English & Irish Cricket Summer 2018

JMack1234 said:
End of an era.

It seems pretty expected and in fact a little overdue whilst being a massive surprise at the same time. I thought he'd try and carry on and retire with Anderson (I presume) after the next ashes. A total gentleman who loved playing for England.

Good look Cookie!
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Yeah good on him. Being universally popular in a sport as bitchy as cricket is near-impossible but he's managed it.

Massive pressure on Jennings to get runs now. Otherwise we'll need two new openers.

Not too many candidates around. Hameed has fallen off a cliff at Lancs and everyone else has been tried and failed. They'll give Burns a go no doubt, but there's no guarantee he'll make it.

Jake Libby at Notts played well against Lancs earlier this year, he might be worth a look. Duckett's also moved to Trent Bridge so hopefully he can get a few next year.

Apart from that you're looking at converting an existing member of the squad into an opener. Vince would be my pick, but reckon they'll already be thinking of Curran as a top-order player for the long term.
 
Happy that Cook gets a proper send-off because it happens far too infrequently for the great English players. Fabulous batsman and a thoroughly decent bloke. Ultimately the burden of captaincy and the grind of 158 consecutive tests wore him down. I felt last summer he needed a winter off and some good time at home. I have no doubts that he'll score plenty of runs at Essex and I look forward to his inevitable pivot into commentary. I don't think he'll make a comeback no matter how much of an inevitable clamour there will be to get him back into the team. Privileged to have seen his 294 at Edgbaston in person (although it did mean I didn't get to see Sachin bat).
 
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Also I keep seeing Joe Denly's name being mentioned for the tour of Sri Lanka, which is interesting to say the least.
 
Hameed is unrecognisable as a Cricketer who played for England. He's lucky getting games at Lancashire.
 
JohnnyKills said:
He's had a shocker. Some Lancs fans seem to think he's got eye problems.
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Judging by the scorecards I've glanced over it wouldn't surprise me if the Lancs fans thought all of their batsmen had eye problems. Hameed's had a few decent knocks in second XI but hasn't transferred much across to county. Hameed was one of the better batsmen in the Lions tour of the West Indies last winter as well, which doesn't actually say much unfortunately as the batsmen were mostly rubbish.

My read is that a combination of his rushing back from a broken finger, someone getting an idea in his head that he should become an all-format batsman and persistent unnecessary selection have him at a very low ebb. He could do with a mentor like Cook had in Gooch.

Hameed has been dropped from the squad for the next county round.
 
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ArmchairCritic said:
Judging by the scorecards I've glanced over it wouldn't surprise me if the Lancs fans thought all of their batsmen had eye problems. Hameed's had a few decent knocks in second XI but hasn't transferred much across to county. Hameed was one of the better batsmen in the Lions tour of the West Indies last winter as well, which doesn't actually say much unfortunately as the batsmen were mostly rubbish.

My read is that a combination of his rushing back from a broken finger, someone getting an idea in his head that he should become an all-format batsman and persistent unnecessary selection have him at a very low ebb. He could do with a mentor like Cook had in Gooch.

Hameed has been dropped from the squad for the next county round.
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As a Lancs fan it's not great all round. They appointed two ex-players in Glenn Chapple and Mark Chilton as coaches and it smacked of jobs for the boys. Get the feeling we need some new blood next summer.

Worst thing is that Lancs have practically the England Lions batting lineup - Hameed, Davies, Jennings and Livingstone - and it looks like they'll be playing div2.cricket next year. If Worcestershire go down that'll mean Clarke is playing at the lower level as well. Not great given they're supposed to be the next cabs off the rank.
 
Rams said:
If I’m not mistaken Cook is the highest leading run scorer as opener in test cricket.
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Yep. Sachin pointing kallis dravid sangakarra ahead of him. Joint 10th in most career hundreds as well, all middle order ahead of him.
 
It’s ya boi

english-international-cricketer-alastair-cook-gets-married-on-new-picture-id136293726
 
Let’s not forget Cook is an accomplished all rounder with a test bowling average of 7

 
kotha said:
Do we ditch Ashwin for Kuldeep or will our batting get even worse? Surely Moeen Ali showed us how bad Ashwin was..
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You dont ditch your best players like that. I dont know why after every one bad game its talk about dropping ashwin or pujara or rahane when they are not even the problem. Ashwin is no warne or murali or even kumble but he is by far the best spinner we have. Replacing him with kuldeep is like replacing dravid or laxman with raina in test matches
 
Rams said:
If I’m not mistaken Cook is the highest leading run scorer as opener in test cricket.
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And it’s not even close, over 2000 runs more then Gavaskar in 2nd, Cook is the only batsman to score over 10,000 runs as an opener
 
Also it's hilarious that Shastri was talking us about being the potentially best visiting team right now. Twat.

IIRC he has only come out for one post match press conference and that was after we won the 3rd test.
 
KM said:
https://scroll.in/field/893144/the-...shastri-after-indias-series-defeat-in-england

Ganguly and Sehwag twisting the knife re: Shastri.

Very fair criticism too. Not a single batsman has improved in the last two years apart from Kohli.
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Whilst I agree that we've probably stagnated as a batting unit, I don't agree with some of the criticism of winning abroad. Winning an away test match is somewhat of an achievement in itself, an away series should result in a knighthood.

This series alone shows how difficult it is to score runs in these conditions. Heck, we continously bowled out SA earlier in the year, do people then really expect our good batting line up to out do theirs against their, also, world class bowling? Even our mighty batting line up in the tours in 2006 and 2011 struggled at times in those foreign conditions.

I'd say that the biggest issue we've faced in the last two tours are the ones related to selection. Why was Rahane dropped for the first two tests in SA and why did Pujara miss the first test in England? Some pathetic decisions from the management; as well as picking Kuldeep at Lords.

I also think we'll find that replacing Dhoni is going to be a tough task - Saha, Karthik and Pant (early days) dont look good enough. MSD was saving test matches at Lords and averaging in the mid 50s within the first two years of making his debut. As for the batting, its a little worrying that we only have three trustworthy batsmen and two sometimes cant get into the XI.
 
It says in the article that Dravid agreed to become the batting consultant and dropped out after talking to Shastri.. Need to kick him out first..

Need to tell Kohli to suck it up.. Having chamchas as coaches is not the way forward..
 
Di Maria's angel said:
Whilst I agree that we've probably stagnated as a batting unit, I don't agree with some of the criticism of winning abroad. Winning an away test match is somewhat of an achievement in itself, an away series should result in a knighthood.

This series alone shows how difficult it is to score runs in these conditions. Heck, we continously bowled out SA earlier in the year, do people then really expect our good batting line up to out do theirs against their, also, world class bowling? Even our mighty batting line up in the tours in 2006 and 2011 struggled at times in those foreign conditions.

I'd say that the biggest issue we've faced in the last two tours are the ones related to selection. Why was Rahane dropped for the first two tests in SA and why did Pujara miss the first test in England? Some pathetic decisions from the management; as well as picking Kuldeep at Lords.

I also think we'll find that replacing Dhoni is going to be a tough task - Saha, Karthik and Pant (early days) dont look good enough. MSD was saving test matches at Lords and averaging in the mid 50s within the first two years of making his debut. As for the batting, its a little worrying that we only have three trustworthy batsmen and two sometimes cant get into the XI.
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Replacing Dhoni in test matches shouldn't be tough. He was mediocre in away test matches. Pant should continue as his WK has been fine and we know about his batting. He'll absolutely murder bowling attacks in the future.

As much as I love Kohli, his handling of Kumble debacle has left a sore test in my mouth.
 
MJJ said:
Tbf he was only appointed last year so thats not a fair criticism.
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Alright in one year but still he's been a failure. Vijay and Rahane has noticeably gone backwards in the last year. The selection of Rohit over Rahane was fecking disgraceful.

Kohli does the hard work, Shastri I reckon is in charge of handling beers at the after match party.
 
KM said:
Alright in one year but still he's been a failure. Vijay and Rahane has noticeably gone backwards in the last year. The selection of Rohit over Rahane was fecking disgraceful.

Kohli does the hard work, Shastri I reckon is in charge of handling beers at the after match party.
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I still dont get why you guys replaced kumble, the man is a class act and you did pretty well under him.

I think kohli's class is covering a lot of issues right now, after a long time you guys have a very good bowling attack and your batting can destroy anyone in ODIs.
 
MJJ said:
I still dont get why you guys replaced kumble, the man is a class act and you did pretty well under him.

I think kohli's class is covering a lot of issues right now, after a long time you guys have a very good bowling attack and your batting can destroy anyone in ODIs.
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Our batting in ODIs is overrated. Its just the top 3 who are great. The middle order of Karthik, Pandey and Dhoni is crap.

As for the Kumble question, nobody knows.
 
KM said:
Our batting in ODIs is overrated. Its just the top 3 who are great. The middle order of Karthik, Pandey and Dhoni is crap.

As for the Kumble question, nobody knows.
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Its the best top 3 in the world by far though and I like pandeya as a batsman, such a clean hitter. Just need a good middle order batsman to partner kohli and allow your swith hitters to come into play.
 
MJJ said:
Its the best top 3 in the world by far though and I like pandeya as a batsman, such a clean hitter. Just need a good middle order batsman to partner kohli and allow your swith hitters to come into play.
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Are you talking about Manish Pandey or Hardik Pandya?

Both of them are gonna be in the team, clean hitters and it seems you've added their surname.
 
flaweddopeybobcat


If Cook doesn't get an over to bowl in the last test match, then Joe Root shud be sacked.
 
KM said:
Replacing Dhoni in test matches shouldn't be tough. He was mediocre in away test matches. Pant should continue as his WK has been fine and we know about his batting. He'll absolutely murder bowling attacks in the future.

As much as I love Kohli, his handling of Kumble debacle has left a sore test in my mouth.
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He may not have been the best, but Dhoni was extremely useful in away conditions. He averaged 37 in England, 54 in New Zealand, 29 in South Africa and 20 in Australia. Not the worst numbers.

Yup, the Kumble debacle is ridiculous. Hope we get rid of Shastri as soon as possible.
 
MJJ said:
Its the best top 3 in the world by far though and I like pandeya as a batsman, such a clean hitter. Just need a good middle order batsman to partner kohli and allow your swith hitters to come into play.
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I'm with @KM on this. It's an incredible top 3, but the shitness of those to come afterwards pretty much negates those before them.

We've tried Jhadav, Pandey, Rayudu, Raina, Yuvraj, Raina, Yuvraj, Rahane and none have nailed down a single position in the middle order.
 
Interesting to read Shastri copping some more flack in the Indian media for the latest loss. I don't think he's wrong about India being the best touring team about, it's just such a statement does not actually say much because all the other teams are pretty hopeless at touring.

The critical phase in the last test was the period in the 2nd innings where Kohli bowled Ashwin and Pandya unchanged for 19 overs. In this time England went from 165/5 to 228/6, 63 runs for 1 wicket. Kohli bowled Pandya for 9 consecutive overs with Sharma and Shami having only 12 and 11 overs respectively under their belts. Ashwin at the very least was tying up an end, so with the series on the line there was no reason for Kohli not to be able to bowl his 3 main seamers in rotation.
 
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