Apologies all, work has rather got in the way this morning!
Match thread for today’s decider, and comments below welcome as always.
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Being Outside Cricket 
My initial comment is in this post. I will update my index after the match. http://soanstimes.com/2018/07/17/england-vs-india-the-finale/
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Nothing against Alistair Cook who made the most of his opportunity but doesn’t the fact that he and Woakes and Malan have had to play in a Lions game (supposedly a platform for future England cricketers) in order to get any kind of meaningful practice illustrate the farce of having little or no championship cricket at the height of summer.
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So England can win low scoring matches – and India have to sort out their middle order troubles, or they won’t be at the races come WC time.
Another 100 for Root… hope he can carry the form through to the Tests.
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That Eoin Morgan, what a loser eh?
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And forrin as well.
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Kohli’s face when he got bowled by Rashid was a gif creator’s dream. No doubt it’s viral already.
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This is worth a look:
http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/cricket/11439776/jos-buttler-vitality-masterclass
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Very interesting series, I think. Obviously notable for the strength England showed to come back in the last two games, but also (and more surprisingly) how there are some quite glaring weaknesses in the Indian team. Kuldeep is a fine bowler but still young and days like yesterday where he seemed to not quite have his rhythm can be expected from such a young wrist spinner.
But with fitness issues among the bowlers, and an oddly vacant middle order, there is good news for England.
Especially given that we are weak on bowling and have a vacant middle order. And opener. And #3.
And yes yes I know, I’m being testcentric, but that’s how I roll.
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Just watched the highlights. I noted the fragile marked card did very well, again. Pity he was hounded ou…oops…retired from test cricket….can’t wait for the book? 😉
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Some interesting little comments about Rashid from the Sky team…. “Morgan trusts him implicitly and that has made such a difference to his confidence…” “perhaps he could be reconsidered for Tests…”
I would love to know what Rashid himself thinks. I suspect that until he recently he ‘got’ T20 best and Tests least. He seems to be very good at working against the T20 batsman’s need to push for runs, frustrating them into getting out, and perhaps he thought that would be his best role. But he is visibly improving all the time and doing different things. And he and Moeen bowl really well together.
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In a lot of ways 30 isn’t old for a wrist-spinner (once you exclude the one-offs like Warne) – so his body may just be settling into the kind of groove that works for Tests. I really hope it works out for him.
I’ll always maintain he’d have got there quicker with more thoughtful treatment – he spent a year basically just carrying water bottles for England at one point – how much more might he have developed even just playing CC in that time? And that’s before we get to the bowling coaching mess…
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That ball to Kohli was too slow I’ll have you know.
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Of course. And Mason Crane could’ve done that with a tennis ball, blindfolded and hopping on one leg 🙂
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Hey. We’re not qualified to comment on cricket. What do we know?
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Is it (a) sheer arrogance that leads to such a comprehensive lack of insight into ones’ own hypocrisy and blind spots, or (b) an absurd level of pomposity? Or is it perhaps (c) all of the above?
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I noted that self-pitying missive and was sorely tempted to scribe a little reply to it. But I demand that my daughter grows up to be kind and I want to set her a good example, so I didn’t.
I really really wanted to though.
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You can set your watch by him:
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You ignorant customers. Don’t you even think….
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So.
The schedule for next summer.
We’ve taken the piss out of Ireland by offering them a 4 day match in their inaugural Test at Lords.
The game might, or might not, have made the 5th day anyway. I dislike this move strongly regardless, and hope they become another yet side to topple us at the ‘Home of cricket’.
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Meanwhile, over at the Guardian, commenter underagreysky solves the problem of the new ‘Hundred’ format…
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jul/19/the-hundred-mania-different-confusing-grimmer#comment-118491144
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Guardian also reporting Adil Rashid might be selected for the first test. Even up here on the tundra you can hear whatever the word for the noise is when a couple of dozen middle aged men BTL on the CCLive blog collectively choke on their own whimsy.
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Can i ask an honest question, which will sound snarky because, well, that’s sort of my MO but really, I am curious….
What do people think about James Taylor becoming as selector? Does he have any record of spotting talent, of watching a lot of cricket, of having a period of experience that fits him in some way to unearth the next unknown gem in county cricket?
I can’t help thinking it’s more of the “he’s a nice bloke, feel a bit sorry for him and all, here’s a sinecure” sort of appointment.
But I’m a wee bit cynical.I know that.
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I thought something like that too, but of course one doesn’t know. He might be one of those people who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of county cricket. He’s had quite a bit of work in media so it’s not like they’d feel they have to keep the wolf from his door. They must feel he’s got something to offer.
At least he doesn’t have shares in a management company (as far as I know) and he isn’t an administrator for a county.
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It does raise the interesting question of what exactly constitutes the qualities of a successful selector.
Peter Moores gave us Sideshow and Moeen, Robson and Ballance. At the time, Robson and Ballance seemed the best choices, but failed to pan out. Sideshow was excellent for a time, Moeen still in the picture. Was Moores a successful selector?
Flower wasn’t/hasn’t been.
Have we had any other successes? Toby Roland Jones is about the only one I can really think of. Obviously, in England, we have a small pool of upper end talent, so it’s always going to be difficult, but really you have to go back to Fletcher to find someone we can really point to as being good at it.
Now, it certainly wasn’t his encyclopedic knowledge of the county game that did it for him: it was simply his ability to see a player and say, “him”. It took one innings with Tresco, after all. I don’t know you can quantify (or even qualify it passed having ‘a good eye’) an ability like Fletcher’s, so it’s very difficult to say what is going to make someone good at this.
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It’s difficult to avoid a suspicion of “jobs for the boys” because this is the ECB we’re talking about. That said, the justification that was advanced for Taylor’s appointment was his recent experience as a player and knowledge of the current English game and players therein. Obviously these are attributes which will wane over time but they’re not bad reasons in themselves for involving him in the selection process. Will he be any good at it? Time may tell, but presumably the selectors operate (rightly so) under collective responsibility which for those on the outside can make it quite difficult to assess what individuals are actually contributing. And then there’s the impact on the process of people like Strauss and Flower sticking their oars in, which is arguably a bigger issue.
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I am praying to the wordpress gods that it will not stuff up the lay-out, because otherwise this will just become an unreadable mess.
Over in Sri Lanka, the pitch doctoring nonsense continued. The home side also won the toss, so congrats on tossing yourself to a series victory Sri Lanka. Why South Africa even bothered to play is beyond me.
Of the 34 Tests played since January 2017, 18 have been won by the visiting side. Sounds encouraging right? Not quite so. For India for instance, all those 4 wins (3 in Sri Lanka, 1 in South Africa) have come after winning the toss. They lost all the games in which they did not win the toss.
Australia are 2-2 with 1 draw from 5 tosses won on the road. That includes 1 win, draw and loss in India (good result), and a win and a loss in South Africa (first two Tests of that series, so before sandpapergate).
For South Africa, it is 2 wins and 2 draws – 1 win and two draws against New Zealand (including a lucky escape), and the one time South Africa won the toss in England, they duly won the game.
Pakistan won in the West Indies, and lost in England after winning the toss. That was the series of odd toss decisions by both captains.
Sri Lanka won in Bangladesh, drew a Test in the West Indies and India and lost two games after winning the toss in India.
West Indies won a Test in Zimbabwe, and lost a Test in England and New Zealand, after winning the toss.
No other touring side has won a toss on the road,
That sounds somewhat reasonable right? Now let’s look at the results when home sides win the toss.
7 times has an away side won the game after losing the toss. Pakistan have done so thrice (against Ireland, England and West Indies). Bangladesh won once in Sri Lanka, Australia in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka in West Indies (the Test after the “I can’t remember what I had in my mouth, so therefore I am innocent” saga), and West Indies in England.
Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, the one time England won the toss in Australia, they drew the Test. Not saying the results would have been much different (in scoreline) if England had won a few more tosses, but when England lost the toss, they lost the game. Quite convincingly on each occasion.
Ireland is not exactly a match to Pakistan (you would not expect so in Ireland’s maiden Test), and both those losses by England have resulted in heavy criticism of Root (one for a batting decision, the other for a supposedly generous declaration). Australia barely sneaked home against Bangladesh, and well, the West Indies, I am still not convinced they have actually turned a corner – right now, they have shared all of 2 series out of 14 against the major teams in their last played series (home and away), which is not exactly the record of a decent side.
I know these numbers are small, and therefore they may not be statistically significant. But they do show a clear trend, that basically it is pointless to play for a touring side after losing the toss, unless there is either a great mismatch in quality, or the home captain makes “strange” decisions.
In other words, no good side has lost at home (I refuse to call England a good side, based on the results), when they have won the toss. But if they lose the toss, it is about 50-50, who will win.
All of which just seems to indicate that home advantage + winning the toss is too much for any decent touring side to overcome these days. Home advantage + losing the toss seems much closer to 50-50, which begs the question, why the results are so close to parity? That would not happen unless pitch doctoring backfires on the hosts (eg. South Africa against India; that pitch was an abomination), when India duly won a toss).
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It is what it is. Pitch condition and whether it’s “worked” or not is an emotional issue with a lot of people.
“You just suck it up, boy. And anyway, we do not fiddle with the pitch – we play fair you know. You people fiddle. That’s the only way you lot can win anything.”
People may say, yes sour-grapes but how much is it killing cricket when one can see after five overs of the first morning which way the game is going to go? Reminds me of the 2012 Olympics in London when two Chinese teams (I think) were playing each other and they both tried to lose because it was more beneficial to lose than win.
It’s best to take it on the chin and move on. Make a mental note that we’ll catch you when you come visiting out shores. The only problem with this type of attitude is, it leads us to the Wanderers situation.
I have often wondered if the 5-0, 4-0, 3-0 victories now days are home teams really wanting to win or whether it’s a corruption thing. Boxing has been “controlled,” in the US certainly, for a long time so, I’m not naive to think cricket is snow-white. But the things coming out every now and then. I don’t even trust one day games any more. Are the 5 to 7 games for the boards to make money or the bookies?
If you don’t mind me saying, you strike me as a Benjamin Franklin lookalike peering through bifocals at some or other manuscript searching for a weird and wonderful theory.
You certainly do quite a bit of research to come up with these figures.
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Sorry, I mixed up the toss results in the Ashes. That will teach me to write with a headache, and not double check.
On the road figures:
South Africa:
Won toss (4): 2 wins, 2 draws (wins against England and New Zealand, 2 draws against the latter). Lost toss (5), 4 losses (3 against England, 1 against Sri Lanka), and one loss to be confirmed in two days. Hardly the kind of distribution that suggests that toss does not matter one bit.
For Australia the figures are damning as well. Australia won 5 tosses out of 10. The won tosses resulted in 2 wins, 2 losses and 1 draw. Those were good results (1-1 with a draw against India, 1-1 against South Africa, before Sandpapergate). That includes the only loss India have suffered at home in the last 5 years. While the toss losses resulted in 4 losses and 1 win.
For India: won toss (4): 4 wins. Lost toss (2), 2 losses.
New Zealand have not even played outside of New Zealand since the start of 2017. So they can’t be considered for anything here.
The inbetweeners:
Sri Lanka won 5 tosses out of 10. Those 5 tosses won produced 1 win (against Bangladesh) and 2 draws (against India and West Indies, and that possibly only because two hours were lost as Sri Lanka refused to play),while the lost tosses produced 1 win (against West Indies), 2 losses (against India and South Africa) and 2 draws (against India and Bangladesh).
Pakistan bucked the trend: 4 toss losses resulted in 3 wins (loss against Australia, win against Ireland, West Indies and England). The toss wins resulted in a won test against West Indies, and a lost Test against England. Mind you, everyone at the time was rather surprised with Sarfraz’s decision to bat in the second Test.
The team doing better when losing the toss:
For England 4 toss wins, which resulted in 4 losses (all in the Ashes), while three lost tosses resulted in a draw on a pudding (Ashes), a loss in New Zealand, and the draw in New Zealand where Wagner batted out 100+ balls on the final day.
But obviously: doing better after losing 4 Ashes Tests despite winning the toss is a very low bar to set.
We should also bear in mind that Australia have not lost a Test at home against anyone bar South Africa (who won 5 out of 6 tosses in the series of 2012 and 2016, for 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss; the toss Australia won resulted in that epic rearguard by Faf in 2012) since 2011, so winning tosses for a touring side in Australia or India may simply not be enough of an advantage to overcome the conditions. But unless you have a fearsome pace attack or 2 world class spinners, it seems like a necessary precondition to get anything out of a game in those places.
Since 2001: the home sides (including Zimbabwe, Bangladesh have lost 97 Tests despite winning the toss. 113 losses when losing the toss. So the long term trend suggests that losing the toss is not the smart way to start a Test.
Mind you, the last time New Zealand lost at home, despite winning the toss was back in 2009, against Pakistan in Wellington. England were definitely not that far away in the second Test in 2018.
As for India, the last time they lost at home, despite winning the toss was in Kolkata 2012 (it happened twice in that series, and only two other times since 2001). It was no coincidence; Monty and Swann were playing for the tourists in that game.
Australia lost 6 times at home since 2001, despite winning the toss. The last 3 of those occurrences happened in the 2010/11 Ashes. Before that, Australia lost twice to South Africa in 2008 despite winning the toss, and back in 2003 to India.
South Africa have lost no fewer than 12 times at home since 2001, despite winning the toss.
Or put another way, home results:
Sri Lanka won 12 and lost 3 games when winning the toss, but won just 4 games and lost 9 when losing the toss (since 2011). New Zealand won 7 and drew six when they won the toss, but when they lost the toss their record is 8 wins and 5 losses with 5 draws).
Pakistan won 4 and lost 3 when they lost the toss, but when they won the toss, they won 9 and lost 3 games. (This takes UAE to be “home” for Pakistan.
England won 11 and lost 4 with 5 draws when they lost the toss, but curiously enough when they won the toss they won 18 and lost 8, in addition to 4 draws. England bizarrely do better at home when they lose the toss, but that could also be a function of the opposition they are playing when they win tosses.
India and Australia enjoy fortresses at home, so toss results hardly matter there. (14-2 when Australia win the toss, 13-3 when Australia lose the toss; 14-2 for India when they win the toss, 11-1 when India lose the toss).
The problem with the attitude you describe Prime Evil is that it kills the contest. If you can tell how a Test is going to pan out after 5 overs (and it was really not that hard, once you saw Maharaj bowl his first over of the first Test in Sri Lanka), why would you bother to keep watching? And why would players bother to improve for this format, for the 90 – 150 odd balls you play ever 4 years in a particular foreign country? It does not increase your income by one jot, unlike spending time on your T20 skills.
Day 1, and Maharaj takes 8 out of 9 wickets. Yeah, that is a typical subcontinental performance. If it was day 4 or 5 perhaps.
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Toss results by host country, since 2011. These results are sorted by W/L, when the home side wins the toss, followed by W/L when the hosts lose the toss. The final tally is W/W score for the side winning the toss, and the side losing the toss. The closer the ratio is to 1, the less consequential the toss is. Obviously when ratios are close to 1, it is unclear whether winning the toss confers much of an advantage, or whether the hosts are too weak or strong for all touring sides.
I have not taken quality of opposition in consideration (eg. Zimbabwe winning tosses might not be as dangerous for a good side as say India winning tosses), nor pitch situations, as not all pitches are equal throughout the 6-year period under consideration.
Now obviously the sample is limited, but it does reveal a few things that everyone seems to intuitively grasp:
The outcomes:
Australia 14-2; 13-3. 17-15 ratio between winning toss and losing toss.
Bangladesh 4-3; 1-7 11-4 ratio between winning toss and losing toss.
England 18-8 ; 11-4 22-19 ratio between winning toss and losing toss.
India 14-2 12-1 15-14 ratio between winning toss and losing toss.
New Zealand 7-0; 8-5 12-8 ratio between winning toss and losing toss.
Pakistan (UAE) 9-3 4-3 12-7 ratio between winning toss and losing toss.
Sri Lanka: 13-3; 4-9 (Assuming South Africa lose on Day 3 in all likelihood) 22-7 ratio between winning toss and losing toss.
South Africa 15-4; 10-4 19-14 ratio between winning toss and losing toss.
West Indies 6-6; 7-8 14-13 ratio between winning toss and losing toss.
As you can see for the really good teams at home (India and Australia) winning tosses or losing tosses does not make much of a difference. That means the hosts tend to overcome any opposition despite the toss.
South Africa, Pakistan, West Indies, and England are the inbetween teams: winning the toss helps, but it is not crucial to overcome the hosts, as those teams have lost quite a few games at home, even when they win the toss, but often win at home even when they lose the toss.
One could argue though, for Bangladesh, that winning the toss really helps, but that good touring sides can still overcome the toss.
The more dubious places to tour:
New Zealand has not been beaten at home since 2009, when they won the toss – winning the toss is an absolutely vital step for any touring side to compete there. Mind you, this sample (of New Zealand winning the toss contains just 7 wins and 6 draws, so it could be a bit of a statistical anomaly, they won just 1 toss out of 6 against South Africa, who have the best record in New Zealand) New Zealand are reasonably successful at overcoming lost tosses as they still have a winning record at home when they lose the toss. And England for instance ran them quite close in the last Test of that series this year.
Considering that Sri Lanka have a losing record at home when they lose the toss (the only major team to achieve that feat, and not just barely), and one of those was a win over Zimbabwe where they needed the umpire’s assistance to defeat Zimbabwe, the ratio of 22-7 is really out of kilter with the rest. Even the Sri Lankan fans might be tempted to pack their bags and leave once the toss result is in, when their team loses the toss.
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I forgot to add: the only winning record Sri Lanka have at home against any nation, after losing the toss, since 2011, is against mighty Zimbabwe (and they needed external assistance for that too). They have losing records against India, Australia, and South Africa, and drawing records against New Zealand and Pakistan.
So needless to say, Mathews is very proud of Sri Lanka having tossed themselves to another meaningless series victory. But well tossed! Seems Sri Lanka have picked a specialist tosser in Lakmal, since he has not bowled in the second Test thus far.
For the sake of comparison, between 2001 and the end of 2010, Sri Lanka had winning records after losing the toss, against all comers except for India and Australia.
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As for the Benjamin Franklin lookalike, you are probably not too far off with your impression.
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In the fourth ODI, Pakistan are 290/0 against Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe are currently 368/30 (with diminishing returns; last game was finished before the scheduled lunchbreak) for the series, so anyone willing to bet on ZImbabwe to actually get anything from this game must be delusionally optimistic.
The only question is if Fakhar Zaman will become the quickest to 1000 ODI runs. Chances are he will be.
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Fakhar gets his double ton and ends on 210* as Pakistan amass 399/1 from their 50 overs. Currently he is 430/1 for the series, that is, he has added 30 runs to his batting average due to this series, and it currently stands at 75.
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No disrespect to Fakhar or Pakistan, but sadly the absence of key Zimbabwe players makes all this pretty meaningless – even if the record books won’t reflect that.
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No disagreeement there. Fakhar at the moment is the Voges of ODI cricket.
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