The Awfully New Cricket Thread

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

People have been saying West Indies are a bowler short, but against New Zealand I don't think they are. Delighted to see Narine perform in a test match given how ordinary he looked in England, that's a decent first innings haul for a spinner.

West Indies need to get on with it tomorrow, they could have a lead of 150 if they score quickly enough.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Dispiritng watch for New Zealand here. Old man Chris Martin breaking his 35 year old back on a dead pitch, they picked Wagner who is a new ball bowler in green conditions, and totally unsuited to this sort of thing, and sadly an utterly ineffective Bracewell. Vettori has been economical but not threatened at all.

I like how Chanderpaul nearly always gets out in single figures whenever it looks like West Indies are going to post a good score without him.

Hell, even Ramdin might get a big score on this wicket.

They've been scoring so slowly, the aim now must be to bat into tomorrow and try and get a lead of 200. The way New Zealand are playing of late, they'll crumble.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I was mad to think Ramdin would score runs.

Still, Deonarine and Sammy are in now which means tomorrow will be entertaining.

[rjd2]

Ravi can give it a slog as well so it could get messy  in the morning.

Vettori kept it tight but to go wickletless isn't good when you consider how many overs he bowled and how well Narine did. Danny has gone of the boil recently,never gets hammered but rarely rips through a team.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

He's been going through the motions for a while now, he needs to reinvigorate himself or just quit. Maybe he's just sick and tired of all the mediocrity around him.

Funnily enough there is still a chance for New Zealand to completely turn this around. They could have a lead of 200 themselves by tonight.

[rjd2]

West Indies won it easily enough thanks to Narine, Roach and Gayle. I'd expect West Indies  to have to much in the second test as well. If they could get the Bravo brothers into the team,they would be really formidable at least in home conditions. New Zealand just aren't very good really, glib maybe but spade a spade and all that jazz.

Taylor is in the England squad for Ravi, Compton will feel unlucky but really Taylor should have been picked years ago. Its a bloody tough introduction to test Cricket, Steyn and co though!

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Yeah and it wont help his confidence to know that he was picked due to be last man standing.

Patel, Morgan, Bopara and Bairstow deemed to be superior to him.

[The Duck Man]

Taylor is in the England squad for Ravi, Compton will feel unlucky but really Taylor should have been picked years ago.

When would you have brought him in? When Collingwood retired? Or before?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I think they should do as they did with Morgan and give them a fair run in the team or bat Prior at 6. The number 6 issue hasn't gone away despite us trying 5 seperate batsmen in the past 2 years.

Prior at 6 also allows us to have Finn and Bresnan or Woakes in the side. (Woakes being that guy who averages 35 with the bat, batting at number 8, and 24 with the ball in first class cricket. Should we never discuss that?)

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Yes, Windies were surprisingly ruthless yesterday too. Roach and Narine are class acts and need looking after. They did well to win as New Zealand scored over 600 runs in the match. Batting-wise, Deonarine and Gayle will do the business on a flat-track, if they could get the Bravo brothers in the side they'd actually have a competitive cricket team. Powell was unusually impressive, and in theory Kirk Edwards if he can get back into form. The key for the longer-term is finding a quality keeper and a captain that is in the side on merit, and knows what he's doing.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

http://www.espncricinfo.com/sri-lanka-v-india-2012/content/current/player/253802.html

On his way to become the greatest one day cricketer of all time, I have no doubt whatsoever. Makes you wonder why they persist with the interminably average Rohit Sharma!

Quickest to 13 ODI centuries by an absolute mile.
Only Amla, De Villiers, MS Dhoni and Viv Richards can compete with his average. (MS due to all his not outs)
By 180 ODIs (or the year 2016) he is projected to have 8000 runs. In the all time list the person to 8000 runs in the fewest ODI appearances is Chris Gayle with 237.
He's 23 years old so got at least another ten years, which would give him another 200 or so ODIs. In that time he would be knocking on Tendulkar's records. And it's not like he's going to forget how to play the game- he's going to get better!

Why can't this bloke play tests again?

[alcoholic messiah]

Why are India persisting with Kohli? He's been rubbish for the last 10 years!

[rjd2]

http://www.espncricinfo.com/sri-lanka-v-india-2012/content/current/player/253802.html

On his way to become the greatest one day cricketer of all time, I have no doubt whatsoever. Makes you wonder why they persist with the interminably average Rohit Sharma!

Quickest to 13 ODI centuries by an absolute mile.
Only Amla, De Villiers, MS Dhoni and Viv Richards can compete with his average. (MS due to all his not outs)
By 180 ODIs (or the year 2016) he is projected to have 8000 runs. In the all time list the person to 8000 runs in the fewest ODI appearances is Chris Gayle with 237.
He's 23 years old so got at least another ten years, which would give him another 200 or so ODIs. In that time he would be knocking on Tendulkar's records. And it's not like he's going to forget how to play the game- he's going to get better!

Why can't this bloke play tests again?

Kohli done better than most in that awful Aussie tour, I think he was the only one to get a century so at least means he has got a solid grip on the number 6 slot.

Rohit is their Ashraful, some lovely innings now and then but mostly complete failure. They have enough players with insane records in domestic cricket who deserve his spot.

[Nobody Soup]

yeah, I thought he'd made his case in australia and with dravid now retiring I can't see kohli being dumped anytime soon, whether he'll take the no.3 spot or go to 5 so that laxman's promoted I don't know but he's certainly a lock for the test spot for the forseeable future.

I really hope he can bring this form into tests, he's easily the most exciting player in cricket right now and for the first time I find myself able to see beyond the retirements of ponting, kallis, tendulkar. he's in the sort of form I'd imagine people must have felt bradman was in most of the time, he seems only to be competing with himself.

[rjd2]

WICKET!!!


Really soft, but beggars can't be choosers really.

[alcoholic messiah]

And another!

Now that we've got our designated 2 wickets, South Africa might as well declare.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Kruger Van Wyk typically for New Zealand is having a rotten start to his test career. They nick a South African with a first class average of 40 and still ends up being turd.

Due to the err...'competition', he'll probably get a decent chance to bed in.

[confettiinmyhair]

Win, Lose or Draw, after this series do you think that Strauss will stand down as Captain?

I'm a little baffled by the decision to rest (drop?) Swann, but I'm assuming it is because of his niggling elbow injury. The problem with selecting Finn is that though he's on form, you can't break the opening bowling partnership of Broad and Anderson, and you can't really drop Bresnan on his home turf and also because he offers something with the bat.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

And the problem with selecting Finn is Onions would be ideal on this surface but doesn't 'deserve' it ahead of Finn.

Selecting Panesar or Tredwell would be a waste of time.

[The Duck Man]

I reckon Strauss will target victory in the 2013 home/away Ashes double-header, then step-down (and probably retire). That'd give Cook 18 months to bed in before the 2015 Ashes series. That said, he'd only be a few months off 37 by then which is pretty ancient even in cricketing terms, so I suppose a bad trot could topple him before then.

[rjd2]

Kruger Van Wyk typically for New Zealand is having a rotten start to his test career. They nick a South African with a first class average of 40 and still ends up being turd.

Due to the err...'competition', he'll probably get a decent chance to bed in.

I watched them bat today and it was so depressing, everyone of them gave it away one way or the other, they needed some lower order hitting to even get them to 260 which is a sub standard score on a flat pitch but especially when 350 + was feasible before they collapsed.

Not sure who deserves most blame, Brownlie has looked clueless, Williamson keeps gifting his wicket when starting his innings, wicket keeper is just muck as you said like all their previous keepers.

West Indies should be targeting 400 or so.

[rjd2]

Awful from Rudolph to get out to KP, interesting to see how fellow flat track bully Duminy does now.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Quite well as it happens, much like flat track bully Alviro Petersen did.

Bad light has given us an early stoppage. Here's hoping we can bat through the day tomorrow. Now we have to set a score above 400 to not put us under a shedload of pressure.

[rjd2]

Monster innings from Alviro but still doesn't mean previous criticism was not justified.

West Indies scrapped over 200 on what is still a decent pitch, poor effort from all except Samuels obviously. Stunned that it was his first century in home conditions as well.

New Zealand are 110 clear but both openers gone, another 170 or more would make for a fun chase. It would be nice to see Williamson and Brownlie contribute something worthwhile also.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

The change of bowling attack seems to have helped, and this being much more Bracewell and Wagner's kind of pitch.

I must say, if Deonarine is taking wickets, the rest of the West Indies attack should be capable too. Now the pressure's on, we'll see what they're capable of.

Agreed that Watling and Brownlie are running out of chances. Williamson will have plenty as he's displayed more potential.

[alcoholic messiah]

Strauss was out this afternoon needing 6 more runs to pass 6,000 in tests (from 175 innings). He's also 2 shy of Bradman's career total, although the Don managed it in slightly fewer innings[nb]

Spoiler alert

80. Yes, eight-zero.

[close]

[/nb].

Remarkably, Cook is only 500 runs behind Strauss (from 143 innings). I still tend to think of him as the talented kid whose big brother convinced the rest of the team to let him play with them.

List of most runs by an Englishman

And as I write this, plucky England only need another 32 runs to avoid the follow-on, with debutant James Taylor currently on 4 not out[nb]I can't be arsed to come up with a decent "James Taylor Quartet" pun.[/nb].


Edit: Added a link to the "most English test runs" list.

[alcoholic messiah]

Pietersen and Taylor's partnership is currently worth 51 runs (from 71 balls). I say partnership, but it's kinda one-sided:

Contributor	Runs
Pietersen	34
Taylor	11[nb]5 of which came from the last 5 balls he faced.[/nb]
Sundries	6

Edit: And now Pietersen's pipped Strauss to the post, and snagged his 7,000 test run (from 150 innings), a year quicker than any other player in history[nb]In terms of time elapsed between his debut and the start of the match in which he achieved it (7y 12d).[/nb]. In terms of fewest innings, Wally Hammond's still the man to beat.

Edit #2: And now Pietersen's level with Strauss on 21 test centuries, and one shy of equalling the record number by an Englishman[nb]Don't, just don't.[/nb].

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

KP unsurprisingly for a centurion looking a class apart. Funny how he always shows up when he has a chance to stand out, or a point to prove. On top of the fact he almost always makes a contribution anyway.

Regrettably we need to ask him for even more than this too, to see off the new ball and anchor the innings past 400. It's on a knife edge here, if we can see it off and build 70-80 runs, I'm hoping their bowlers will tire and our long-ish tail can profit. Alternatively, we could still be skittled for 320 ish and be staring down a defeat.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

It's just struck me that they're facing a pair who have a collective 330 wickets from just 65 tests combined. So it's as tough as it gets.

We were certainly full of flaws over the winter, but if we are edged out in this series there's no shame really.

[alcoholic messiah]

Pietersen/Taylor partnership update - 102 runs from 147 balls:

Contributor	Runs
Pietersen	68
Taylor	20
Sundries	14