The Cricket Thread

[Tony Towner]

Tbf from what I can tell the pitches so far have been sporting. No issue with them being spin friendly. We seem to have lost this in the first innings.by being a bit too gung ho, general feeling is we left 100 runs out there.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

We weren’t that gung ho. Bumrah was just very good

 

[Tony Towner]

Mickey Arthur is in the gym. Thankfully he's not wearing those shorts

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Rehan Ahmed delayed at Rajkot Airport as England visa issues resurface

Player granted two-day emergency visa after single-entry anomaly is spotted on return from Abu Dhabi

www.espncricinfo.com

Convenient stuff.

Meanwhile Kohli not playing any of the series and Rahul not playing this week.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

100th Test for Stokes this week. Joins the club with:

Cowdrey
Boycott
Botham
Gooch
Gower
Atherton
Stewart
Thorpe
Strauss
Bell
Pietersen
Cook
Anderson
Broad
Root

 

[North Shropshire Lad]

If they were all in their prime at the same time, that would be a pretty good touring squad. Albeit one where I think there might be a fall out or two!

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

KP and Root would have to do all the spin bowling!

Derek Underwood is the nearest proper spin bowler on 86 caps.

 

[North Shropshire Lad]

I was just about to type that it's two bowlers short and the spin of those two would get some overs along with Gooch's dibbly-dobblers. To be fair they would be defending 600 every innings ...

Cook
Gooch
Gower
Root
Pietersen
Thorpe
Stewart
Cowdrey (definitely not a Number 8 but he's there to stick around with a recognised batsman)
Botham
Broad
Anderson

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Don't forget Cook with his Test bowling average of 7

 

[North Shropshire Lad]

And there's me picking him as a batsman.

 

[jd1981]

Bit of a Bob Willis piss take in his run up.

 

[Sniffer]

England XI to play third Test v India: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes (c), Ben Foakes (wk), Rehan Ahmed, Tom Hartley, Mark Wood, James Anderson.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Not too bad. Bairstow is too high at five in my book

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Not really, you're only ever going to swap him with Stokes in this set up - any lower and either he doesn't play at all or Foakes doesn't - and over his career there's not much in it.

At 5: 51 innings, 1,772 runs @ 36.16 (4 x 100s, 8 x 50s)
At 6: 51 innings, 1,895 runs @ 39.47 (4 x 100s, 8 x 50s)

But more pertinently, under Stokes/McCullum at 5:

15 innings, 765 runs @ 58.84 (4 x 100s, 1 x 50)

 

[Carrotdude]

Feel like he’s due one of his good innings here

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Shall we settle on he needs an innings after the first two tests

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Watching NZ v SA as a warm up to the main event.

A competitive close affair but the scores seem low as the pitch just doesn’t look full of demons.

If South Africa can set 240 or more I think they are in a good position.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Fantastic start. India 24-2 and Wood is bowling sensationally on a complete road.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

39-3 at the first drinks break

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

SA have already batted twice