It isn’t Root’s fault that England can’t find a decent no 3 batter. After all, no one tells Virat Kohli, he should bat at 3 for India as they have a very good 3 in Pujara. Let Root bat at 4 and redouble our efforts to find a no 3. Jennings anyone?
4 days test. I’m surprised they don’t make it a 4 day two innings 100 overs a day – limit each innings to 100 overs and you can count down the innings over by over to make it more “exciting”. I hope the ECB don’t read this comment.
Here’s an idea. Let’s play a ten day test with 100 balls per day ;-)
Don’t even think that!! There’s bound to be some ‘Apprentice’ bright spark out there thinking. That’s sounds like an idea we can market. I’ll take it to Lord ‘twat’ Sugar for some ground breaking ideas.
At last someone speaking out about state of the Lord’s wicket (that Aggers for example described as ‘blameless): https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/jul/26/joe-root-substandard-lords-pitch-england-ireland-test
We have no idea from this match how things will go next week – we can however guess that there is nothing or very little the new groundsman at Lord’s can do about the Ashes wicket there -it sits at the heart of the last 4 wickets prepared for the 5 WC matches and the EngvIre match.
We cannot tell, but has Ireland matted first they may have made 87 in their first innings and 250-300 in their second. And who dares argue that England would not have been skittle if they had batted on yesterdays suface in yesterdays conditions>
One further point: umpires are getting sides out after rain too quickly to avoid crowd complaints. It ruins matches because it brings back the unfairness that uncovered pitches brought – the luck of the weather.
It is ok when your side benefits but cruel in reverse.Prior to the famous Ashes Trent Bridge 1st day, there was a sharp shower on the uncovered wicket shortly after the toss and before play started. The ground staff were slow to react (and Trent Bridge staff are usually the quickest (training on the old Boots ground nearby). Umpires took the teams out very quickly afterwards and Broad had his field day.
Wasn’t the shocking Aussie batting at all.. playing flashing drives to balls that could be left.. or playing half a mile in front of their bodies ( a la white ball).. trying to be ‘positive’ rather than digging in while it moves ..
Yeah, defo the pitches fault
Agreed, but sub standard pitches don’t help do they. May just as well go the whole hog and go back to uncovered wickets.
Ha Ha! In case you weren’t there here’s the CricInfo commentary – basically a sharp shower on the uncovered and already green wicket at 10.45. After the toss. Covers brought on. Covers removed 10.55. Umpires get play underway at 11.05. A great deal of confusion because the rain was harder in different parts of the ground.
The general point is that this is becoming a less and less of an isolated event with umpires clearly directed to get play going as quickly as possible. ( motivated to look at this again by an interesting BBC sounds with Broad revisiting that spell). If you are neutral, that Test was ruined by that decision. If the positions had been reversed England would have been shot out for a similar score.
Here’s the cricinfo commentary to be read bottom upwards:
10.55am The good news is that the main cover is being removed. Looks like we should start on time. Ah, well, in fact we’ll have a five minute delay. We’ll being at 11.05am.
Phil: “Has Cook chosen to bowl to exploit the conditions, or because he’s worried that the swinging conditions would suit Australia’s attack and he’d rather bat under sunny skies tomorrow? Shades of Nasser at Gabba in 2002” Certainly not a Nasser decision. Very justifiable to bowl first. Now have to bowl well, of course. Perhaps a bit more of a gamble with James Anderson.
strangepasserby: “Want to know why Adam Voges has kept his place? In his Trent Bridge career he’s scored 1179 first-class runs at 45.34 with 12 fifties.”
Bharath Seervi: “Stuart Broad is playing his 83rd Test match. This is only his 6th test without James Anderson in the playing XI. ” He’ll be feeling lonely.
10.50am There is about to be a tribute to Clive Rice. He had a prolific career for Nottinghamshire. Will be minute’s applause rather than silence.
Devendra: “Enormous gesture of the applause for Clive Rice. Very touching. Great way to start the Test!”
10.45am Oh dear. The covers are being pulled into a place. A sprinkling of rain. Nothing too bad at the moment. Well, now it’s not so good. “Raining quite hard,” says Tom Kingham
Even ‘aggers’ could have got a few wickets on that track. That’s how helpful it was.
Aggers was a decent county bowler over promoted because the cupboard was bare – hardly his fault : and his (admittedly few) Test wickets did include Richards and Greenidge !
I couldn’t get too excited about this “Test” other than to say it might well have infringed the Trades Description Act.
Ireland bowled well and England (exc Leach) batted badly. Broad and Woakes bowled very well in helpful conditions and and
Ireland responded with very poor batting. An experiment which I hope will not be repeated.
I don’t blame the pitch at all but overhead conditions and inept batting (by both sides).
As an aside the Womens team seem to be in denial about their marked inferiority to Lanning and co.
The chickens have come home to roost. Test cricket batting is in the dumps thanks to white ball cricket. Joe Root is laughably trying to spin his way out of the woeful batting by blaming everything on the pitch – a very weak leader. It’s sad going into an ashes where the biggest point of debate is who is more tired and jaded of the two sides.
Joe Root though, 85 all out and 70-7 at home to Ireland, and he’s saying he’s quite pleased about it all and that it was a nightmare pitch (not sure how charging down the wicket and wafting at a county trundler or disastrously running your partner out is the pitches fault). I know there are people saying “he’s not going to give it away on the eve of an ashes”, what’s there to give away? This isn’t new, he’s more interested in covering for his mates than making England a top class test match side
The England squad has had a ‘let’s close ranks’ approach against any criticism for years. Root is no different to his predecessors. No captain or manager of any international side is going to come out and admonish his players in public for any journalist to make copy out of. It’s the old adage ‘what happens in the dressing room stays in the dressing room’ and clearly something happened in there to change the attitude of this team mid way through the Ireland game. Only big mouths like Pieterson have not respected this and spoken out.
I’m not expecting Root to go out and single players for criticism, I am expecting a leader to show some accountability of which there has been precious little for years. A closed shop underachieving batting line up with one test match score over 400 in 3 years making the same mistakes over and over does not say to me that things are different in the dressing room. Forget opposition and giving media soundbytes, it’s a complete lack of respect for people who pay to turn up at the ground to see constant capitulations and “well that’s how we play” excuses. If we can’t read the riot act after the 4th 10 wickets lost in a single session since 2016 (with the previous before that being 1938!) when on earth can we??
Try and have a guess at how many different number 3s we’ve had, then realise they’re all the same players in this squad, just shuffling around. Bairstow, Ali, Root, Stokes have all had a go there. It’s not just a mentality, it is a closed shop and Root is completely out of his depth as captain
I also don’t know what happened half way through because bar Leach (a night watchman) and Roy – everyone else did pretty much the same thing. Goodness, without that partnership at the end between Curran and Broad, Ireland..IRELAND…are looking at a score <130 to win their first ever test match at only the third attempt
The bowling and general demeanour on the field was noticeably more aggressive after tea on the first day, when everyone clearly did not do much the same thing as earlier in the day.
Give us a suggestion as to whom is a better option than Root as captain. I don’t hear many of the pundits, most of whom are ex test players, complaining he’s out of his depth. You can’t blame him for his individual players short comings. Clearly he is young and without much captaincy experience beforehand, but there’s no Brearley in the wings who has.
Saying he is out of his depth because of his performances in front of the media is ludicrous as no England capatain I can remember has ever told it like it was after a day’s play with the possible exception of Hussein, who always pledged to fight back the next day. They’re all very conscious of creating a negativite atmosphere that communicates itself to the players. They all know the media is looking for any excuse to jump on the bandwagon. Look at the way the likes of Illingworth used to patronise the media to detract attention from a poor day on the field.
How would you deal with media questions when you know there is no one out there you can bring in as a quick fix for batting problems that are obvious to everyone?
Six seam bowlers plus Stokes in a 14 man squad. This is for a 5 day Test, not a six month tour of Australasia.
Clearly the batting isn’t a problem – indeed Root has said as much.
The batting is a less problematic selection as there’s hardly a player you can think of whose pushing the present incumbents for a place, unless you go back to the likes of Vince and Malan, which I personally would in place of the clearly out of sorts Burns and the ‘bits and pieces’ Denly, whereas the seam bowling clearly has a comparatively rich vein to select from, although there are a couple of fitness issues there, probably the main reason for a top heavy bowling selection.
England batting – just crap. Blame it on the pitch? Root has lost any respect that he ever had now. England don’t have a top order just a bunch of clowns.
I repeat, 40 wickets in two days is not just down to bad batting by 20 player’s or great bowling by all bowlers. That’s completely unrealistic. The pitch was not up to standard for Test cricket.
That’s not Roots fault. He just has to deal with it as part of the job. After all he batted on it, so should have some sort of informed opinion. The pitch clearly was a factor, to suggest it’s irrelevant is ludicrous.
What I say is put the brain’s trust up there for a grilling, Messers Smith and Taylor, who do the selecting.
In fact it is very rare for captains to criticize wickets at this level of the game. Six matches have been played on four strips all within an area of 400 m2 on a field in St Johns Wood, London. Within that area lies the wicket that the second Test v Australia will be played. The square is infested with fungus producing fairy rings. A bad wicket exposes and magnifies technical weakness. But technical prowess and run scoring efficiency are not simply related. Do we really want the Second Test to be decided on the result of the toss? Or on the weather?. Do we not want a match to use almost all of the time available to it?
Maybe it’s time Lords dug up the whole strip and relaid it. The supposed ” home of cricket” should be producing decent strips in this day and age. In fairness it’s not just Lords that’s had a number of two day or less games this year: Taunton, Canterbury and Chelmsford to name another 3. Maybe The weather had an effect, but unfortunately there just may be other dubious reasons in some cases. In the Championship the pitch inspector is only called if the umpires request it, previously 15 wkts or more on day one automatically triggered a visit, but I don’t know what the rules are for Internationals?
The dominance of ball over bat aligned perfectly with the change in overhead conditions, there was nothing wrong with the pitch on day 2.
It’s no coincidence Leach and Roy’s partnership took place during the most favourable weather conditions of the 3 days.
As they say at Lord’s you look up not down – blaming the pitch is a lazy conclusion.
Spare a thought for Denly, I thought he look our most assured batsman 1st innings in trying conditions and was largely untroubled until Root’s brain fade in the 2nd.
You thought ‘The Hundred’ was going to be a slogfest, try the Freesport channel, which is currently showing the European Cricket League finals at Rachel Heyhoe-Flint’s La Manga ground in Spain.
8 Champion teams from Italy, Spain and Russia amongst others, mostly with local Asian players, no hired hands here, compete in 10 over pyjama matches with a 50 metre boundary.
The match I watched had the Russian team winning the toss and fielding first. When asked why, the captain said ‘don’t know, I’ve just got a gut Instinct’
At least the weather’s was good.