| Anyone watching the cricket today ? 08:45 - Feb 24 with 2750 views | Butty101 |
Good toss to win, I’m hopeful of an England win.
As for the 100 rubbish, what’s the point |  |
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 09:57 - Feb 24 with 2151 views | dirk_doone |
Yes. As you say, winning the toss and batting first is nearly everything in test matches in India but perhaps less so in this one because whoever bats most in the evening conditions is going to come off worst. So, a lot depends on how the timing of the innings works out.
In a game which requires concentration the Indian crowds must be very offputting for visiting teams, with their high pitched screams after every ball. It certainly helped our batsmen having no crowd for the first test.
I've already bought my ticket for the Sri Lanka match at the Ageas Bowl this summer. Of course, I'd have preferred it if it had been a test match but it's better than nothing. [Post edited 24 Feb 2021 12:39]
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 11:12 - Feb 24 with 2116 views | saints__fan__73 |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 09:57 - Feb 24 by dirk_doone |
Yes. As you say, winning the toss and batting first is nearly everything in test matches in India but perhaps less so in this one because whoever bats most in the evening conditions is going to come off worst. So, a lot depends on how the timing of the innings works out.
In a game which requires concentration the Indian crowds must be very offputting for visiting teams, with their high pitched screams after every ball. It certainly helped our batsmen having no crowd for the first test.
I've already bought my ticket for the Sri Lanka match at the Ageas Bowl this summer. Of course, I'd have preferred it if it had been a test match but it's better than nothing. [Post edited 24 Feb 2021 12:39]
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we need Forster to open, yes? |  |
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 11:45 - Feb 24 with 2097 views | Kennington |
Root didn’t look out to me. Not sure if it’s quite time for a rain dance but will be soon if we lose another cheap wicket.
Edit - we’re screwed. [Post edited 24 Feb 2021 11:51]
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 12:03 - Feb 24 with 2082 views | TimSaint |
93-7 !!
Perhaps we should have lost the toss then !!
A couple of iffy decisions though.
We picked a slightly stronger bowling side for this game, so we may even see them in action with the ball today !! |  |
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 12:11 - Feb 24 with 2080 views | Kennington |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 12:03 - Feb 24 by TimSaint |
93-7 !!
Perhaps we should have lost the toss then !!
A couple of iffy decisions though.
We picked a slightly stronger bowling side for this game, so we may even see them in action with the ball today !! |
Only borderline credible spinner, Moeen is at home. Rest of them are county level off breakers. | |
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 12:13 - Feb 24 with 2077 views | Butty101 |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 12:11 - Feb 24 by Kennington |
Only borderline credible spinner, Moeen is at home. Rest of them are county level off breakers. |
oh ffs at least i didnt get up early to watch this | |
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 12:17 - Feb 24 with 2076 views | TimSaint |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 12:11 - Feb 24 by Kennington |
Only borderline credible spinner, Moeen is at home. Rest of them are county level off breakers. |
Doesn't look like they can bat either, although Archer is currently 3rd top run scorer with 11 !! :-) 103-8
Someone likened the collapse to 'Lemmings Off A Cliff' - which could be used to describe some of Saints' recent 2nd half performances. | |
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 13:48 - Feb 24 with 2035 views | UlsterBaz |
The batting is as brittle as Saints ffs. Yes it’s turning, and yes it’s difficult but they’re pros and there’s nothing wrong with this pitch unlike the last one. Whatever happened to mentally digging in & trusting your technique? The rotation policy doesn’t help though. |  | | |
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 14:57 - Feb 24 with 2005 views | Kennington |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 13:48 - Feb 24 by UlsterBaz |
The batting is as brittle as Saints ffs. Yes it’s turning, and yes it’s difficult but they’re pros and there’s nothing wrong with this pitch unlike the last one. Whatever happened to mentally digging in & trusting your technique? The rotation policy doesn’t help though. |
Tricky as this bubble life must be tough. We do though have some players in this England setup that are more prone to capitulation than a Jack Stephens’ defensive performance. | |
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 09:43 - Feb 25 with 1897 views | UlsterBaz |
Much better this morning. That early dismissal of Pant is massive. | | | |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 12:28 - Feb 25 with 1877 views | Number_58 |
I've played on better pitches than this at Southampton Sports Centre. |  | | |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 13:52 - Feb 25 with 1845 views | dirk_doone |
India just about deserve to win it because they have the best spin bowlers in the world, who are marginally better than Root and Leach on their doctored pitch. The groundsmen even dug up the areas where the England fast bowler's feet would land and then patted down the loose earth to hide what they'd done. Anderson, Broad and Root were outraged when they discovered what they'd done but the umpire just shrugged them off. Obviously that would have been at the request of Kohli who knew he was only going to use spin bowlers. But a lot of the England wickets fell to umpire's call lbw decisions, which for England bowlers the umpire wouldn't have put his finger up. Having Indian umpires both on and off the pitch has definitely helped them.
As for the video referrals, for any decision which might err in India's favour, they take an eternity looking at half a dozen angles but for those that might err in England's favour, they look quickly at just 1 or 2 angles. For one England referral for a stumping , where Rohit ISharma clearly had his foot off the gound at the time the bales came off, they presented just one very blurred image so you couldn't see the area below his foot clearly and refused to look at any other clear images, like the one from behind the wicket that would have shown he was out. That's the only time I've seen them show such a blurred image so they must have asked the technician to blur it.
In many ways, watching England's troubles with the Indian officials is a bit like watching Saints against Dean & Co. You can see that they have a sense of grievance and it has upset their concentration.
You can see England are totally demoralised now. They probably just want to come home but they are going to be stuck out there for a very long time as they have another test match to lose followed by a 5 match T20 series then a 3 match 1-day series. Under the current circumstances, they were stupid to agree to play so many matches out there. [Post edited 26 Feb 2021 8:14]
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 14:32 - Feb 25 with 1797 views | Bicester_North |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 13:52 - Feb 25 by dirk_doone |
India just about deserve to win it because they have the best spin bowlers in the world, who are marginally better than Root and Leach on their doctored pitch. The groundsmen even dug up the areas where the England fast bowler's feet would land and then patted down the loose earth to hide what they'd done. Anderson, Broad and Root were outraged when they discovered what they'd done but the umpire just shrugged them off. Obviously that would have been at the request of Kohli who knew he was only going to use spin bowlers. But a lot of the England wickets fell to umpire's call lbw decisions, which for England bowlers the umpire wouldn't have put his finger up. Having Indian umpires both on and off the pitch has definitely helped them.
As for the video referrals, for any decision which might err in India's favour, they take an eternity looking at half a dozen angles but for those that might err in England's favour, they look quickly at just 1 or 2 angles. For one England referral for a stumping , where Rohit ISharma clearly had his foot off the gound at the time the bales came off, they presented just one very blurred image so you couldn't see the area below his foot clearly and refused to look at any other clear images, like the one from behind the wicket that would have shown he was out. That's the only time I've seen them show such a blurred image so they must have asked the technician to blur it.
In many ways, watching England's troubles with the Indian officials is a bit like watching Saints against Dean & Co. You can see that they have a sense of grievance and it has upset their concentration.
You can see England are totally demoralised now. They probably just want to come home but they are going to be stuck out there for a very long time as they have another test match to lose followed by a 5 match T20 series then a 3 match 1-day series. Under the current circumstances, they were stupid to agree to play so many matches out there. [Post edited 26 Feb 2021 8:14]
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Losing a home series is not an option for India
I’m not going to say they cheat but it’s so massive to them to be world number 1 that they will do absolutely anything within the limits to win | |
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 14:53 - Feb 25 with 1765 views | TimSaint |
No surprise with that heavily doctored pitch that 28 out of the 30 wickets to fall were from spin bowling.
There should be an inquest into that pitch and surely it should get an inspection from the ICC ? Even as low as Hampshire County Division 5 and 6 (new formats) this sort of pitch would get a grading and if it was that poor, then someone would be over to inspect it.
It is the likes of Channel 4 and the British cricket community in general that I feel sorry for. Hardly the best advert for the game to promote the sport and now C4 will have to show re-runs of Hollyoaks for 3 days, whilst they suffer their revenue hit from lost advertising. | |
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 16:17 - Feb 25 with 1739 views | Kennington |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 14:53 - Feb 25 by TimSaint |
No surprise with that heavily doctored pitch that 28 out of the 30 wickets to fall were from spin bowling.
There should be an inquest into that pitch and surely it should get an inspection from the ICC ? Even as low as Hampshire County Division 5 and 6 (new formats) this sort of pitch would get a grading and if it was that poor, then someone would be over to inspect it.
It is the likes of Channel 4 and the British cricket community in general that I feel sorry for. Hardly the best advert for the game to promote the sport and now C4 will have to show re-runs of Hollyoaks for 3 days, whilst they suffer their revenue hit from lost advertising. |
I’d say about a third of the England wickets were nothing to do with the pitch. Either woeful shots - Bairstow, Sibley or simply went straight on. It’s like we’d never played spin before.
I’m blaming Buttler and Moeen for this. Buttler’s finally established himself as a star in the team after years of trying and then goes home after dominating a poor SL team. If he couldn’t hack life in a 5 star hotel for weeks on end, then why didn’t he play the India tests rather than Sri Lanka? Same thing with Moeen. Surely you don’t rotate out two of the best players of spin for an away tour of India. You rotate them out at home to Pakistan or similar. | |
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 17:39 - Feb 25 with 1709 views | Number_58 |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 16:17 - Feb 25 by Kennington |
I’d say about a third of the England wickets were nothing to do with the pitch. Either woeful shots - Bairstow, Sibley or simply went straight on. It’s like we’d never played spin before.
I’m blaming Buttler and Moeen for this. Buttler’s finally established himself as a star in the team after years of trying and then goes home after dominating a poor SL team. If he couldn’t hack life in a 5 star hotel for weeks on end, then why didn’t he play the India tests rather than Sri Lanka? Same thing with Moeen. Surely you don’t rotate out two of the best players of spin for an away tour of India. You rotate them out at home to Pakistan or similar. |
There were some strange shots played but I'm not sure how any batsman can score runs or even survive for any length of time when a bowler can pitch three deliveries in exactly the same spot and one ball turns sideways, the next goes straight on and the next one bounces over the top of the stumps. Years ago on a pitch like this batsmen would have thrust their leg miles down the wicket and kicked it away, but with DRS you just can't do that anymore. I don't think Buttler or Moen would have made any difference at all. In fact, I think Jack Hobbs and Denis Compton would've struggled on that pitch. [Post edited 25 Feb 2021 17:41]
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 18:42 - Feb 25 with 1675 views | Kennington |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 17:39 - Feb 25 by Number_58 |
There were some strange shots played but I'm not sure how any batsman can score runs or even survive for any length of time when a bowler can pitch three deliveries in exactly the same spot and one ball turns sideways, the next goes straight on and the next one bounces over the top of the stumps. Years ago on a pitch like this batsmen would have thrust their leg miles down the wicket and kicked it away, but with DRS you just can't do that anymore. I don't think Buttler or Moen would have made any difference at all. In fact, I think Jack Hobbs and Denis Compton would've struggled on that pitch. [Post edited 25 Feb 2021 17:41]
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Robot and Gill looked comfortable to me chasing 40 odd in India’s second innings. It was a raging turner but we’ve had this before with England. Take every game we’ve practically ever played in UAE, and there’s been a few against Pakistan there. We simply can’t compete against good spinners on a spinning wicket. Much like India can’t compete against Broad and Anderson on an overcast afternoon at Trent Bridge. Only competent players of spin are Ali, Root and Buttler, if they’re misfiring or at home, we’re screwed. We beat Sri Lanka with ease as they’re now sadly on a par with Bangladesh and Ireland. Why play a stronger team against them and a weaker one against a top 3 nation? | |
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 19:10 - Feb 25 with 1663 views | Number_58 |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 18:42 - Feb 25 by Kennington |
Robot and Gill looked comfortable to me chasing 40 odd in India’s second innings. It was a raging turner but we’ve had this before with England. Take every game we’ve practically ever played in UAE, and there’s been a few against Pakistan there. We simply can’t compete against good spinners on a spinning wicket. Much like India can’t compete against Broad and Anderson on an overcast afternoon at Trent Bridge. Only competent players of spin are Ali, Root and Buttler, if they’re misfiring or at home, we’re screwed. We beat Sri Lanka with ease as they’re now sadly on a par with Bangladesh and Ireland. Why play a stronger team against them and a weaker one against a top 3 nation? |
Not sure how England can ever prepare properly for facing world class spinners on turning, unpredictable wickets, unless they play every home match for two years at Taunton. Home advantage is so important in test cricket, which is why winning in India or Australia is so rare. The other issue is that if you take out Root and Stokes, England's batting is actually quite fragile. Archer batting at 8 is madness, he looks like a club batsman at that level. Looking back, it was quite a surprise we won the first test. | | | |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 19:42 - Feb 25 with 1640 views | 130yrs_and_one_Cup |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 14:42 - Feb 25 by dirk_doone |
To be fair, the Aussies can be a bit like that too. Back in the days, when every country used its own umpires, there was one Ashes series where England didn't get a single lbw decision in the 5 matches and when they appealed for one that was absolutely plum, the umpire replied. "Not out, you pommie bastard."
Virat Kohli has just said, "It was a very good pitch to bat on." 
Anyway, India do have some very good players and one thing's for sure, Ashwin will be top of this list one day:
https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/93276.html
[Post edited 25 Feb 2021 14:50]
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"Ashwin will be top of this list one day"
Would that be Ashwin the bowler who will be 35 in September 
So, just another 400 wickets to go in 5 1/2 years then , if he can still get a place in the team by the time he turns 40. [Post edited 25 Feb 2021 19:43]
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 05:23 - Feb 26 with 1533 views | Kennington |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 19:10 - Feb 25 by Number_58 |
Not sure how England can ever prepare properly for facing world class spinners on turning, unpredictable wickets, unless they play every home match for two years at Taunton. Home advantage is so important in test cricket, which is why winning in India or Australia is so rare. The other issue is that if you take out Root and Stokes, England's batting is actually quite fragile. Archer batting at 8 is madness, he looks like a club batsman at that level. Looking back, it was quite a surprise we won the first test. |
Reckon it’s the facing world class spinners bit that’s the problem. England hasn’t had one since Swann. Most of us would fancy our chances against Dom Bess if we were having a UI net session. England just doesn’t really value spin, which is a shame as it’s not just Taunton that turns. A good wicket at any test ground should start to turn around day 3, and somewhere like the Oval certainly does that. | |
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 13:34 - Feb 26 with 1418 views | Number_58 |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 05:23 - Feb 26 by Kennington |
Reckon it’s the facing world class spinners bit that’s the problem. England hasn’t had one since Swann. Most of us would fancy our chances against Dom Bess if we were having a UI net session. England just doesn’t really value spin, which is a shame as it’s not just Taunton that turns. A good wicket at any test ground should start to turn around day 3, and somewhere like the Oval certainly does that. |
That's harsh on Bess. Swann was in his late 20s when he finally made his test debut, Bess is still only 23. And India is a notoriously tough place for inexperienced bowlers - even Shane Warne struggled to take wickets there. What time does the UI net session start? | | | |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 01:19 - Feb 27 with 1374 views | dirk_doone |
| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 13:34 - Feb 26 by Number_58 |
That's harsh on Bess. Swann was in his late 20s when he finally made his test debut, Bess is still only 23. And India is a notoriously tough place for inexperienced bowlers - even Shane Warne struggled to take wickets there. What time does the UI net session start? |
I've been impressed by Bess's potential, both in the Sri Lanka tests and in India. As you say, spinners develop later than fast bowlers and don't hit their peak until their 30s, which is when they take most of their wickets. Bess is ahead of the game. In a few years' time, he should be very good.
I guess the problem is that on the doctored wickets the Indians are preparing, any bowler who goes for runs could be a match loser, and as a relatively inexperienced test bowler, Bess does bowl a few loose balls. He''ll get better.
Going back to the dodgy video referrals, they've just said that which angles are chosen for the umpire to view are determined by the Indian TV director, whose salary basically comes from Indian cricket. Hence the refusal to show certain angles, which might go against India. It all comes back to the morality of cheating in sport. Should everybody do it to make things fair? Root has just said that England won't prepare green wickets which would favour England when India visit this summer. Has he just shot himself and England in the foot? The same conundrum arises in football. If some teams cheat and benefit from it, should all of the others join in so they're not disadvantaged? [Post edited 27 Feb 2021 1:34]
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| Anyone watching the cricket today ? on 08:56 - Mar 4 with 1236 views | Kennington |
Awful again. Can’t be any complaints about the wicket either it looks decent to me. Just rank bad batting all most looking like they’re scared of spin. [Post edited 4 Mar 2021 9:00]
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