Month: Aug 2018

England vs India: Day Four, Live Blog

thelegglance32 Comments

Morning everyone…

Well isn’t this fun?  We’ve got about a session at most today, and three results are possible.  After a terrific couple of days of play  India need another 84 runs, with 5 wickets remaining.  That Mr Kohli is still in, and as long as he is, India may be favourites.

We’re going to live blog the play, and as ever, we will remind you that this isn’t the BBC, you have to hit the refresh button for updates.  One day we might even work out a way to auto-refresh, but that day ain’t today.

10:30 – Half an hour to go, and there’s the sense of anticipation that only Tests can provide.

10:41 – People accuse us of banging on about some things, but can you imagine how big the anticipation for today would be if this was on free to air television?

10:51 – What I’d really love to see here is this come down to the last run or wicket.  Whoever wins in the end.  For it to be tense throughout.

10:52 – Atherton raises the point that Test cricket is a far better game with the Duke than the Kookaburra.  He’s right too.  Bowlers are what make Test matches, not batsmen.   If the bowlers are flogged into the ground and can get no movement at all, then Test cricket is a very dull game indeed.  The best innings, the most memorable innings, are when faced with a challenge, not pummeling everyone around on a flattie.  Yet another area where cricket doesn’t help itself unfortunately.  Tests in England have become shorter, partly as a result of the style of play.  But this three and a bit day Test is utterly thrilling.  And that’s surely the point?

11:00 – Here we go.  Atmosphere sounds great

11:02 – Holding talking about there being no third man, and sure enough England leak one down there.  The whole no third man in Tests is fascinating, you’d have to think that the stats men in the teams have worked out everything as far as where runs are scored, but it does seem counterintuitive.  Ian Bell was a master at making captains look foolish.

11:03 – WICKET!!  Karthik gone.  Anderson seams the ball away a touch, and Dawid Malan, who hasn’t had the best of times in the slip cordon, takes a good one low down.  A couple of replays and the third umpire confirms it.  Great start for England.

11:05 – India are 113-6 and that target is looking distant.  But there’s a certain Virat Kohli still at the crease…

11:07 – Look I’ll admit it.  I love Stuart Broad.  I love his grumpy him-against-the-world-schtick, I love his sense of burning injustice, I love how he properly sticks it to the Australians.  And he’s a bloody good bowler who for some reason rubs people up the wrong way to the point they call for his dropping despite even in his quiet times still being highly effective.

11:10 – And on that point, we aren’t that far from the end of Anderson and Broad.  And what then?  Said it before, that this is the Walsh and Ambrose of the England team, and what is behind them gives cause for concern.  They are magnificent, and it’s not their fault people go over the top in their assessments of them.   We will miss them when they’re gone.

11:15 – Interesting to see the different approaches of the two bowlers.  Anderson is trying to lure the batsmen into playing outside the off stump, while Broad is targeting the stumps and making them play (nearly) every ball.

11:19 – At the sight of a giant panda in the stands, I often wonder what other nationalities make of the English predilection for going to the cricket in fancy dress.

11:26 – this is excellent bowling this morning.  Kohli is determined to get forward, and Broad nearly sconed him with a terrific short ball, and followed that up with one that swung in significantly the ball after.

11:30 – 121-6.  India inching their way forward…

11:33 – First shot in anger, a gorgeous straight drive down the ground from Pandya off Broad.  Fifteen runs this morning, and one wicket.  It’s extremely tense, as Broad answers back with one snaking past the outside edge.

11:38 – Runs starting to flow a touch…Kohli reaches his half century almost unnoticed.

11:41 – Another beautiful straight drive from Pandya.  Might be time for a change.  The reality is that Rashid is unlikely to get a bowl though, but England are leaking here, two boundaries in the over from Broad.  England don’t have enough to play with to afford this, so Stokes and Curran are now on the agenda.

11:44 – Ah, England are whining about the ball.  Some things never change.

11:45 – Stokes into the attack

11:47 – WICKET!!  Stokes get Kohli lbw, but immediately reviewed…it’s tight on the leg stump, but it’s out.  Huge wicket.

11:50 – WICKET!!  Stokes does it again.  Gets some extra bounce and Shami edges through to Bairstow.  Two in the over, the crowd go mad.  Outstanding over from Stokes, looking lethal every ball. 141-8 and England are looking firm favourites.

11:53 – 53 runs needed, and Curran comes in to the attack.  It’s all resting on Pandya now, who has looked aggressive this morning.  He trusts his partner and takes a single…suspect a lot of India fans are now praying Ishant Sharma shows hitherto unseen depths of batting skill.

11:55 – Sharma has surely hit that straight into the ground?  Yes, clearly so.  Nonsense that the umpires sent that upstairs, pure arse covering.

11:58 – The point needs saying over and over and over.  You can have gimmicks, you can target a particular market.  But when cricket is good, and Test cricket in particular, it’s very, very good.  This is thrilling stuff.

11:59 – Sharma errrr….”guides” the ball down to the third man for four.  Target is now under 50 away.  At this point it only takes a few slogs to cause panic.  Which is exactly why it’s so exciting.

12:01 – Verbals in the middle between the Indian batsmen and Stokes (obviously).

12:03 – 42 needed…The question to put out there, is at what point do England fans start crapping themselves?

12:06 – Adil Rashid on!  Mildly surprising and rather pleasing.  But it has to be with enough runs on the board for him to have a chance.  A brave decision from Root, for few of the journalists would have beaten him up had he not bowled him.  But he got Sharma in the first innings, so why the hell not?  It’s what he’s there for.

12:10 – Review!  WICKET!! Rashid hits the pads and Gaffney gives it not out.  It’s quite close…And it’s out!  Terrific delivery from Adil Rashid, who pays Root’s faith back with a fine over, and a wicket.  And with that one, he superbly sticks two fingers up at those who decided to attack Rashid for the crime of answering his country’s call.

12:13 – Rashid showing his mental fragility yet again with a superb over.  Now then, what does Pandya do here?  Field is spread as England look to try to bowl to Yadav.  This tactic can backfire sometimes, as it starts to look as they’re only trying to get one player out.  But it also puts Pandya under pressure to try to score enough runs to bring his team close without exposing his partner.

12:17 – And there’s an answer.  A magnificent shot over extra cover for four.  But it leaves Yadav to face Rashid.  Tough situation for Pandya, he has to score runs, he can’t just fiddle around getting a single at the end of the over.

12:19 – Rashid has bowled 10 overs and has 3-37 in this Test…  36 runs needed now.

12:21 – Field spread again for Stokes with Pandya on strike.

12:28 – Interestingly, England appear content to concede the single on the fifth ball of the over, leaving just one at Yadav.

12:30 – WICKET!!  Stokes does the trick, getting the outside edge of Pandya’s bat, and Cook, who hasn’t been totally reliable in the slips recently, does the rest.  ENGLAND WIN BY 31 RUNS

12:31 – Being greedy, it would have been particularly fantastic if this had got down to single figures, but the two wickets in an over from Stokes really broke the back of India’s batting, particularly when one of them was Kohli.  Kohli himself was superb this Test, and may well be in with a shout of man of the match despite being on the losing side.  But Stokes with the ball was quite outstanding this morning, as indeed was Public Enemy Number One Adil Rashid.  He can be very proud of his performances, and those who decided to pick on him rather than the selectors, can frankly get stuffed.

12:34 – England’s 1000th Test match turned out to be a very fine one indeed.  There’s plenty to criticise about the performances of both of the sides, and that England won doesn’t shut down debate about the weaknesses they’ve demonstrated here again.  Stokes will be missing from the second Test too (at the least), meaning England will certainly be weaker than they are here.  For India, their bowling looked highly effective, their batting too looked fragile, Kohli apart.  But it’s one match, and one match only.  You’d think that by now people would have learned not to extrapolate a single match over a series, but it’s nailed on that a fair few will do.

12:41 – Returning to the subject of Adil Rashid; apart from his first, solitary over before lunch on day two, he bowled very, very well.  And he batted well too, both innings.  Whatever the future may hold, he can be pleased with his performances here, and more to the point, an awful lot of people should be ashamed of how they specifically targeted him in the build up to the Test.  Sure, it was controversial that he was selected, but that wasn’t down to him, all he did was accept the request to play for his country.  Instead, he was slated, slagged off and abused.  It was disgusting and despicable.  They won’t be ashamed about it, because that’s the kind of people they are.  But they should be.  Not going to forgive that.  Cricket is a game of opinions, and whether he should or shouldn’t be playing in this England Test team is an open question, with honestly held views.  Having a go at Rashid himself is not.  And never will be.  Your cards have been marked.

12:52 – The presentations now.  Man of the Match goes to Sam Curran.  That’s ok, he was outstanding in this game, and his innings yesterday was probably the difference between the sides.  Kohli would have been every bit as good a call, but there’s something about young Mr Curran that is rather exciting.  Hopefully he won’t be over-showered with praise, for we’ve seen that far too often in recent years.  But he was a breath of fresh air.

12:58 – So there we have it.  England go 1-0 up, but there’s a long way to go.  Thanks for your company on here, there’ll doubtless be a review up at some point later, and comments below are always welcome of course.  But that was all really rather fun.

 

Day Three: A love letter to Test Cricket

thelegglance11 Comments

For most of the summer we’ve been fed a diet of white ball cricket, of limited interest and importance, and giving rise to a sense of frustration that the best part of the summer was being wasted on cricketing frippery.  In some ways it was unfair, the white ball build up to this series was perfectly reasonable, but the insertion of the five matches against Australia undoubtedly led to ennui amongst those weird extremists called cricket fans.  And then the Tests began.

T20s and ODIs are an essential part of the cricket framework.  It may be largely a financial matter, but nevertheless they are, and they always should be.  But nothing, absolutely nothing at all, reminds everyone that Test matches are the apogee of the game more than a genuine thriller, twisting one way and then the other, despair and delight alternating between the fans and players as a battle is played out over days in varying conditions.  Individual players can turn a game in a manner beyond the raw figures of runs scored or wickets taken; the crowd can become an additional player on the field, as they roar their chosen heroes on, and the sense of tension can be palpable thousands of miles away as every single ball desperately matters.

The ECB may argue that the Hundred is a financial imperative, that the funding of the game (the professional part, anyway) is reliant on them introducing yet another competition, and yet another variation on the rules and laws of a sport in desperate trouble.  But above all else, they have given off the stench of an organisation that not only doesn’t care for the game, but one that doesn’t even like it, that constantly apologises for it, and tries desperately to make cricket less crickety wherever possible in order to sell it to a mythical hidden audience.

Sit them down.  Put them in front of this match from start to finish (whoever comes out on top), and remind them that cricket at its best remains a stunning game, a brilliant sport.  And Test cricket is the one.  That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with ODIs or T20s, but not a thing can approach a truly titanic Test match, being wrestled one way and then the other; with brilliance, errors, mental resilience and yes, mental fragility too.  Test matches have always been beautifully named, the stress of sporting combat writ large over several days, and when they are at their absolute best, as has been the case here, there is nothing to touch them.  Nothing in cricket, and not much in other sports either.

Cricket is not a game that doesn’t appeal to people.  Cricket isn’t a game that has to be ripped asunder and re-constructed for a 21st century audience.  It is a sport that offers its own cadences and rhythms, but can offer nerve-shredding tension like little else.  It’s not like this is unknown either – the 2005 Ashes became a national obsession not because of the detailed knowledge of the millions watching, but because the basic principles were simple and universally understood.  The intensity and fascination derived from that, not from gimmickry.  This is not to say that the answer to cricket’s woes lie in the Test arena, but it is to repeat the bleeding obvious that the ECB appears to have forgotten.  Cricket is brilliant.  Cricket is fantastic.  Cricket needs to sell itself as cricket, and the highest level is the one that is the most enthralling, most memorable, and needs to be seen by the widest possible audience.  For that is how a game succeeds, by inspiring others through showing the best of itself.  Cricket can be dull, Test matches can be dull. T20s can be exciting.  It can be every iteration within that too.  It is a sport in the round that offers a vast amount to anyone with even a passing interest should anyone care to reach out to them.

Stop apologising for it.  Embrace the sport, because it is capable of extraordinary heights, as with both yesterday and today.  For this has been a sensational match, a low scoring one (as the best ones so often are), where the batsmen have had to work hard and where the bowlers have been hunting, rather than being ground into the dust.  That is why Sam Curran’s innings today, only 63 runs that might merit barely a footnote in other circumstances became a hat to hang hopes upon as the England innings disintegrated around him.  It’s why Virat Kohli, all at sea in the early stages of his first innings knock, defied the England bowlers in the final session of the day to give his side every chance of knocking off the further 84 runs needed for victory, with half his side already in the hutch.

Tomorrow’s play will be brief – a session at best – yet it is evenly poised, with small errors on either side, or brilliance from an individual the difference between victory and defeat.  Two hours.  Less than a match in the putative Hundred, yet with a Test like this, it will cause players and supporters on both sides nervous flutters this evening about what is to come.

For today had an abject England collapse, of the kind that has become endlessly familiar recently, but it also had an Indian collapse, as Broad threatened to bowl one of “those” spells, and Anderson dredged up from the past his uncanny ability to make even very fine players look totally out of their depth.  The subplot of Adil Rashid providing sterling support for Curran, of Ishant Sharma ripping the heart out of England’s batting with skilled swing and seam.  The dropped catches of a player beginning to come under pressure for his place, among a slip cordon suddenly brittle.  And at the end of it all, seesawing one way, then the other, the teams remain evenly locked, just as they were at the start of play.

Details, details, details.  At one stage, with a crushing England defeat imminent, tonight’s post might have been a lament to the repeated failures inherent in this England team that haven’t gone away.

But sod it.  And sod the chronological blow by blow account of the day too.  This is bloody marvellous.  Go well tomorrow, you twenty two in white.  The worries about the game can wait another day.

England vs India, 1st Test, Day 2

dannycricket84 Comments

I’ve written this on my phone because my computer is apparently taking a few hours to update, so please excuse the brevity.

It’s been an up and down day for England. If you had offered Root a 13 run first innings lead this morning, he would almost certainly have snatched it gratefully. As it is, he is likely disappointed that England aren’t at least 100 runs ahead.

There are three broad themes for the day. The first was England’s very good bowling performance. Surprisingly good, in all honesty. Whilst the first spell by Anderson and Broad was a bit tame, Sam Curran soon changed that and took 3 wickets in quick succession. Stokes continued this after Lunch, and India were on the ropes at 100-5.

Which brings us to the second theme of the day: missed chances. Cook and Malan both dropped fairly simple slip chances, including one from Kohli when he was on just 22. Hardik and Kohli steadied the ship and, although wickets kept falling at the other end, Kohli guided India’s tail until they were almost level with England.

The third the of the day was Kohli’s brilliance. Particularly at the end of the day, when the ball had stopped swinging, Kohli dominated the English bowlers who were utterly unable to keep him off strike. Much has been written about Root’s conversion rate ”problems”, but one genuine weakness is his (and the other England batsmen’) inability to bat with the tail. They either fail to shield the tailenders from the strike, or play so aggressively that they throw their wickets away. Kohli did neither, and so India scored another 124 runs for their last four wickets.

With a slight lead and almost half an hour left, England will have wanted to just see out the day without losing any wickets. Cook unfortunately couldn’t manage that, falling to an almost exact copy of the ball which dismissed him in the first innings. On one hand, it was a very good ball. On the other, Cook is (by reputation at least) England’s best player of spin, so him getting out in this way is pretty troubling for the rest of the team.

The umpires didn’t have a great day either. There were several successful reviews, plus another two decisions which would have been overturned if they had been referred. In all honesty, I can’t think of any day I’ve seen with more overturned decisions.

As always, feel free to comment about today and tomorrow’s play below.

England vs India, 1st Test, Day 1

Sir Ronald81 Comments

Today marks the 1st August and England are only playing their 3rd Test match of the summer, which not only feels wrong but also feels insanely weird. One could almost say that the ECB are not prioritising Test Cricket anymore, but of course only a money grabbing, incompetent and quite frankly insane administrator would do that surely? Answers on a postcard please..

As Dmitri pointed out yesterday in his piece, this Test series has hardly caught the eye of the fans despite India’s large following in the UK. It could be indifference, it could be that the ECB has tried to milk the magic cow too often or it could well be the people are bored of shelling out top dollar to see an ordinary team that has had the same issues for the past few years playing the same brand of cricket that has hardly led to sustained success. This of course augurs badly for the rest of the series and potentially for series to come, with only Lords potentially guaranteed to sell out, and we all know that most of the individuals who do choose to go Lords are not that fussed about what happens on the cricket pitch as long as the Chablis is chilled and the lamb is pink! The ECB are already committed to holding 50% of all Test Matches in London over the coming years and certainly with the lack of advance ticket sales for Edgbaston for a series against one of the big 3 in an area that has a large Indian population, then we might be seeing that percentage increase in the coming years. After all, I would suggest many of the members of the ECB haven’t yet made it past the Watford Star.

There of course could be another reason why Joe Public has stayed away and the blame can be squarely aimed at Mr Graves and Mr Harrison, who have handled this T100 catastrophe with all the PR elegance of a drunken rhino. Those with a vested interest know that this is going to be a catastrophic balls up and have done from Day 1, but interestingly I feel that this has filtered through to the more occasional fan who might switch the cricket on at the weekend or might turn up to a game if they are invited. The absolute classless arrogance combined with the total incompetence that the ECB has displayed in trying to push through the 100 has not only alienated the loyal cricket fan but also those who might not have realized what a shit pit of self-serving incompetence that the ECB is. The alienation of those fans who love cricket but don’t quite fit the fancy ‘mothers and children demographic’ which some overpaid and under talented PR company has sold to the ECB, have been insulted with ’10 ball overs’, ’15 mans squads’ and ‘it’s not for you’ since day 1 and quite frankly they are f*cking sick of it. Naturally not everybody is in the same position, as Sky having paid massive overly the odds for the TV rights, keep sending out their resident clown to drum up support:

Anyone believe this village idiot? Nope thought not. Even the most one-eyed ECB supporter will be able to tell you that this has nothing about safeguarding red ball cricket, but a ruse to try to exploit their last big TV deal whilst cricket has some kind of an audience and for those at the ECB to rake in the cash whilst informing the players that they will not be eligible for a price rise. Sorry Bumble, you’ve shown your true colours to the world as an overpaid ECB stooge. Would the village that has lost their idiot kindly reclaim him please?

So after all this idiocy and counter-idiocy, we then get to the first Test against India and guess what, it’s the ex-pro and journo’s that decide to buy a big gun and promptly shot themselves in both feet. Both Chris and Dmitri have spoken about the treatment of Adil Rashid in more depth than I will, but I not only find the comments against him distasteful but quite frankly I find it pretty disgusting. I know Rashid ‘has had his card marked’ by some members of the written press, but some of the vile diatribe that has been spouted at him for the ‘heinous crime’ of accepting a call up to the England team, should have the perpetrators writhing in embarrassment. Of course these ‘broadcasters’ and I use that term extremely loosely will no doubt state that they should be allowed to publish their opinions; however I am certainly of the opinion that this should not be allowed to be printed in any of the national press. Leave them to the snake pit that is Twitter. In fact as normal, it was left to Michael Atherton to act as the only adult in town when speaking about the Rashid situation:

I certainly know from experience that there is nothing like unfair criticism and alienation to make a player ready and confident for their next game. Personally I hope Rashid stuffs their opinions down their throats but in reality, he can never win. The moment he bowls poorly, drops a catch or does anything else that the written press don’t approve of, then there will be howls of derision and the words ‘mentally weak’ bounded around for anyone that will care. Once the press have decided that you are not an ‘Alastair Cook type’, then your fair game for flack. Just ask Nick Compton.

Anyway, apologies about the slight rant and now onto the actual play today. England won what looked like it could be an important toss and chose to bat first on a pitch that doesn’t look like it will have any demons in it for the first 3 days. Indeed looking at England’s slightly makeshift bowling attack, I absolutely felt that England needed to make hay whilst the sun shines and put some serious runs on the board, which with hindsight looks again like hope over reality. Naturally England’s openers had a bit of trouble with the new ball swinging around and Jennings was lucky to dropped by Rahane from a decent ball from Ishant; however after England looked to have seen off the new ball, then Cook got a good nut from Ashwin, who perhaps unfairly has been cast as a home track bully, that beat him all ends up. I know it has been mentioned around a million times before, but it now more than ever seems to be feast or famine with Cook, with his last few scores of 13, 46, 1, 70, 14, 2, 2, 5, 10, 39, 244*, 14, 7, 16, 37, 2, 17, 10, 23, 11, 243 highlighting this fact that his game has been wildly inconsistent over the past few years (though one could argue that he has been very consistent and that the big scores are getting fewer and fewer). Dmitri also pointed out that Cook is now 11 days older than Ian Bell was when he was jettisoned from the England team after months of whispers that his eyes and hunger had gone and after a period of diminishing returns, despite there being no obvious candidate to replace him. Now I’m not suggesting England jettison Cook at this point in time, but it always amuses me how certain individuals are totally immune from criticism even when presented with hard facts.

England batted well for the rest of the session and went to lunch with relatively few scares and with Root and Jennings settled it did look like for a brief moment that England might be able to put a score on the board. Unfortunately that hope soon disappeared after lunch with the dismissals of Jennings, who can count himself mightily unlucky and then Malan who is looking less and less as the batsman that scored that century in Perth. I have been happy that the England team have given Malan a longer leash than some of his predecessors but we are now getting to the time where Malan now has to get a score in the next couple of innings or it’s likely he will playing county cricket before the end of the season. With England now 3 down with not much more than a 100 on the board, it was once again left to Messer’s Root and Bairstow to do their wine from water trick and again for a while, it looked like these 2 might have saved England’s bacon again. All was going well until both got out to completely needless dismissals with Root unnecessarily run out going for a 2nd run that was never there and then Bairstow chopping onto his stumps from a delivery that was never there to cut. I could easily mention the failure to once again convert a 50 into a match winning 100, but quite frankly it’s beginning to get a little boring now and something that the management needs to effect a change of mindset and quickly! Once Buttler and then Stokes were quickly dismissed by the Indian bowlers and despite a battling red inker for Curran, at 285-9, England are in the mire and well short of the 400 they needed to be competitive on what will remain a decent batting pitch for the next couple of days.

A word too for the Indian bowlers, who were all effective in different parts of the innings but also more importantly didn’t let England get away at any part of the innings. I felt before the series began that on paper the Indian bowling attack looked more potent than the English attack, especially with the dry weather neutering England’s normal tactic against India of producing green seamers. Ravi Ashwin in my opinion was the most threatening of all of the Indian bowlers today, using his guile and changes of pace and angle to befuddle many of the English batting attack. As I mentioned above, many have potentially seen Ashwin as a home-track bully, but based on his performances today, he is going to be a massive handful for the English batsmen for the rest of the series.

Day 1 has not been a good day for England and they desperately need a better Day 2 from the bowling attack; otherwise India could be out of sight by the time England bat again. Oh and just as a side point the paying public lost another 2 overs of action today. I wonder how many we’ll manage to lose over the whole series!

As ever thoughts are welcome on the game below: