General Cricket Thread (It's Come Home)

Cricket has become paytv exclusive here in Australia for ODI's, so I haven't been able to watch the wc. But what's this I'm hearing about England looking like they won't even make the semi-final of their own tournament? And why am I supremely unsurprised?

Yes, that has been happening. It's a combination of two things: England's prepared for playing on flat surfaces and then hasn't got flat surfaces, and England's not used to being the favourite team and has fallen apart a bit. Add in injuries and fluctuations in form (Root and Stokes ^ Bairstow and Buttler v) and it looks like England are crashing out.

Meanwhile Australia has cobbled a middle order together pretty much out of string and sellotape, but between Finchnwarner and their bowlers it hasn't mattered a whole lot. India are still on course to win the whole thing.

And that's the Cricket 'World' Cup!

Overall it was tripe.  The contestants were tripe, with only ten teams in a 'world' cup.  The schedule was tripe, an interminable group stage and only three knockout games.  The weather was tripe in parts.  The pitches have been tripe - not the flat tracks that England succeed on, but that's fine.  What's not fine is that in basically every occasion bar the England/Australia semi-final the pitches deteriorated so cosmically that the team batting second was at a major horrendous disadvantage.  Only India, powered by Jadeja, seemed to get anywhere close.  The toss was ridiculously stupidly important and the final especially feels like a fifty-fifty winner's job decided at the start of the match.  And the broadcasting was tripe, with only the final shown on free-to-air, and that skipping over two different channels.  

There were some good things.  New Zealand won for the first time made the final, which is nice.  Everyone loves New Zealand.  England kindly introduced some jeopardy into the latter stages of the tournament by losing to Sri Lanka, apparently the worst team on the slate.  And the fact that the final has been free-to-air is the first time professional cricket's been FTA in England for yonks.

But overall: a big fat load of tripe.


EDIT: Okay I suppose the final was alright.

Should've been NZ. They were robbed I tell ya!

Can't really comment on the matches, cricket going almost-entirely pay-tv here in Australia means what you'd expect (that greed will undoubtedly damage the next generation of cricketers, as less and less children are exposed to the sport and thus inspired to pursue it). Surprised England pulled it together though. Not really fussed Australia lost, but it would've been nice if new zealand could've pulled the biggest upset of all time and taken home the glory. Still congrats on England pulling it together.

Great yes, but robbed? Nah. The most sensible tie-breakers after number of wins (tied I believe) were things like group stage position and head-to-head results, both of which favoured England. (NRR might have favoured NZ? Not sure.) As for NZ being unlucky: they won the toss in the knockouts twice. The pitches have massively favoured the batting side all tourney and have become increasingly turgid in the second innings. If they'd lost either toss they'd have been out, regardless of luck elsewhere.

We've had only pay TV here for ages - radio and Internet are my favoured forms of cricket-following. It's not great though.

Ah, the sweet news of a batting order collapse with the typical Smith salvaging effort. Good to see the status quo has been restored and the rest of the team hasn't needed to learn how to bat.

Seriously though sniping aside it's good to see Smith make a successful comeback. Regardless of what happened in SA the fallout wasn't pretty, good on him for managing to recover to return successfully.

Sounds like the first test is a pretty interesting one, I picked a bad time to return to a normal sleep schedule.

Meanwhile for England it's back down to earth with a bump. Ah yes, I forgot none of you could bat, and that you keep dropping two of the best batsmen in the side because reasons.

I suppose the Test was interesting considering the many turnarounds, but it was lost very early on the fourth day when England utterly failed to get Smith out. Remind me to rant about England's selection policy at some point.

Ho hum.

Don't worry, England's selectors aren't the only nation's that suck. Ours have only just gotten over their often-unfounded love-affair of the Marsh brothers (although they still usually include one or both of them when they get the chance).

Glad the weather didn't intervene, would've been a bit of a poor show for Australia to yet again be all-but-assured a victory only for God himself to intervene. Like that series eight years ago where if Broad walked and the weather hadn't been crap it might've been 3-2 in Australia's favour. Won't lie I was getting flashbacks yesterday morning when it was being mentioned as a possible factor.

I hear Lyon was the MVP for the last innings. Not surprised, I did manage to see a half-hour before I got too tired and had to go to sleep, and he was looking lethal.

Meh, nobody walks these days.


Alright, miniature rant. England have had two notable red-ball series MVPs in recent times, Sam Curran against India at home and Ben Foakes in Sri Lanka. Both were omitted. Instead we got Chris Woakes, so trusted with the ball he got seven overs in the second innings; and Jonny Bairstow. Jonnny fecking Bairstow, who made his last score of note batting at number 3 and yet gets given the gloves right back for no adequately explained reason. He's a less good keeper and Test batsman than Ben.

It's almost like playing Shaun Marsh over Steve Smith because Shaun Marsh has better white-ball figures, only even more monumentally stupid because there are two disciplines at play and Jonny is better at neither.

Then we have Joe Denly at number four, the place where your best batsman comes in, because England were searching for a good number three (despite drowning in decent number fours) and couldn't find one and now have one who doesn't want to be there; James Anderson playing despite having an aggravated calf and bowling four overs; and Jason Roy, who has opened in red ball exactly not at all before this summer but he's good at white ball so he gets the Jonny Bairstow treatment.

If I'd been a selector I might not have picked Stuart Broad, who bowled like a demon. I would have picked Olly Stone, the young tearaway quick who's just gone down broken himself. I also would have picked Moeen Ali, who has really good red ball numbers of late, despite his terrible showing and obvious lack of confidence. I would not have been perfect.

I would still have done better than this.[/rant]

Besides if Broad had walked we wouldn't have gotten the hilarity in the ensuing series in aus where he ended up barely able to walk off the pitch in what could only be described as irony.

And yeah, it's always frustrating when selectors make stupid choices. Sometimes it pays off (Wade and Broad for aus and eng respectively), other times you get Mitch Marsh for two cheap dismissals over the unblooded Glenn Maxwell.

Oi, less of the lip. Your lot are the masters of 'hard but fair'. Maybe not in their new incarnation? I don't know.

To be fair I'm yet to see Glenn Maxwell fulfil his undoubted white-ball talent in the Test arena. Same with Buttler on our side.

What would be your eleven-man Top Australia Test Team (or 'TATT') when they're all fit then Athers?

Smith out for less than 150 in a first innings?  His average is still only 80+ this series?  How utterly pathetic!  

Seriously though Smith's form is crazy.  I've never heard people seriously liken players to THE DON before (at best they'll liken a series of form to him, like that one summer when Clarke was getting double centuries every test and finished with a triple century), but Smith is definitely starting to get people asking the question.  And with how much tougher the sport is nowadays it's a fair question to ask.  

Cricket Australia: "wE bEliEvE wArNeR hAs A gOoD kNoCk iN hIm dEsPiTe nOt geTtInG mOrE tHaN 11 rUnS iN a SinGlE iNniGs"

Everyone paying attention: "His form was crap before the ban, why the flup did you pick him for a fifth test?  Literally ANYBODY could've done better than him!"

Seriously this is what always grinds my gears with the selections.  Sometimes they're decent, but too often the "fAvOuRiTeS" get given more chances than they've earned/justified while anyone not in that smattering of players gets ruthlessly culled after a bad match or two.  For gods sake Khawaja did better than Warner despite not being in form!  

I'm not going to say that one decision has cost Australia the match (although I am going to call this match England's to Lose, Australia needed to at least equal their score to stand a chance and they didn't.  Short of a few miracles in the fourth innings that's game set match), too many variables to make that claim and even without Warner our batting is miserably weak without Smith.  But picking him again certainly did not help one bit.  At least if they'd picked someone else Broad wouldn't instantly know how to get them out.  

Moaning aside this has been a pretty exciting series!  Lots of back-and-forwards between the tests, lots of fire from both sides, ect ect ect.  Been a great watch and ride!  Smith's second innings in the fourth test had to be a highlight though, bit of everything. Some dance moves, some tennis auditions, and of course some godly batting!

So, thoughts on the series so far Balla?

DoPo but whatevs.

People are going to point to this match as when Australia lost the chance to win an away Ashes. I'm going to point to the borked reviews from Pain in the third test where Australia had England dead to rights and still managed to piss away the win through a atrocious review, a dropped catch, and Lyon fumbling the ball. All three of those moments were where the series victory was truly lost.

People will point to this test, but really this was just England playing the way they should have been able to play the entire series. And so Australia, being the inferior team on paper, lost. From early day 2 it was evident they weren't in the running for this match, the question becoming one of how long will it take for England to win rather than who will win.

The most infuriating part, as an Australian, is that Warner is still going to somehow get selected this summer. He's going to become the new Mitch Marsh isn't he?

Still waiting for that answer sir!

Balladeer wrote:

What would be your eleven-man Top Australia Test Team (or 'TATT') when they're all fit then Athers?

Honestly though, I'd have kept Warner, and would keep him even more so going into the home summer. The Australian opener cupboard is pretty bare at the moment. They tried Bancroft, who'd even been scoring runs in the County Champ; that didn't work, so they picked the next cab off the rank. Meanwhile Warner has a proven track record in the format, unlike any of the other options. England fans were nervous, right up until the final Test, of him 'coming good'.

I don't agree that Australia were the inferior team on paper either! I predicted 3-2 to Australia before the series started: I think that would have been a fair result. Smith and Labuschagne > Stokes and Burns with Root out of form, and Australia's pace attack is thoroughly scary. Surprised Pattinson didn't play more though, I had him down as my man of the series.

That aside, that Stokes innings was and Jack Leach is , and oddly Joe Denly has shown signs of too. There are some definite problems, with the English selection as much as anything else but not solely; but there might be a glimmer of something there.

It was a fun series. Two seriously flawed teams went at it and 2-2 was a fair result (as would 3-2 have been). For Australia that should basically be considered a win, because we all know what'll happen down under next time...

I'm not one for Cricket old chaps but Somerset the county which I've lived in for 13 years could have won the county championship this week.

Now you could call me a glory hunter like with my football team #bantz but I just wanted them to win because that's where I live and mates are work follow them, much in the way I now go to Taunton Town games as it's my local football team.

I was home yesterday and by heck was their rain here, what were the umpires doing as I've had longer showers then what we got then today the game was ending 5.30 pm, what's with that, seeing it was still light and county ground just had new floodlights as well.

Boo, I say.

Boo is about right, although even if the game hadn't ended at that point Essex would have won due to Somerset having to try and do anything to work around the rain. Last round of the Championship completely ruined.

Somerset continue to be the masters of near-misses. Boo indeed. Glad it got you interested Mas, and genuinely sorry it didn't turn out the way you and I hoped.

They could have played yesterday though, that working around the rain shouldn't have been a thing.

What's this hundred draft thing, I've been seeing a lot about also who would be my local team.

Oh blimey.

Right. Currently we have Twenty20, which is the shortest format of cricket in which each side bats/bowls for twenty overs. However, there was a desire to get cricket on free-to-air telly, for which the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB with a silent W) needed to find cricket short enough to fit in a BBC-mandated slot. At the same time, the ECB believes that cricket is too complex for the general public to understand.

They came up with a new format. One hundred balls per innings. The Hundred. Thus far it's been a PR disaster for reasons I won't bore you with, but the ECB's point of view throughout has been, 'This isn't for cricket fans, it's for new fans. If cricket fans don't like it we don't care.'

One reason that might at least resonate with you, Mas, is that the 18 traditional county teams in England (including Somerset) have been shrunk down into eight regional teams. One of these is a combination of Somerset, Gloucestershire, and Glamorgan (i.e. Wales), and the name is... Welsh Fire.

Understandably Somerset and Gloucestershire fans care even less about the Hundred than anyone else.

Anyway, the draft is when the teams pick players. They're essentially bidding for the services of various global superstars in the 2020 Hundred competition. I can't say I care much myself.

Okay that makes sense and would sort of be the cricket for me, faster paced and easier to watch with teams I'd guess with kits & stuff. T20 is bearable though, and ODI maybe another format, basically not Test cricket sorry.

Plus having Welsh heritage the name doesn't really bother me plus had a Google, they'll play games at the county ground, maybe will check it out.

They all have kits in the shortest format, but sure, if it works on you I guess you're the audience they're trying to reach: a passing interest in cricket but not enough to watch much on Sky or go to a full day. Also as a fan of league football I'm guessing the mostly arbitrary assignment of players to teams won't bother you so much, not that any of them would be non-arbitrary for you at this stage.

Yeah seen the Somerset kits about for T20 etc and England have the blue ones.

I actually like the draft format due to American sports, sure this is tad different as not a college player but the likes of Jonny Bairstow, who'd normally already be at team then maybe bought if it was football.

Really I'll only be interested if the games at the county ground are on my days off, cheap and someone wants to go.

I'm not a cricket fan anyway, but I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate the draft system; the football pyramid had (until the Premier League and money ruined everything) been based around football clubs being formed in local communities - there was a good chance that some of the peeps in your favourite/local team (WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE SAME THING) came from your neck of the woods. Cricket I thought was even more entrenched in that philosophy.

It was. The county cricket game is based around the academies, which develop (mostly) local players. Obviously you have transfers and Kolpaks (international players playing on local visas), but there's still usually a strong local flavour to most county teams. (Clearly you need to get into the county game, Jim. )

To be fair, in the last few draft picks the Hundred teams did usually try to stay fairly local - the Trent team had ridiculous numbers of Nottinghamshire players. I'm still not a fan of the whole draft/franchise 'thing' at all though.

I like the draft system as it's sort of meant to keep it fair as the worst team gets the first pick meaning they'd get the best player and best team gets the last pick.

Where in football and I know I can't really talk but the best team can have the best players because of the most money, same even for rugby with best players going France to player due to lack of salary cap.

Now I admit I know nothing really about cricket that I don't know if the best team of any format, just goes and gets the best player from another team (from what I gather no or not often).

Just coming from a more football, rugby, nfl etc background of sports watching this seems a good idea the draft thing as way to start a new format and teams.