The Cricket Thread

[Mel Evo]

You can form a semi-serviceable Durham/England XI, bit bowling heavy...

Lees
J Morris (albeit he played all his Tests before he played for Durham)
Borthwick
Collingwood
Stokes
Botham (even if these were his fat panto days)
Plunkett
Wood
Harmison
Onions
Brown

Colly will have to keep, he's done it before when Prior went off injured once

I'd like to see Wayne Larkins up top, solely down to his contribution to the tobacco industry through his persistent habit of stubbing his fag out as he crossed the boundary rope in what I seem to recall was a documentary called 'Durham; a first class county'. Suspect that might only have been available to viewers in the Tyne-Tees region! Either way, your XI definitely looks like one that would go well in the sleet

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Lengthen the criteria to ODIs and Phil Mustard could keep, which opens up the possibility of c Mustard b Onions which surely no-one can turn down.

 

[Tony Towner]

If you are cheating with your opener Foxy Fowler had a better England career than Morris

 

[Mel Evo]

If you are cheating with your opener Foxy Fowler had a better England career than Morris

Listened to and enjoyed the TMS podcast about his double century in India yesterday evening, mainly as Vic Marks was on it.

 

[Tony Towner]

Listened to and enjoyed the TMS podcast about his double century in India yesterday evening, mainly as Vic Marks was on it.

His autobiography is very good.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

An admirable man, not ashamed to admit that I've pilfered some of his coping strategies (he doesn't have what I have, but it's in the same ballpark).

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Actually Keaton Jennings was Durham too when he first played. Just never pick him outside Asia...

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

26 runs for Bairstow to join the 6,000+ Test runs for England club:

Cook
Root
Gooch
Stewart
Gower
Pietersen
Boycott
Atherton
Bell
Cowdrey
Hammond
Strauss
Hutton
Barrington
Thorpe
Stokes

 

[Trips]

Should get there by the summer

 

[Tony Towner]

I remember 12 of those first hand, he'd be 13th

 

[Mel Evo]

Well. The views are spectacular at least.

 

[Carrotdude]

Root Duckett and Pope with one good innings each, Crawley has been surprisingly good, other than that a bit of a disaster of a series with the bat. Always going to be slaughtered with the ball with the spinners we’ve got but I was hoping for much more from the batsmen.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

harsh on Bashir and Hartley. Thrown into the deep end they have done well

 

[Tony Towner]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1765669308439388588

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Batting wise:

Crawley is doing fine and no concern at all (imagine saying that a year ago)
Duckett will always be high risk, equally so at home where he refuses to leave the ball, we'll have to see how sustainable that is
Pope has too many low scores and his record vs Ind/Aus is really poor, should be in peril now
Root will continue to get runs though perhaps not in the volume he did 2-3 years ago, he's 33 now and nearly everyone starts to decline a bit at that age
Bairstow shouldn't play again, not the best option at #5 when Brook is back and that injury means he's nowhere near fit enough to keep
Stokes hasn't been great against spin here, got to back him to sort it out and hopefully start bowling again too
Foakes to me will forever struggle to score enough runs, I don't think teams can carry a keeper who averages sub-30, it's not 1987, others disagree
The tail is pretty lame, you really miss having a peak Swann/Woakes/Mo at 8

Whether the management see fit to change it now or give this lot a soft home summer against what should be weak opposition, who knows

 

[Tony Towner]

Where batsmen have got big scores no other batsman has backed them up with even a half century
Root 122 Foakes 47 (I'm ignoring Robinson)
Duckett 153 Stokes 42
Pope 196 Duckett 47

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

700 wickets for Anderson.

Only bit of good news as England are getting a pasting

 

[Trips]

Some achievement

Good job he got it at the tail-end of the first innings as its looking unlikely he'll get a go second time round

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

20 years ago today:

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

One of the great reviews

https://twitter.com/x/status/1774075774284243452