Just been watching via livestreaming.
Buttler’s keeping concerns me.
Doesn’t he want to take catches?
There have been two edges this innings (were there others?), both given not out, one reviewed and given out that were deliveries and shots played that merited a full throated appeal, if not the rabid song, dance and shout routine that confident keepers are prone. But he’s merely gloved them and flicked the ball to 1st slip without any interest in the dismissal on offer.
Great catch to seal the England victory that keeps the series alive.
The WI never really in to win this one, but at 242/4 yesterday could have thought themselves reasonably safe for the draw that would see them keep the trophy. Good all round effort, I assume Stokes will get MoM but Sibley, Broad and Woakes also had great games.
England wrap it up comfortably in the end - what could have been an interesting final day was rather dulled by the early wickets, meaning England were always in control. It was an interesting reversal of the first Test in that England outperformed their opponents in all areas. Not sure what we have learned except that England have more strength in depth and therefore should be favourites for the decider. My bet is whoever wins the toss chooses to bat!
ETA: the strength in depth is of course partly down to home advantage which of course has been particularly magnified by the circumstances of this series.
OK - I’ll say it. England were magnificent in this test - best performance I’ve seen them put in for quite some time (though I missed much of the SA series due to travelling).
They put up a big score in innings one. Something we have ben crying out for. Was it boring? As hell. Was it good? Hell yes.
Then they bowled tightly in innings 2 and worked hard to get wickets without letting Windies get too close to the score that would have rendered the match a draw. Windies lost the match as a result of England’s new ball bowling with the 2nd new ball, losing 6-50 or something. The bowlers needed to come good and they did.
Once they couldn’t get the follow on, they managed the game almost perfectly (I think I would have declared a couple of overs earlier in the 3rd innings but it didn’t matter in the end). They did the right thing sending biffers up the order to try and set a target. Then they made the new ball pay again, taking 4 wickets whilst it was swinging. Shortly after tea, a graphic was put up by Sky showing that the swing was rapidly disappearing but they stuck to plans (short to Blackwood, top of off to most of the rest, spin for Holder and the tail) and were disciplined. If only they could play like this in every game.
In mitigation, the Windies bowling unit looked bloody knackered (partly due to the excellence of the 1st innings and having to run in for 160+ overs but also due to the fact they don’t have England’s luxury of turning out an entirely new attack), and their top order is pretty weak. It’s not a top draw England performance - the opposition would need to be firing a little more for that - but it was ruthless. More of the same please.
He’s odd I think. He’s the polar opposite of Bairstow who goes up for everything, whether it looks out or not. He’s putting pressure on Root during reviews by being diffident.
I once speculated that Cook’s eyes were going because he had started dropping chances in the slips that he would ordinarily take, whilst going through the slump that marked the back end of his career. I wonder whether Buttler couldn’t do with an eye test. Maybe he’s just not seeing the ball hit the bat. Stokes and Root at second slip are going up. Alternatively, maybe they’re just of a mind with Bairstow where they’re just going to appeal for everything in the hope that the umpire gives it…
The declaration timing was very interesting (perhaps the most interesting part of the game - though I wholeheartedly agree with Cumbrian that this is what we have been wanting from England, so I’m not criticising them for a very professional performance). I think it’s possible to argue that without those extra 40-50 runs (as compared with declaring 5-10 overs earlier as some were calling for at the time), you run the risk of the Windies getting off to a flying start and immediately you’re wondering how attacking to be with your field settings. Whereas with a cushion north of 300, you have that much more leeway before you have to start thinking about defending your total. As it turned out, England got quick wickets near the start of innings 4 and the final result was never seriously in doubt, but say Windies had reached 50-1, they could have stuck with attacking fields for a while longer to get the crucial breakthrough. It certainly wasn’t as conservative a declaration as some we have seen in the past.
On appeals, despite DRS it is still very important for the umpire to give you the decision - because then the onus is on the batsman to use a review, as opposed to the bowling side. Yes, I know it shouldn’t be that way, that’s not what the system is for, etc - nevertheless I think it’s a fact. Probably doesn’t change things too much though, given that without DRS you are also desperate for the decision to go your way. Regardless, hopefully umpires don’t get to Test status without being failure impervious to the demands of insistent bowlers and fielders - indeed with some it probably makes them more stubborn. Mainly of course they want to avoid having their decisions overturned - in either direction - as much as possible, which is incentive enough to get it right. In retrospect, the period between TV replays getting really good and DRS being implemented must have been the absolute worst for umpires, who faced castigation for every small mistake with no way to redeem themselves.
Stokes has now gone to the top of the all rounder rankings - he’s had a wonderful last couple of years, especially with the bat: ICC Player Rankings - Batsmen, Bowlers, All-rounders | ESPNcricinfo.com
I wouldn’t describe most of the entries in this list as genuine all-rounders but that’s all we have in the world right now.
Also in the top 10 is Woakes who I’m really starting to rate. However I was surprised to read the following (from The Times [paywalled]: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/unsung-chris-woakes-proves-there-can-be-life-after-james-anderson-n6x8zrm08)
Among the England bowlers with 75 Test wickets - and precisely 75 of Woake’s 100 wickets for England have been taken at home - his average is lower at 22.90 than anyone who has played in the past 50 years. Anderson averages 23.85 and the late, great Bob Wilis 23.50. Broad trails quite a way behind on 26.53.
And also surprising:
As he had already scored 1,177 runs, he also became the 16th English cricketer to complete the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets, and it is worth noting that it took him only 34 Tests to get there, fewer than Stokes and Andrew Flintoff (both 43 Tests) or Jason Holder (39 Tests).
Harsha Bhogle on Twitter:
Stokes gets the breakthroughs too. I think he is being wasted on a cricket ground. In this form, he’ll probably find a vaccine for Covid!
Dobell, on a Cricinfo video, remarked that Covid has gone into isolation to try to escape from the effects of Ben Stokes.
Stokes all round ability is currently absolutely critical to the balance of this side. He’s now our best bat, so if he pulls up with an injury that stops him bowling, he still has to play - if that happens though, the balance of the side is screwed. Do they go in with 4 bowlers if that happens? Wouldn’t fancy it as Bess isn’t a good enough spinner yet to hold an end down for 30-40 overs with the old ball, whilst the seamers get rotated. If they play a 5th bowler when Stokes can’t bowl, the batting line up looks much weaker (especially if 3 of the 5 are Broad, Anderson and, say, Leach).
Woakes to a lesser extent also more than useful for adding more batting down the order with good bowling. If only he could actually take wickets outside England. Imagine if Moeen were where he was when he took the most wickets in world cricket in a 12 month period - yesterday he blazed 80 odd off 40 in an ODI warm up game (Bairstow hit 127 off 80 as Team Mo thrashed Team Morgan by 100 runs - so we should take white ball form with a grain of salt, knowing what we know about Bairstow and Buttler in particular). We’d bat down to 9 in that scenario.
It’s not going to happen anytime soon though. I think this England team is now wedded to Bess and Leach for the long term. Bess, given his young age, could still be around for England when I turn 55 (I am 39) - a sobering thought.
Silverwood has said today that the team that plays on Friday will be the best lineup we’ve got. So, assuming everyone is fit, I think the team will be:
Sibley, Burns, Crawley, Root, Stokes, Pope, Buttler, Bess, Woakes, Broad, Anderson.
Woakes may be replaced by Wood or Archer, but I would disagree with that (I also think Buttler should be dropped for Foakes, but that won’t happen this game at least).
Does it worry anyone else that this best XI contains only 2 established batsmen (Root and Stokes)? Or to put it another way, if England have aspirations to challenge the best Test teams in the world, several of the others will need to prove that they have what it takes over the long term. But that’s Test cricket I suppose - you can’t expect to dominate the game for years on end any more, teams tend to rise and fall in cycles. I just hope England are now on the upswing, as it were.
I think the worrying thing isn’t just that we only have two established batsmen in there, it’s that it’s quite hard to suggest an alternative batting line up. With bowlers, we have an embarrassment of riches right now. I like Teuton’s line up, but the discussion about the merits of inserting Archer, Wood or Curran and who you’d drop for them is a meaty one.
I find it harder to quibble with Teuton’s batting line up, because I can’t think of who a replacement would be. Denly seems to have had all his chances. I don’t know why Malan disappeared from view but he did. I don’t follow the county game closely enough but looking at last year’s averages isn’t throwing up many new names: Sam Hain? An average of 51 in last year’s championship seems like it would be worth a look, and he has been in England As… like I say, I’m no judge and the selectors probably have their reasons.
But here’s teh 30-man squad for this series:
Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Jofra Archer, Jonathan Bairstow, Dominic Bess, James Bracey, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Sam Curran, Joe Denly, Ben Foakes, Lewis Gregory, Keaton Jennings, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Saqib Mahmood, Craig Overton, Jamie Overton, Matthew Parkinson, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Dom Sibley, Ben Stokes, Olly Stone, Amar Virdi, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood.
By my count that’s Bairstow, Denly and Jennings as the alternative batters for Teuton’s list, which is pretty thin to say the least.There are a couple more all-rounders but it’s not all-rounders we need. Where are the new Trotts and Pietersens?
It does worry me, @Dead_Cat, but it’s not like it’s a new problem, or that we have established batsmen I’m leaving out. Our system hasn’t produced quality test batsmen recently, and you can’t even blame T20, as (a) we have had T20 era test greats and (b) other teams seem to cope. But this is what we have!
Yes, sorry - I didn’t mean to direct my post against you, it was a general comment about the current state of affairs. I have no quibble with your selection, I’m just concerned about the fact there are no good alternatives.
You telling me that you guys have stopped recruiting/conscripting South Africans?
Isn’t it way past time there’d be a UK born batsman of Indian descent busting down the selectors doors?
(You could make the same observation about Australia. The grade and district clubs here field sub-continental batsmen at a rate well above their %demographic … but not many make First Class standard for reasons that escape my observation. Jason Sanga is currently the most likely candidate, but there should be half a dozen of that caliber.)
Re: batsmen. The real problem is, as we’ve said on a number of occasions, the openers. If they are around for the long haul, then this has the look of a settled unit. Crawley at 3 would be the open spot potentially, and there are plenty of decent enough batsmen knocking around who did make the initial 55 but didn’t the 30 (Dan Lawrence scores bucketloads for Essex, the selectors seem to like the look of James Bracey and there’s good batsmen who didn’t even make the 55 - Sam Northeast, Daniel Bell-Drummond and many more besides) who are effectively competing for one spot.
I say one spot because we’ve churned through pretty much every opener we’ve got, and Burns and Sibley have both scored 2 centuries in their short Test careers thus far. They probably need to be given more chance in the absence of other options.
Root at 4. Obviously. Stokes at 5. Obviously. Then you’ve got Pope at 6 - the boy averages 60+ in county championship cricket and is also at the start of his career. Already got a ton too. If CC runs are to mean anything, he needs to be given his due and I would say that this slot is also not open.
Wicketkeeper is a position that we’ve batted around a lot and constitutes the final position someone might come in and bat. Foakes has equalled Buttler’s test match centuries (and did it in his first game) but had a bad year with the bat in 2019 and I would thus caution against him being a saviour, despite his smoothness behind the stumps. Bracey (potentially specialist bat, potentially wicketkeeper) is another option here. I’d like someone else to get a shot against Pakistan unless Buttler scores big runs in this final game.
Everybody needs to be on a shortish leash of course - you can’t keep plugging away with players who aren’t scoring or exhibit big technical failings - but equally, I think jerking knees at the beginning of a Test career has bad precedent in English cricket (witness the whole of the 90s).
With respect to English cricketers of Indian descent - you mean like Hussain, Panesar, Bopara, Ramprakash, Samit Patel, Vikram Solanki et al? We had great hopes for Haseeb Hameed but shortly after breaking into the England team, and looking like he was going to solve our opening problem for two decades, he broke his hand and then has been wretched in county cricket. He’s still young but if he comes again for England, it will be very surprising.
We have also brought through cricketers who are second generation Pakistani (Moeen and Adil being the two most prominent current ones, but also Saqib Mahmood is looking like someone who will get ODI recognition soon and is bowling well in red ball cricket for Lancashire), so it’s not just Indian cricketers that we could draw from.
It’s not like the players aren’t there and, if they get to a level, not getting serious consideration. The problem with English cricket is that, in the main, the game is not being played at lots of schools. You need space and money to have a decent cricket pitch - fee paying schools have this, comprehensive schools don’t (especially after school fields got sold off in the 80s). Fee paying schools, needless to say, are overwhelmingly white. So the recruitment issue is the one that needs solving. Outreach programmes are starting to be taken more seriously by some of the counties, trying to get non-white groups of kids playing and into a system that doesn’t require scholarships to boarding schools. Going to take a long time to fix, to be honest.
TLDR: the question of why we don’t have lots of second/third generation Asian batsmen in our team is a fair one, but fixing that is 10-15 years away, minimum.
Here we go again, then - England nearly go with Teuton’s team except they’ve found room for Archer by dropping Crawley and moving everyone else up the order. Holder confounded my prediction by winning the toss and bowling, which has worked well already with Sibley out for a duck. Even before that though you have to question the wisdom of dropping a batsman. Perhaps the philosophy is that if you’re going to have a low-scoring shoot-out, might as well have an awesome attack. Though I have to also think that Archer, Broad, and Anderson are perhaps not durable enough to carry the seam attack by themselves (if they were you could consider dropping Woakes instead, harsh as that may be).
ETA: I see there is a doubt about Stokes’ bowling as well.
Yes, looks like Stokes is in to bat only. This is putting a lot of pressure on Buttler because on his current form it looks like we’re fielding 5.5 batters. Cumbrian’s stats about Woakes are somewhat reassuring - but with Sibley already gone the margins for error for the top and middle order have got extremely thin.
Indeed. On the plus side, Gabriel has just gone off with an injury, though it would be a shame if this proves to be a deciding factor. If anything it puts more pressure on England to occupy the crease for a decent number of overs!
122-4 is the kind of score that has me falling back on “never judge an innings till the opposition have batted”.