West Indies vs England - Tests and One Day Series

The ball's already keeping low and the pitch will be unplayable if it keeps going this way.

Innings defeat for the Windies coming up I fear. Watching that England innings was frustrating as hell. After Taylor took took Flintoff's wicket they should have taken the momentum and bundled England out for 450 or so and put a decent score on the board. Now they'll struggle to avoid the follow on.
 
The Windies used to be good, back in the day. Now it seems they haven't had a world class player come through for a while.
 
Why haven't we put them back in?! They're almost 300 behind on first inning scores alone! All we're doing now is making it that much likely the test will be drawn somehow. Do not get it
 
Brad said:
Why haven't we put them back in?! They're almost 300 behind on first inning scores alone! All we're doing now is making it that much likely the test will be drawn somehow. Do not get it
Click to expand...

Harmison is ill with a stomach bug and Freddie is also under the weather and after nigh on a day in the field in 40 degree heat.

And the pitch is still playing okay, the time might be helpful.

Probably bat till lunch or a little after and then put them abck in again, still leaves us with a good four and bit sessions.
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
Harmison is ill with a stomach bug and Freddie is also under the weather and after nigh on a day in the field in 40 degree heat.

And the pitch is still playing okay, the time might be helpful.

Probably bat till lunch or a little after and then put them abck in again, still leaves us with a good four and bit sessions.
Click to expand...

But for what? If we bat til lunch, the bowlers will have saved themselves what 1 session either side of the overnight break they'd have had anyway, and now we don't have the back up of getting to bat again in case the bowlers injuries and illnesses becomes severe enough that they can't perform, and allow the Windies back into the game. And batting to then will give us what a 400 lead, which should be ample enough, but I'd rather have the 300 lead with an innings backup, and more time to bowl them out

Just seems a really crap decision to me. Not one that's likely to cost, we should still win this at a canter. But it's just needlessly giving them that little bit extra chance of getting something out of the game
 
Thing I don't get is if we want quick runs why have they put a night watchman in?

Seems a little pointless having Anderson at the crease.
 
Point taken Zing, I don't think realistically they're got any chance of reaching that. But it's just we've taken a position of utter domination, and turned it into a situation where there's potential doubt. All it takes is a couple of good sessions for the Windies when we eventually declare, and our work is cut out to bowl them out, with bowlers supposedly not fully fit which is the reason we batted again in the first place

I just don't like our attitude, it's not a clinical winning one. You think the Australians would have hesitated to put Windies back in?
 
Flintoff came in at 9.. I think there's your answer. Problem with his hip and Strauss probably didn't want only 4 bowlers to shared the heavy workload of bowling back to back innings.

I'm with Strauss anyway.. bat them out of the game and you have 4 sessions to bowl at them, which you should be confident of doing with 500 on the board. Enforcing the follow on gives them the option of salvaging something by building a huge total.. there's a lot more pressure batting when you have a target of 500.
 
They're not going to be batting for 500 though, they're gunna be batting against the clock now. From a position of utter domination, we now have to bowl them out in 4 sessions with a depleted attack. Just given so much of the initiative away if you ask me. Two good batting sessions from them and they're on their way to the safety of a drawn test when they were never in the game

England only ever do these things the hard way
 
Not liking those odds, the West Indians must be doing a rain dance at the moment.
 
Brad said:
Weather reports suggest a 40% chance of rain in Antigua tomorrow
Click to expand...

You're kidding? Like yourself i thought the nightwatchman was unnecessary, hopefully it and batting quite as long as we did does not prove to be something we regret.

Freddie's not getting any better so they say, but somehow we've got ot skittle them out and barring the rain i'm still confident enough, just.
 
Drawing a match you could've won and getting run out at the non-striker's end because the bowler got finger tips to the ball.. two of the worst things in cricket.

Cricinfo says rain's stopped.
 
zing said:
Drawing a match you could've won and getting run out at the non-striker's end because the bowler got finger tips to the ball.. two of the worst things in cricket.

Cricinfo says rain's stopped.
Click to expand...

Could have? It's likely we wouldn't even still be playing this match had we put them back in. Irrespective of the result, it was a dire decision, and oh so fecking typical of England. It's not like we win that often to be so complacent when we're in a dominant position
 
Brad said:
Could have? It's likely we wouldn't even still be playing this match had we put them back in. Irrespective of the result, it was a dire decision, and oh so fecking typical of England. It's not like we win that often to be so complacent when we're in a dominant position
Click to expand...

We haven't snatched a draw from this one yet Brad, cheer up!
 
Anderson and Harmison bowled well. Solid batting from the two though.. Sarwan in particular.
 
A sign of our growing desperation, Shah is bowling now and Boycott on TMS has just called for Strauss to do likewise if this continues.
 
Utter farce, one that England specialise in

Congratulations Straussy, under your leadership we've crumbled to a humiliating defeat, and now it looks we're tossing away an astonishingly dominant position because of a bad decision YOU made
 
You must log in or register to reply here.