SL tour of Eng, Aug 21 - Sept 10

[bigfluffylemon]

Decent win, Sri Lanka pushed England further than expected, but we are nowhere near a first choice bowling line up (outside Woakes in England).

Felt like a very new ball wicket. Obviously in England new ball is more likely to yield wickets, but it felt as though batting got dramatically easier after overs 20-25.

[bigfluffylemon]

Just totting up the numbers:

When the ball was 1-26 overs old, 22 wickets fell at a strike rate of a wicket every 32.5 deliveries and an average of 22 runs per wicket.
When the ball was 27-80 overs old, 13 wickets fell at a strike rate of a wicket every 82 deliveries and an average of 49.5 runs per wicket.

Pretty huge contrast.

[bigfluffylemon]

England move ahead of Sri Lanka into 4th on the WTC. A 3-0 win will put us up to 48, with NZ just ahead. Australia and India look out of reach - England would need to win pretty much all their remaining tests and Australia lose at home to India for England to reach the final.

Is it just me, or is it crazy that England will play 8 more tests between now and 18th December? That's an average of 1 test every 15 days.

[Durhamfootman]

Just totting up the numbers:

When the ball was 1-26 overs old, 22 wickets fell at a strike rate of a wicket every 32.5 deliveries and an average of 22 runs per wicket.
When the ball was 27-80 overs old, 13 wickets fell at a strike rate of a wicket every 82 deliveries and an average of 49.5 runs per wicket.

Pretty huge contrast.

have there been many ball changes?

Whilst not as obviously bad as last year, this year's Dukes ball seems to still get changed a fair bit in county cricket

[Durhamfootman]

England move ahead of Sri Lanka into 4th on the WTC. A 3-0 win will put us up to 48, with NZ just ahead. Australia and India look out of reach - England would need to win pretty much all their remaining tests and Australia lose at home to India for England to reach the final.

Is it just me, or is it crazy that England will play 8 more tests between now and 18th December? That's an average of 1 test every 15 days.

WC got in the way of the English test summer, because it was deemed essential that the WC be played in the rainy season rather than interfere with the IPL. Priorities, priorities

Does anyone really care about the WTC? England don't seem to and I know I don't. A competition where everyone plays anyone they like as often or as little as they like, wherever they like, which someone then tabulates to proclaim a couple of finalists, who then use the final as a warm up match for a bilateral test series in England

It's just a manufactured piece of old nonsense that the ICC hope spices things up, somewhat akin to the diamond league inventing a very silly 6th round jump off in the long jump, for reasons known only to them. If the ICC put a proposal on the table for all test playing nations to play each other, home and away, with the same number of test matches played by everyone, the BCCI, the ECB and CA would tell them to ssip off, NZC would be frantically trying to work out where they'd find the players to play more than 2 or 3 tests a year with all that T20 going on....... and CSA would have a *modded* heart attack!

[bigfluffylemon]

England move ahead of Sri Lanka into 4th on the WTC. A 3-0 win will put us up to 48, with NZ just ahead. Australia and India look out of reach - England would need to win pretty much all their remaining tests and Australia lose at home to India for England to reach the final.

Is it just me, or is it crazy that England will play 8 more tests between now and 18th December? That's an average of 1 test every 15 days.

WC got in the way of the English test summer, because it was deemed essential that the WC be played in the rainy season rather than interfere with the IPL. Priorities, priorities

It's not just the summer. England play six overseas tests between now and the end of the year, and then no tests until the home season in May.

The schedule's just barmy. As you say, can't get in the way of the IPL. Or the BBL. Or the hundred.

I really do fear that it's not long before test cricket is a three-way affair between the Big Three. Other countries don't care about it, and the Big Three don't want to play against them anyway unless they have to.

[Durhamfootman]

I really do fear that it's not long before test cricket is a three-way affair between the Big Three. Other countries don't care about it, and the Big Three don't want to play against them anyway unless they have to.

I agree.

[alfie]

Not sure that other countries don't care about it so much as they struggle to make economic sense of pushing it...hard to retain players who are being tempted by salaries from franchise operations that relatively impoverished boards simply can't match.

I share DFM's disregard for the WTC , which never appealed to me as a useful solution to the problems of the seriously uneven Test calendar. The points seem to be seriously devalued anyway by the disproportionate effect of slow over rate penalties - quite apart from the somewhat random effect of which tours fit into a particular window.

It will certainly be a huge pity if Test Cricket withers and dies in the face of all too powerful franchise forces. I don't actually think it will - at least not yet awhile ; but we are already seeing most non-Big Three series cut back to 3 or 2 matches - which is unlikely to change. At the same time I reckon it has been a right waste of resources trying to expand Tests to the likes of Afghanistan and Ireland who were probably far better off just concentrating on the white ball stuff...which is quite fulfilling in itself for the smaller cricketing countries and makes a lot more economic sense. I do hope arrangements can be struck that assist the likes of West Indies and SA to maintain themselves as the great Test teams they have been but confess I am unsure how much self-interest on the part of the richer boards will allow this. Getting rid of the WTC wouldn't hurt anyway...

[Durhamfootman]

It will certainly be a huge pity if Test Cricket withers and dies in the face of all too powerful franchise forces. I don't actually think it will - at least not yet awhile ;

I don't think so either, at least not in my lifetime

Test cricket is the biggest driver of revenue for the ECB and yet they keep trying to find other ways of making money at its expense, so perhaps they aren't as sanguine about the long term prospects of test cricket as I am. Which is worrying

[sussexpob]

Averages 58 - though early days I guess...

Took wickets against Sri Lanka for the Lions. Tall , left arm , nippy apparently. Still seems a bit of a punt.

Against Sussex this year he struggled to get the ball in good areas, but the odd one comes out out hot. Can't remember who he was bowling to, but the ball bounced off the pitch like a hand grenade going off, poor batter got nowhere near it, but 90% of his bowling was all over the place. Its sometimes hard to tell with the county coverage on how much pace a bowler has because of the angles they use, but his stock ball didn't seem that nippy. He bowls a very telegraphed effort ball where his action changes to be more violent in getting that right side of his body through a lot quicker, then he slings through... and those balls do look quick, a few very quick. But his run up, action and his general accuracy seemed pretty shoddy. He is at best a really rough diamond.

I guess it might seem a bit of a mad selection, but as Pakistani cricket has always followed.... if you have a 19-20 year old who can bowl a hot ball, don't bother wating till he's 25 and had 4 stress fractures to find out if he's any cop, get him in when he's young.

[sussexpob]

Just totting up the numbers:

When the ball was 1-26 overs old, 22 wickets fell at a strike rate of a wicket every 32.5 deliveries and an average of 22 runs per wicket.
When the ball was 27-80 overs old, 13 wickets fell at a strike rate of a wicket every 82 deliveries and an average of 49.5 runs per wicket.

Pretty huge contrast.

Modern test cricketers seem to struggle a great deal to the new ball, which in many ways vindicates the bazball approach to it. May as well slap it around and get bowlers on the defensive rather than wait for them to test inadequate technique.

The other, which is also prevalent in this series so far, is how poor modern bats are at playing the short ball. The SL's were swatting invisible flies in the Lions game. Especially to this top three, id be shoving in a lot of straight, short stuff to them. In both tour games so far they've gone after it, and gone after it very badly.

I think that's the first thing I teach a modern day bat to do as a coach. Sway, duck... don't bother hooking or pulling at anything straight into the body, no one does it that well anymore. Can't really think of anyone who is a great hooker of the ball nowadays.

Says a lot when someone like Rohit Sharma is considered a modern day great hooker..... he'd be eaten alive by a good attacking in the 90s batting like that to the shorter ball.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Ollie Robinson has slipped way back in the queue.

[sussexpob]

Ollie Robinson has slipped way back in the queue.

Key wants quick bowlers. No place for someone with an average of 22 in test cricket bowling medium-fast. After all, Jimmy was a terrible bowler wasnt he

[Arthur Crabtree]

I generally like the idea that when England are faced with a dilemma, they go with a pick for the future. So when considering Bairstow v Foakes, they went for Smith. Having the fit again Leach available, they went for Bashir. They didn't go back to Lees to replace Crawley as many expected. Maybe by looking past Robinson, who is close on 31, they are doing something similar with the pace bowlers...

Except they recalled Wood and Woakes! I get the feeling that Robinson just isn't a popular man.

[Slipstream]

I generally like the idea that when England are faced with a dilemma, they go with a pick for the future. So when considering Bairstow v Foakes, they went for Smith. Having the fit again Leach available, they went for Bashir. They didn't go back to Lees to replace Crawley as many expected. Maybe by looking past Robinson, who is close on 31, they are doing something similar with the pace bowlers...

Except they recalled Wood and Woakes! I get the feeling that Robinson just isn't a popular man.

I wonder if Robinson will be picked for Pakistan

or will it be Woakes, Atkinson, Potts, Stone and Stokes?