The Cricket Thread

[Squeak]

Congrats India.... a final that swung both ways.... fantastic cricket.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Squad for the first two Tests is:

Crawley
Duckett
Pope
Root
Brook
Stokes
Lawrence
Smith
Bashir
Woakes
Potts
Atkinson
Pennington
Anderson (first Test only)

Cook still not playing for Essex today so obviously not ready yet, you'd hope he'd get in later in the summer.

Wonder if we've just decided to cut Knobhead Robinson loose now.

There's a case for having Lawrence ahead of Bashir as the spinner based on county form...

 

[Carrotdude]

Yeah I thought that even though it seems a bit mad

 

[Tony Towner]

Leach playing instead of Bashir for Somerset
Foakes keeping wicket for Surrey instead of Smith...funny old world

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Of course Smith isn't there because he's a better wicket keeper than Foakes (he almost certainly isn't), it's that he's much more likely to average around 40 with the bat which is what we want (and indeed need of late, as our tail has rapidly declined in quality - even Woakes isn't the batsman that he used to be) whereas Foakes will struggle to average 30 and is bloody awful at manipulating the strike when he has to partner with someone poor at the other end.

 

[Tony Towner]

Of course Smith isn't there because he's a better wicket keeper than Foakes (he almost certainly isn't), it's that he's much more likely to average around 40 with the bat which is what we want (and indeed need of late, as our tail has rapidly declined in quality - even Woakes isn't the batsman that he used to be) whereas Foakes will struggle to average 30 and is bloody awful at manipulating the strike when he has to partner with someone poor at the other end.

No, but you'd think we'd want both playing the roles they've been selected for given their lack of experience. You are correct about Woakes, batting 9 for Warwicks now.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Neither are centrally contracted so I'm not sure we can tell Surrey/Somerset what to do.

 

[Tony Towner]

Tell no, could ask though and I doubt they'd say no, particularly Surrey. Could have pulled Leach out, although I know that's not realistic

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

100 for Smith today (out of a team total of 248, no one else made more than 26)

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Tell no, could ask though and I doubt they'd say no, particularly Surrey. Could have pulled Leach out, although I know that's not realistic

Pulled a player not selected out so the player selected gets a game? Somerset would rightfully tell the ECB to get fucked.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Only posting so you can marvel at the Fivehead that Rob Key now has.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1807726797334692294

 

[Tony Towner]

That’s a mistake from them and for him.

 

[Tony Towner]

This has annoyed me. A reasonable chance we'd be holding the Ashes if Key had come to this conclusion 12 months ago when the rest of the nation did

https://twitter.com/x/status/1807762328093597750

 

[Tony Towner]

Being forced to retire Jimmy Anderson in his first bowl of the season currently has 5-13

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Make that 6-18

 

[Stan Hullis]

I’d be annoyed if it wasn’t Jimmy

 

[Sniffer]

I'm annoyed for Jimmy.

He deserved to go out on his own terms and if that was away from the test arena due to injury or no longer being good enough then so be it however to have it made for him sucks whilst there still life in the old boy yet.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

It all seemed unnecessary at the time and even more so now we've picked up injuries to some prospective seamers so we don't even have that many to pick from (even more so if we've conclusively ditched Knobhead Robinson).

I doubt Tongue will play a Test this summer, Archer definitely won't, and Cook isn't currently playing for Essex due to injury while Mahmood is only slowly making his way back for Lancs, so who is he blocking?

 

[Tony Towner]

Woakes has been economical but lacking in wickets since coming back. All Somerset's fell to seam, he didn't take one. Last week 1-85 across Hampshire's 2 innings. He's also as irrelevant for the Ashes as Key says Jimmy is...or should be

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

You know how much I love Christopher Roger Woakes. But you're right, those two positions don't go together.

Some of the calls in the last 12 months have been bizarre. Bairstow keeping in the Ashes when they must have known he wasn't even remotely fit to do so (they had access to information that none of us had), Jordan in for the T20 World Cup out of nowhere when it looked like he'd been ditched for good years ago and subsequently being a drain against everyone bar USA, Malan handed a central contract when we clearly had no intention of ever picking him after the World Cup (when his previous contract was due to end anyway), managing the situation with Willey so badly where he was the only man left out and we didn't bother communicating it properly to him, persistence with fucking Curran who has been beyond shit for ages...