Oh, all credit to the West Indies, they played better than we did in every department and deserved the win. But as an England fan, I’m more concerned with what we did wrong than what we did right.
Still, the Women’s team is playing this evening (2am!), so when I get up I’ll be able to check and see if we’re through to the final. South Africa have had a lot about them though, going to be tough to beat.
Australia to win the final, regardless.
A big win for England - 293 with the bat, and SA all out in 38 overs for 156.
Given they started by losing three matches on the trot, that’s a ridiculous turn around in performance.
Ecclestone got her first international 5-for, taking 6-36; Wyatt’s 129 took advantage of 5 dropped catches.
Australia still favourites, but a lot to be positive about going in to the final
The Saffers really don’t like playing semifinals
A self fulfilling prophecy in the making
"Ok team, we’ve done well to get here, they’re good but we can be better, you’ve got all the skills you need, just go out there, get the basics right and whatever you do, don’t start to dwell on the prospect of this being yet another semi final loss. You got this!
Seriously, don’t think about it though"
Alyssa Healey is in a devastating mood!
Am never one to shirk from giving to Poms heaps, but sending them in and conceding 1-315 with five overs to play is stretching a principle
… and it needs to be acknowledged that was a bloody good chase.
Happened while I slept, it seemed like they certainly gave it a go. But you need more than one batter to fire if you’re going to chase down 350.
from Australia livescore:
ENG got up to close ie 6.5 to the asking rate of 7.12 and held it there for 43 overs, but continually conceded wickets.
At the 43 over mark AUS had only lost the one wicket.
AUS took 120 off the last 10overs on the back of having wickets in hand
A picture that paints a 1000 words.
Was a cricket coaching training session (i.e. how to be a coach)* on Sunday morning when the result came in. Fair to say that one lesson we were invited to drill into kids’ heads was the one about how many runs you can score once you’re back in the pavilion.
The counterpart to that is that bowlnig and fielding are first and foremost about taking wickets, and if you can’t do that…
Fair for England to take some positives from the match (and from getting there) but Australia very clear champions, with the national knack for keeping their foot on the opponents throat.
*I am now qualified to tell 5 year olds which end of the bat to hold
The tragic deaths from Australia keep coming 
1st Test of the (northern) summer.
ENG vs NZ at Lords
Stumps Day 1 NZ 132 all out ENG 7/116
Now it would be totally naff to have expectations that by turning over the coach and captain that the Poms would turn over a new leaf after a hard 12 months of very lean results. McCullum’s term in charge is still measured in hours.
But on their home deck, against a team that had barely unpacked their bags, (Trent Boult played in the IPL final on Sunday), having barely seen a red ball bowled, having been walloped in their only lead-in game, if you were going to ambush the #1 Test side this was the opportunity. Yet, after the Kiwis win the toss, bat and collapse to 7-45, stumble on to meager 132, in the chase are 0-59, how do you finish the day behind in the game? Obviously losing 5-8 really doesn’t help. Ah well, here we go again.
ENG seamer Matthew Potts put in a very solid debut with 4-13 off 9.2, seemingly overcoming the bad karma of being awarded his ENG cap by Steve Harmison. “Any words of advise to the debutant, Steve”?. “Yus, aim for the guy with the fuckin’ gloves, not the guy standing at fuckin’ 2nd slip”.
Watching a match like this one always makes wonder what would happen if ENG decided to go “T20 mode” in the 2nd innings. Surely they would have put up more runs than they actually did, right?
For a while this looked like it might be a two day test.
Is Cricket televised at all in the United States? I think I’d like to watch and see what it’s like! I think someone addressed this somewhere within these 2,000 posts, but it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
You have to subscribe to a streaming service. Willow TV and ESPN Plus (I think that’s the name)
Thanks.
The English County Championship matches are streamed free by the ECB on their website. But may be geo fenced because I can never access it.
I get Willow in my sports package. I subscribe to ESPN+ as well, but didn’t realize they had cricket.
The problem was never the bowling, after all
I’m entirely in favour of a red ball reset, and a new mentality etc etc but what we are missing is batters with Test technique. We didn’t have them in Australia I the winter, we didn’t have them in the West Indies in spring and we haven’t got them now.
At least, we haven’t got them in the team. We do have Bairstow who has been doing well in the IPL, instead if e.g Brook who has been scoring First class runs in the county championship. If you do the same thing you’ve always done, you’ll get the same thing you always get.
And as I write, Lees has just left one that took out his off stump.