English cricket thread

When Smith's eyes start to go his game's going to fall apart isn't it. That technique is truly ridiculous.
 
Roy should watch Smith and learn how to play the ‘aggressive leave’.

Roy’s issues it seems is not knowing what to do with his aggressive instincts in test cricket.

Although Smith’s ‘leave’ shot is exaggerated, it makes him feel like leaving the ball is an attacking choice, rather than passive and defensive. It also eliminates aggressive tension that can build up, leading to mistakes.
 
Last edited:
mariachi-19 said:
Cricket players generally mature later than other sports. Especially bowlers. Shane Warne circa 2005-2007 was his absolute peak. I think he took something like 150+ wickets during that period which was the most productive of his career.

Similarly Steven Waugh peaked at age 28 to 36.
Click to expand...

Di Maria's angel said:
Think its partly due to the average ages of peaking for cricketers. How many proper world class players have their been around the ages of 21-25? Smith and Kohli, for instance, have found most of their sucess over the last few years. Jimmy, too, hes became a phenomenal bowler after the ages of 26/27.
I think they peak a little later and the can maintain that peak for longer periods.
Click to expand...

Yeah I think I’ve just become conditioned by football such that it’s surprising when you only just start hearing about a player, or they only just start really performing, and you find out they’re 28-30, as opposed to football where you would expect that in their early 20s or so.

One of the biggest examples of this for me was Braithwaite. I didn’t know anything about him prior to that T20 World Cup, and after hearing him being referred to as a young man over and over in that tournament, and that definitely being the infancy of his career, I was quite surprised to find out he was 27 at that tournament.
 
Cloud7 said:
I’ve noticed that in cricket players often tend to be older than you think they are. With the exception of the absolute top top players that are around from their early years, if you look up the age of a player they always seem to be old. Might be one for the “Weird feelings of cricket” thread.
Click to expand...

There's a lot of nepotism in cricket - especially at the international level. If you make the good books of the right people, you'll get enough chances to establish yourself at the top and then it's really hard to get them out of the team.

India for instance have buckets of talent coming through, but the established old guard will always get preference.
 
Skills said:
That's all players. Once your eye-sight isn't as good, you're a sitting duck in cricket.
Click to expand...

Well yeah, but I think it's a valid point about Smith tbf. His entire game is built off of hitting 100% of balls off his pads which allows him to take the off stump out of play. Most players, even ones who are very, very strong off their pads, can't do that and even a minor drop off (let's say only hitting 99% of balls on his pads) is going to cause him a lot of issues.
 
Skills said:
There's a lot of nepotism in cricket - especially at the international level. If you make the good books of the right people, you'll get enough chances to establish yourself at the top and then it's really hard to get them out of the team.

India for instance have buckets of talent coming through, but the established old guard will always get preference.
Click to expand...
England’s self inflicted destruction of Kevin Pieterson is the worst example of sporting nepotism I’ve seen and an extremely bad example of leadership and managing a team.

The England dressing room clique at the time was disgraceful and prematurely ended one of crickets all time great batsman career.
 
Well, this series is going as expected so far. Both sides are pretty crap at batting.

And I don't know why people were talking Warner up before the series started. He always seems to do crap in England.
 
Botham: "The English and Australian players don't seem to mix as much these days."

They literally spend half the year playing in the same T20 teams you clown.
 
NinjaFletch said:
Well yeah, but I think it's a valid point about Smith tbf. His entire game is built off of hitting 100% of balls off his pads which allows him to take the off stump out of play. Most players, even ones who are very, very strong off their pads, can't do that and even a minor drop off (let's say only hitting 99% of balls on his pads) is going to cause him a lot of issues.
Click to expand...
Yeah exactly. He basically bats on off-stump and flicks anything on his body into the leg side. It makes it easy to judge the line of the ball, but only works if the reflexes are quick enough. As soon as they drop 1%, he becomes a walking lbw.
 
Saturday and Sunday are both forecasted as rain free and relatively sunny days. So we have 14 hours or approx 190 overs (incl extra time for rain delays) to get a result

The problem for getting a result will be that the pitch is still in very good condition as we’ve only had 4 sessions of actual play, which may negate the damage spinners can inflict on final day. Plus the sunshine should make batting a lot easier, and Smith still has 2 innings to make his impact.

If England can get Australia all out before tea, I can see them having an ODI type thrash to get a lead, and give themselves final 2 sessions to force a win.

More likely we’ve lost too much time and it’ll be a draw, which is not a disaster for England.
 
JohnnyKills said:
Yeah exactly. He basically bats on off-stump and flicks anything on his body into the leg side. It makes it easy to judge the line of the ball, but only works if the reflexes are quick enough. As soon as they drop 1%, he becomes a walking lbw.
Click to expand...
Am sure he’s smart and brilliant enough to adjust his technique when that happens.

All the great test batsmen has evolving style and technique as they got older and more experienced.
 
DiseaseOfTheAge said:
I'm bored.

Can you name the England players to make their debut in an Ashes Test since 2000?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/48936806

Oddly, I failed on two of the three players from the last ashes series whilst somehow managing to get the rest.
Click to expand...
Never heard of the first 2, couldn’t remember Kerrigan name (but his bowling was unforgettable :lol:), would never have got Borthwick if I lived to 100
 
paulscholes18 said:
Never heard of the first 2, couldn’t remember Kerrigan name (but his bowling was unforgettable :lol:), would never have got Borthwick if I lived to 100
Click to expand...
Of the first two, I got the batsman because he played one gorgeous straight drive and I spent the rest of the summer trying to emulate it. I think he averaged under 15 in the end...

I only got the bowler by randomly guessing county bowlers from that era. I had no idea he ever played for England.
 
I got them all apart from the 2001 ones. Some of the bowlers from the last ashes are proper obscure.
 
Strange how with almost 2 days washed out - and with a clear Saturday morning, you'd have thought they get the match going by 10.30...
 
Anyone remember there was a quote about 7-8 years ago from Steve waugh saying Smith is the best australian batsman since border or something like that.. and I remember thinking Waugh has lost it.
 
England will be panicking now won't they. Smith's taken Archer and Leach completely in his stride.

Maybe the best bet is to prepare quick pitches for the rest of the series. It'd be massively risky because nearly all their bowlers bowl 85+, but we've got Archer now and Broad is bowling quickly again, so maybe we can take them on. Might also suit all our strokemakers too.

If we keep preparing slow wickets Smith's just going to obliterate us.
 
If you can’t get him out take him out i guess, proper old fashion West Indian bowling from Archer
 
Brilliant game of cricket this. And some think test cricket cannot survive. It will always be there.
 
Smith did not look comfortable at all against the short ball from Archer. Hit twice, top edge, two ropey hooks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.