ENG v IND Day 2
IND finish with 416 with a century from Jadeja on top of Pant’s effort.
ENG again lose the plot bowling to the tail with three last 3 wickets putting on 90 and a totally bonkers over from Broad in trying the knock Indian captain Bumrah’s block off and conceding a world record 35 run off the over. Not a including a waist high full toss that should have been called as a no ball.
For a guy who can’t handle short stuff when batting, Broad should book a session either with a phycologists or an orthodontist.
Yeah, well if the Lee/Crawley/Pope triumvirate can regularly blunt, tame or sate the bowling attack enough for the middle order to go into Bazball mode then I guess they are doing sufficient and it’s the team total that matters.
But Bazball works best (well as we have seen it so far anyway) vs a steady stream of military medium pacers. Even in T20s it falters against good pace off or flighted spin.
And this IND line-up can bowl.
Noticed a report that Anderson was supporting Broad after going for the HUGE runs, saying that he was just following captain Stokes’ instructions.
Not sure that reflects creditably on any of them.
The thing about Bazball is that it represents (so far) entertainment more than it represents success.
The epitome of Bazball were “The Bash Brothers” ie Brendon McCullum and Chris Lynn batting with the Brisbane Heat in the BBL. When they went off it was dangerous to be in the crowd. Exhibit A: Heat vs Scorchers January 5, 2017
Brisbane Heat have won one BBL title (2012-13) and McCullum didn’t play that game. Lynn batted #5 and scored 5. They haven’t made another final and have usually missed the playoffs.
McCullum by himself was awesome in full flight at the top of the order for NZ and was the batting dynamo of CWC 2015 though others had much higher aggregates. But we also remember how that ended in the final.
Stokes has basically said this: they believe in him, they’re backing him, end of. How batters who thought they might be pushing for a place feel about that is easy to imagine.
We finish 132 down, with only Bairstow making a serious contribution. High variance strategies will do that every so often.
You can say what you like about Crawley’s batting (and I do - he’s not Test quality and shouldn’t be in the team) he’s taken a fair number of catches this game
I’ve heard commentators saying that he’s been marked to be in the England team since he was 14 years old, so the “establishment” is emotionally invested in this guy in a way that ordinary failure is not going to discourage.
Not only is he not Test quality based on his returns. He should not even be an automatic pick for a county team with a FC average of 30, should he?
Having watched with pleasure the technical correctness of Ben Foakes behind the stumps, I’m flabbergasted that Sam Billings is rated as ENG #2 gloveman.
His footwork is poor, he seems to missglove/drop far too many deliveries, goes one handed at a lot of deliveries that I think he could skip across and take in two gloves.
A month ago if someone told you that in a match where they put up 284 in the first dig, the punters would think England would have a 25% chance of chasing down 400, you’d tell them they were nuts, right?
And in true English fashion, Stokes has to give up a 6 before getting the 10th wicket. England’s chase is 378. Roughly 60 overs remaining in today’s play.
India 416 & 245
England 284 & ???
So, if we assume England started bazballing in the NZ series, they’ve never put up 370+, BUT never needed to either. I would say in 2 of the 3 chases, they could have if it were required. Here are their second innings from those three matches:
279/5
299/5
296/3
Still, the difference in bowling quality has to be taken into account.
The funny thing is that England has the time to get there playing more traditionally if they can stay in. Assuming 140-150 overs left, they only need a RR of 2.5-2.7 to make it. India just put up a 2.99 to set the lead.
I would say not “nuts”, but I would say 4-1 is too friendly for the house. 5 or 6 to 1 and I might lay my money down.
Okay, who am I kidding, if I were already in a pub drinking, I probably would have bet on England.
So if you bet before the innings started do you get the odds at the time you placed your bet or is there a closing odds that everyone gets regardless of when they bet?
Yeah, what a great start. A century from the opening partnership and Crawley set his high-water mark for the last few matches with 46. Now they just need to Pope to stay solid until the new ball wears in a little bit. At tea now with 36 overs remaining in the day and England at 4.5+ RR.
Wow. After Pope went down without even a whimper and Lees followed quickly, Root and Bairstow took control. 150 runs later and England sitting pretty at 259/3. Still need 119 for the win so it’s not a done deal (England’s tail has collapsed quickly at times), but you’d have to think England the heavy favorite at this point.
Overall, the commentators called it a poor performance by the Indian bowlers rather than an amazing one by the English batsmen. Be interested to hear ya’ll’s take on it. Unfortunately, this one was NOT broadcast on ESPN+, so I was only able to follow it online.
I still think India lost it batting. They were overconfident, took too much risk (as opposed to England, who have no choice but to take risks). India’s seamers didn’t seem to get the variable bounce that England did, but I only could watch until England got to 100, so not sure what transpired after that.
Well firstly it was a good batting performance by ENG. If Bazball means a positive attitude with the bat more than taking risks then I’m in.
IND started day 4 as prohibitive favourites and finished it as well behind.
So a couple of wheels have fallen off the cart.
Even if the IND tail had provided another 50 runs then ENG with Stokes and Billings to bat would be ahead and time is not a factor.
IND bowlers line was too straight. Root, who normally gets his runs thru third man and point got 75% of his runs in singles between fine leg and midwicket. They were taking 3 walking singles an over because IND used a well spread 5-4 field.
Bumrah is on debut as captain and I suspect he went into Kholi mode. Conservative fields without much strategy. Moved the field chasing bad bowling. He pushed the field back too early. Neglected to build pressure by cutting off the runs. From here, to win it they need to attack. Jadeja to glue up one end, especially to the left handers. Rotate the quicks at the other end 4-5th stump line short of a length.
Yeah, I’ve been thinking of bazball as “4s and 6s as much as you can, even if it’s risky” (a variation on the current homer/flyout/strikeout disease that’s killing baseball IMHO). But the way England played today, whilst a high run rate for Test of 4.5, didn’t even match India’s first innings - a fiery 4.9). They just stayed hard on it, but were fine with 1s and 2s. They just got a LOT of them. I would call it more “aggressive” than “risky”.
Watching the commentary, there weren’t a lot of “oh, missed opportunity for India with that drop”-type comments (lots of those for England during India’s 1st innings). But, like you said, poor positioning of the fielders may have a lot to do with those 1s and 2s.
One thing that would be cool to see on the cricinfo site would be a fielder’s diagram showing the positioning. Probably require technology (transponders in the hats maybe?) since I doubt a human could keep up with it at all accurately.
The other would be a simple cartoon ball tracer for hits. That should be doable with a touch screen.
