English cricket thread

First test of the English summer being played at Lords and Broad has the 20th fifer of his test career.

Ireland all out for 172.

Will be interesting to see England's approach here and whether it will be the usual Bazball. Zak Crawley needs a score here.
 
Crawley will do well to last the full Ashes series given how wayward his driving is away from his body.

2 inside edges for 4 in one over on a flat track against trundlers.
 
Most of Crawley’s runs have been inside edges, but he’s still in which is the main thing.
Another 50 for Duckett
 
Surely they have attempted some sort of ironing out of Crawley’s technical flaws rather than just giving him a free rein to be reckless and hope it comes off.

You can still be aggressive and Correct flaws and yet he’s still got his feet set in concrete driving on the up. Mitch Starc’s inswinger will give him fits.
 
Have to wonder if there is any point in using Crawley when you’ve got Foakes out the team. I guess Bairstow’s best form hasn’t come as an opener, but having Crawley and Duckett opening is just asking for early wickets. Would it really be a big ask for Pope to give it a go, although clearly they won’t be changing anything for the first test.
 
Dan_F said:
Have to wonder if there is any point in using Crawley when you’ve got Foakes out the team. I guess Bairstow’s best form hasn’t come as an opener, but having Crawley and Duckett opening is just asking for early wickets. Would it really be a big ask for Pope to give it a go, although clearly they won’t be changing anything for the first test.
Click to expand...
I feel like just telling Foakes there's an opener spot he can have a crack at if he fancies it would make more sense than this.

EDIT - Or is keeping and opening too much of a workload in tests? I guess it is.
 
DOTA said:
I feel like just telling Foakes there's an opener spot he can have a crack at if he fancies it would make more sense than this.

EDIT - Or is keeping and opening too much of a workload in tests? I guess it is.
Click to expand...

Probably. Seems like Stokes wants positive starts too, so Foakes plodding along might put too much pressure on the rest of the higher order to score.
 
Lot of negativity when you consider the scoreboard. The reality is that England are looking very strong in the bowling & batting departments.
 
Irish cricket's gone in the wrong direction quite a bit, hasn't it? At this level, I mean, no idea otherwise.

I feel like most of their players from 10 years ago would walk in to this side.
 
DOTA said:
Irish cricket's gone in the wrong direction quite a bit, hasn't it? At this level, I mean, no idea otherwise.

I feel like most of their players from 10 years ago would walk in to this side.
Click to expand...

Weirdly from a red ball perspective, gaining Test Match status has been a huge hinder to this Irish side. Has limited access to the county championship etc. Someone like Mark Adair could have developed much further than he has done.
 
FlawlessThaw said:
Weirdly from a red ball perspective, gaining Test Match status has been a huge hinder to this Irish side. Has limited access to the county championship etc. Someone like Mark Adair could have developed much further than he has done.
Click to expand...
I think someone on the commentary yesterday said Paul Stirling counts as an overseas player, despite being born the UK, which doesn't seem great for a variety of reasons.
FlawlessThaw said:

England’s obsession with golf is incredibly annoying.
Click to expand...
Feels disrespectful.
 
DOTA said:
Feels disrespectful.
Click to expand...
Not sure what else they’re expected to do. Keep batting and pile on 600 runs? I don’t really understand the point of this, surely they could have got a better team in as prep.
 
Dan_F said:
Not sure what else they’re expected to do. Keep batting and pile on 600 runs? I don’t really understand the point of this, surely they could have got a better team in as prep.
Click to expand...

It's fun to watch. They should go for a 1000
 
FlawlessThaw said:
Weirdly from a red ball perspective, gaining Test Match status has been a huge hinder to this Irish side. Has limited access to the county championship etc. Someone like Mark Adair could have developed much further than he has done.
Click to expand...
I don't think their own domestic tournament restarted after Covid either so their only first-class matches are the occasional Test. They had a few debutants in Sri Lanka who'd never played a red ball match before.

If Josh Little was available you'd expect a bit more threat from them but this is basically a county 2nd XI attack.
 
Once Pope gets his 100, England should declare. Unless they want to continue stat padding in which case Duckett can go for 200…
 
I guess maybe this helps to build up confidence levels, even if the standard is wildly below what they’ll face from the Australians.

Going tomorrow and don’t even know if we’ll get a full day
 
Dan_F said:
Not sure what else they’re expected to do. Keep batting and pile on 600 runs? I don’t really understand the point of this, surely they could have got a better team in as prep.
Click to expand...
I don't think the 600 is necessary but I wouldn't have been impressed if we'd declared with a lead of 200 just cause we wanted to end it quickly.
 
You guys are miserable sods. Teams barely declare the 1st innings on day 2 never mind the 2nd innings.

Hope they bat until day 4 and smash the selfish records set by statpadders like Lara.
 
Surprised they didn’t want to give Bairstow some time in the middle.
 
Sassy Colin said:
What's the point of this?

Slightly embarrassing for Ireland.
Click to expand...

Well it's not embarrassing for Ireland as literally nobody gives a flying fluck about cricket over here. I couldn't name one player. But clearly they shouldn't be on the same field as England.
 
Eoin Morgan always sounds like the nicest, most boring person you could ever meet. Like, you'd be very happy to have him around but you'd keep forgetting he was there.
 
G-manc said:
Crawley will do well to last the full Ashes series given how wayward his driving is away from his body.

2 inside edges for 4 in one over on a flat track against trundlers.
Click to expand...

I’m really worried about him. So much opportunity for the Aussies to put immediate pressure on him/us. We really don’t need that.
 
Fionn Hand and Josh Tongue would get in a body parts XI (along with Travis Head, Felix Organ, and Salman Butt).
 
DOTA said:
Eoin Morgan always sounds like the nicest, most boring person you could ever meet. Like, you'd be very happy to have him around but you'd keep forgetting he was there.
Click to expand...

He was pretty transformational in terms of leadership. No way that was all just tactics and being a nice guy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.