I don't know why but I really dislike his action. It's the antithesis to the elegance of Rabada's.
South Africa's pace attack is looking as scary as ever though. They just keep churning them out.
Cricket
- Thread starter EdWeatherall
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I don't know why but I really dislike his action. It's the antithesis to the elegance of Rabada's.
South Africa's pace attack is looking as scary as ever though. They just keep churning them out.
Action seems okay to me, I've not followed this series that well but it seems every wicket he has taken is of a short ball.
Saffers will be good in future. Bowling as you say is good whilst in Maharaj they've got a decent spinner. Markram looks incredible too in batting.
Olivier will probably struggle outside of SA/OZ but he bowls quick. Ngidi will probably be ahead of him when he comes back from injury.
Kohli with a clean sweep of every award at the ICC awards 
I don't think SA will be winning a world event this time either. AB's retirement has fecked up their batting lineup.
So it seems that Sarfaraz is an idiot and a racist.
Has anyone seen the twitter spat between KP and Jamie Porter?! As if we needed a reminder of what a cock womble KP is....
Eh? That Jamie Porter(who) was acting like a banter master on twitter and got his come uppance, not sure how KP is at fault there.
Didn't expect us to clean up NZ so easily
Didn't expect us to clean up NZ so easily
KULCHA Magic.
Also love how well Shami is bowling. Our bowling is really world class.
It really is. Can argue that we need more consistency, but it's so potent and complimentary throughout.
Bowling wise we've been very consistent I think. Its just our middle order which is holding us back. The top3 and bowling is the best in the world in LOI.
Don't like that England side at all. 3 seamers, 2 picked because of their batting, and 2 spinners, both picked because they can hold a bat.
Curran at 9 against West Indies is one of the most negative cricketing decisions I've seen.
@NinjaFletch and whoever else can answer - where can I listen to UK radio commentary of the test matches? I am not from the UK as you may know - I am curious to give it a listen.
Talksport have the rights in the UK
Not sure if you can stream that abroad
Works, thank you
What's so negative about it? Curran is more in the side because he's a left-arm seamer. I think Woakes and Curran are pretty even on batting skill.
Stokes gets in the team because he's Stokes. Moeen is our best spinner. I'd have Leach over Rashid and I think Curran and Woakes are pretty even with the bat so the fact Curran's a left-armer gets him ahead of Woakes and Broad.
I don't see why England should change a formula that's works for them.
He's not good enough as a specialist bowler. At 9, 10 and 11 you pick bowlers for wickets. I'd say the same about 8 as well.
Broad is a better pick surely.
England may still have enough about them to win the match, but the exclusion of Broad looks like a mistake. We've got plenty of batting in theory, so having Ali at 8, Curran at 9 and Rashid at 10 looks like overkill. I'd have preferred Broad in place of one of those.
I don't disagree to be fair. However England have settled upon a formula of sorts recently and it's not only successful but it produces good cricket too, I don't see why they'd diverge too much from it.
Because these are different conditions and they need Broad who is a better bowler than Curran especially if you are playing 2 spinners. Curran is not a second seamer.
I like the cut of Hetmyer's jib.
He's batting in a floppy hat, I'm in love.
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Obviously I'm being slightly unfair to both Stokes and Ali for the sake of hyperbole, it's the other two selections that have got my goat.
Rashid and Ali offer similar things with the ball (despite their action) whereas Leach can actually hold an end up. Curran has shown very little to suggest he can be the second of three man bowling attack (and tbh I think unless he cranks on about 5mph he'll only pick up wickets against teams that shit the bed against swing at home) and if he's batting as low as 9 then it's an odd luxury.
I'm not sure you can really defend either on the basis of a 'formula' either. We won in Sri Lanka playing 3 spinners (and I'd argue precisely because we ripped up the 'formula') and ended the summer playing four seamers and two spinners.
The formula being batting by committee more than anything else. I think England's issue is more about having no one with raw pace rather than specific personnel, Archer will hopefully change this.
Was hoping we wouldn't pick Curran (didn't know there was a forum for this kind of chat).
If you look at his major contributions since he got into the side they've all been with the bat, apart from that burst at Edgbaston. We're basically picking a batting all-rounder at 9.
I'd have picked Stone personally. We need to get some more pace into the team ASAP. It's a year since we got smashed by Australia and we still havent played anyone who can bowl 90+ (Stokes aside). We're going to keep getting walloped overseas until that.changes.
Was in favour of Rashid because he should be a bigger threat than Leach on flat pitches. Hasn't bowled well today though.
If you look at his major contributions since he got into the side they've all been with the bat, apart from that burst at Edgbaston. We're basically picking a batting all-rounder at 9.
I'd have picked Stone personally. We need to get some more pace into the team ASAP. It's a year since we got smashed by Australia and we still havent played anyone who can bowl 90+ (Stokes aside). We're going to keep getting walloped overseas until that.changes.
Was in favour of Rashid because he should be a bigger threat than Leach on flat pitches. Hasn't bowled well today though.
Agree. His main skill is as a batsman so he should be competing for a batting spot, not a bowling one.
It worked against India and SL because other bowlers were dominant in those conditions. But until he can get a place in the top 6 (and that will probably happen soon given his talent) he shouldn't be in the side.
He's probably taken a wicket as I've written this...
He's injured...
It's one thing to be picking bowlers who can bat though, it's another to be picking bowlers because they can bat. Especially when you have a proper batsman coming in at 8 anyway. I'm just not at all convinced anyone actually believes Curran is more of a threat than Woakes or Broad (especially given reports of his current form) with the ball, and I think it's more about masking a weakness.
His back broke.
I still think the tiebreaker in the decision was Curran being a left-armer because I don't think he's much of a better batsman than Woakes. It's an imperfect team, England desperately need batsmen to start locking down positions in the top 3. And with all that said, if Buttler didn't shell Hetmyer they'd be looking pretty good today.
Anderson, still the best in the business, fantastic figures!
Well, relatively. The truth is West Indies aren't a very good side and, as well as they've batted, they have been helped by the fact they could dead bat Anderson and cash in on Curran (who, I have to admit, I don't see having a long term England career unless he gets either considerably quicker or improves his batting) and Ali (in particular).
Fair enough, cheers for the info. Stand corrected. We should have picked broad or woakes in that case then.
Yeah. From what I've seen the pitch is slow (getting quicker though) and the ball is swinging early from the hand, we'll know better after both teams have batted but I think it's a better pitch than 260 odd for 7.
Agree completely with the top bit. If our batting is that weak that we need to pay batsmen at 9 or 10, we need to change the batting lineup.
Stokes is becoming a fantastic all-round cricketer too. This will be the year he becomes truly world-class.
Very good bowling with the new ball, don’t get why the umpires took the players off, why not let them bowl the final 4 deliveries