Cricket

The Telegraph is reporting Jason Gillespie set to speak to Strauss about being the next England coach. Strauss will assure him he'll have full control over team affairs, unless he wants Pietersen in his team of course.

Also, the ICC is considering altering the balance between bat and ball in 50 over cricket. The removal of the batting power play, as well as slightly more lenient fielding restrictions. Four allowed outside the circle in overs 11-40. Up to five outside the 30 yard circle in the last ten overs.
 
Mitchell Nicholas said:
The Telegraph is reporting Jason Gillespie set to speak to Strauss about being the next England coach. Strauss will assure him he'll have full control over team affairs, unless he wants Pietersen in his team of course.

Also, the ICC is considering altering the balance between bat and ball in 50 over cricket. The removal of the batting power play, as well as slightly more lenient fielding restrictions. Four allowed outside the circle in overs 11-40. Up to five outside the 30 yard circle in the last ten overs.
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"Full control over team affairs" as long as he only picks players he's allowed to pick. Pietersen will always be the elephant in the room, everyone except the ECB and their new mouthpiece Strauss knows that. They're hoping he will just go away, de-materialise or be beamed up. He won't though, and every failure by every batsman this Summer will bring the Pietersen issue right back to the forefront.

They've made their bed, they can lie on it.
 
Rednotdead said:
"Full control over team affairs" as long as he only picks players he's allowed to pick. Pietersen will always be the elephant in the room, everyone except the ECB and their new mouthpiece Strauss knows that. They're hoping he will just go away, de-materialise or be beamed up. He won't though, and every failure by every batsman this Summer will bring the Pietersen issue right back to the forefront.

They've made their bed, they can lie on it.
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Absolutely. Cook is such a weak captain.
 
According to Sky sources, the ECB has approached Yorkshire coach Jason Gillespie about the vacant England head coaching role. BBC going with the story too.
 
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Samid said:
ICC can feck off. Bunch of proper cnuts.
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zing said:
Eh?

Only people in the wrong here is ZC.. I would be terrified of touring Pakistan as a player.
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Pretty much agree with Zing here. I feel bad for Pakistanis but Pakistan simply isn't safe. If Sri Lankans were targetted, I wouldn't see why others wouldn't be.
 
i'd go with "england's summer of abject failure and humiliation"
 
Mitchell Nicholas said:
Create one as this is a bit of a mega thread.
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Was expecting some England supporter to do it but they all are too downbeat right now :p I am looking forward to NZ series. Will be good indicator of their progress to add on to last year's test success and world cup run to final.
 
30 runs in 7 overs with 10 wickets in hand is a walk in the park 99,9 % of the times. Only Pakistan can collapse and make a spectacle of it.

Good for the locals finally having some international cricket again after 6 years. Umar Akmal making his home debut after having played 180+ internationals, same with Shehzad (100+ internationals).
 
NinjaFletch said:
Ballance is one of THE positives for England over the past 12 months.

The 9th fastest person of all time to 1000 test runs and averaging over 60. But god forbid he gets two good balls, he must be shite.
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Never said he was shite, but after watching Cook & Stokes score great 100s its hard to focus on anything else :D Cut me bonus slack for Liverpool losing 6-1, too!
 
7. WI 88
8. Ban 88
---
9. Pak 87
10. Ire 50
11. Zim 47

Important ODI series for Pakistan. Any other outcome than a 3-0 whitewash and they can bid farewell to the Champions Trophy next year. Huge risk playing Zimbabwe at this stage. They won't gain any points by winning 3-0 but will lose 2 points if they don't manage that.
 
Samid said:
7. WI 88
8. Ban 88
---
9. Pak 87
10. Ire 50
11. Zim 47

Important ODI series for Pakistan. Any other outcome than a 3-0 whitewash and they can bid farewell to the Champions Trophy next year. Huge risk playing Zimbabwe at this stage. They won't gain any points by winning 3-0 but will lose 2 points if they don't manage that.
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:eek:
Didn't know it was THAT bad, ranking wise. The tournament is in 2017 though, right? What is the cut-off date for finalizing rankings?
 
The Man Himself said:
:eek:
Didn't know it was THAT bad, ranking wise. The tournament is in 2017 though, right? What is the cut-off date for finalizing rankings?
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Right, cut-off is September 30 this year. Don't think WI play in that period. Pak have a five match away series in SL.
 
being lower down than england in any form of odi rankings automatically means you shouldn't be in any competition with the word "champions" in it.
 
Shoaib Malik & Mohammad Sami! Blast from the past that, thought they'd be finished by now.

Uzz said:
I thought the Champions Trophy has been discontinued?
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I think they got rid of it then brought it back after the Test World Cup idea failed.
 
ha_rooney said:
Shoaib Malik & Mohammad Sami! Blast from the past that, thought they'd be finished by now.



I think they got rid of it then brought it back after the Test World Cup idea failed.
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...and now I've just found out they abandoned the Test WC stuff! That was originally pencilled in for 2017, iirc.

Thanks, though!
 
549212_488739791273399_6440667029381767525_n.jpg


;)
 
Was just thinking, are there any great spin bowlers around at the moment? I know Harbhajan is still hanging around but I can't count him these days really. I'm looking at both the main spinners in this Eng v NZ match and they are pretty average, Craig perhaps slightly moreso than Moeen. Lyon's OK but he's hardly Shane Warne, the Windies have a few OK looking spinners but again not exactly top class...

Can anyone think of any proper box office spinners up there with the likes of the excellent crop of fast bowlers (Steyn, Anderson, Johnson (urgh), Starc, Boult, Southee, Broad etc etc) around at the moment?
 
Lovely interview by Virat in here. Long but worth a read, really comes across as a proper student of the game.

http://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/877745/this-is-virat

Also loved this on Rohit Sharma.

It might have. If you see Rohit [Sharma], it is crazy. I have never seen a guy after he gets set be so dangerous. You take the best finishers in the game - [Kieron] Pollard, [James] Faulkner, [Eoin] Morgan - but when Rohit gets set it is almost impossible to stop him. I mean, it is ridiculous the kind of hitting he does after getting 50. You know if Rohit Sharma is on 50 with four overs to go, you are in troubled waters. Literally, save yourself. I'm not joking. Dot balls are absolutely impossible. And he has scored two double-hundreds in ODIs opening the innings.
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Just about to start watching.. but Hazlewood's a proper bowler, isn't he?

Remember reading about him quite a few years back.. injuries happened and now finally has got into the side.
 
Has Starc been bowling well? I think he's shit at test cricket..
 
So who will Australia drop when Harris returns? Assume it will be Starc, but I like the balance of their current line-up.
 
zing said:
Just about to start watching.. but Hazlewood's a proper bowler, isn't he?

Remember reading about him quite a few years back.. injuries happened and now finally has got into the side.
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Reminds of McGrath. Long way to go though in that aspect. Anyway, he has potential to be quite useful to Australia and able partner to someone like Starc in long run. Australia just has never ending assembly line which keeps churning out quality fast bowlers one after other.
 
The Man Himself said:
Reminds of McGrath.
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Hazlewood emulates McGrath

Twenty years ago, Australia's drought-busting defeat of the West Indies at home was rivalled in significance by the emergence of the man who would do as much as anyone to ensure that victory was far from the last. Glenn McGrath arrived in the Caribbean as an auxiliary paceman and left it as Mark Taylor's spearhead, his combination of accuracy and bounce transcending the vagaries of overhead conditions and pitch type.

Now it must be said that Australia in 2015 are a lot more sure of Josh Hazlewood than their 1995 forebears were of McGrath. It must also be acknowledged that the West Indies are nothing like the talented and cocky if not quite united ensemble they were back then. Nevertheless, Hazlewood's performance on day one of the series in Dominica was the centrepiece of the visitors' dominance and a bold pointer to the future.

By setting the tone for Australia's attack with a pair of exacting and incisive spells either side of lunch, Hazlewood demonstrated the problems he will pose for batsmen over the next decade and also the many benefits he will provide for other bowlers around him. He did so by utilising bounce and discipline in a manner that will give many a retired batsman flashbacks to the many indignities they suffered at the hands of McGrath.

Of course there have been comparisons drawn between Hazlewood and McGrath almost from the moment the younger man first played for New South Wales, in a tour match against New Zealand as far back as 2008. But it is fair to say they must now leave the realm of hyperbole and enter that of considered judgment, for the trends are long-running and the evidence solid.

No one had been quite sure what to make of the pitch, as reflected by the fact that a week of talk about spinning decks and tandem tweakers gave way to team selections that included only one slow bowler in each XI. Subtle furrows of green on an otherwise dry square did not suggest seam movement, swing or spin so much as variation in bounce, and it was for this reason Michael Clarke opened up with Mitchell Johnson and Hazlewood after Denesh Ramdin had won what appeared a handy toss.

Early on, Hazlewood was exploratory, figuring out his optimum lengths on this surface. The delivery that found Kraigg Brathwaite's outside edge for a simple catch to Brad Haddin was perfect, on a tight line while neither too short to pull nor too full to drive, but others varied on that theme. An initial joust with Darren Bravo was fascinating, the batsman struck on the helmet by a short one, the bowler relieved from the attack after a pair of boundaries zoomed through mid off and midwicket.

Elsewhere, the Australians were being taken for too many runs as Johnson and Starc offered latitude outside the off stump. Without the slowness of the outfield, the hosts might easily have run up their hundred inside the day's first 90 minutes. As it was, the West Indies were rolling along at four an over when Clarke summoned Hazlewood back to work at the Botanic Gardens End. Wickets had fallen but not in a manner suggesting Australian dictation of the game's tempo.

What followed were three overs for two runs that scotched local momentum and gave Clarke more licence to attack at the other end. Neither Marlon Samuels nor Shane Dowrich could make anything of Hazlewood's jamming length and Spartan line, the merest variation in pace and bounce adding further difficulty to their task. Nathan Lyon was given an over before the break and Hazlewood finished the morning with only one wicket, but he was rewarded immediately in the afternoon when Dowrich aimed a frustrated forcing stroke and dragged on.

Hazlewood's next over rivalled McGrath's famed six-ball examination of Nasser Hussain at the Gabba in 2002. Jermaine Blackwood faced five balls in the off stump channel, lengths varying subtly, bounce steepling or skidding a little. The accumulation of pressure told on ball six, as Blackwood prodded at another ball asking pertinent questions and skewered to Clarke in the slips - 87 had struck.

As often happened for McGrath, Hazlewood's work opened up avenues for others, and when Starc induced a haywire hook from Samuels, it was the tall Tamworth native who plucked it at fine leg. Samuels' stay of 39 balls for seven runs had been largely becalmed by Hazlewood, something doubtless acknowledged by Starc and the rest as they huddled in celebration of West Indian wicket No. 6. Hazlewood's agile movement to claim the catch also spoke another truth of the day, for Clarke's men showed brilliantly safe hands all innings to correct a fault that had emerged against India at home.

Both Starc and Johnson were liberated by the tightness Hazlewood provided. Where earlier they had looked unsure of exactly how to attack the batsmen, they were by now "going hard at" the West Indians in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the 2013-14 Ashes. On a pitch offering up variable bounce, this was wretchedly difficult to counter, and a ratio of two helmet strikes to one ball creeping under the bat to splay Ramdin's stumps rather vindicated the decision to choose pace ahead of spin.

Bounce was something else that Hazlewood provided, of the kind that has long been known to confound the very best of batsmen. To watch him here was to wonder whether Australia might have fared better in the UAE last year had it been Hazlewood rather than Peter Siddle who served as the right-arm counterpoint to Johnson and Starc, causing balls to zip through at varying heights as well as speeds. Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq, both old enough to have faced McGrath in his pomp, will be glad to have avoided his heir.

Australia would not have been able to round up the West Indies for so meagre a total as 148 without Hazlewood's precision, in a display that merited a wicket or two more than the eminently bankable figures of 3 for 33 from 15 overs. The value of his efforts would be put into context when Australia's batsmen stumbled in the evening, as might be expected from a group with precious few first-class innings between them since January.

That of course was another McGrath trait worth following - saving the batsmen's blushes.
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:)

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/884097.html
 
Adam Voges becomes oldest player ever to score century on debut.
 
Just saw that on the BBC site. Terrible shame :(
 
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