The Cricket Thread

[Sir Tarmo]

20 hours ago, Fuctifano said:

Think this could be a fairly dull Test summer, Sri Lanka might be even worse as at least the West Indies have a couple of decent quicks.

Innings victory incoming. And it could be the first of many.

[Savage Henry]

West Indies showing absolutely no intention of taking this to another day by giving Jimmy his send off before play today.  A few misty eyes, and classy by the West Indies but really, they couldn’t have waited until lunch?

[Boo Khaki]

Jimmeh drops an absolute dolly c&b for what would have been a wicket with his final ball in Test cricket 

[Savage Henry]

11 minutes ago, Boo Khaki said:

Jimmeh drops an absolute dolly c&b for what would have been a wicket with his final ball in Test cricket 

Should have gone bowling from both ends at this point. 

[peasy23]

Friend of mind was there this morning, got to see Jimmy's farewell, Atkinson end up with 12 wickets in the match, and got a full refund as there was less than 15 overs play. Not a bad morning all in.

[Sir Tarmo]

704 wickets as a pace bowler will never ever look normal to me

[Boo Khaki]

1 hour ago, Sir Tarmo said:

704 wickets as a pace bowler will never ever look normal to me

How many other pace bowlers had 20+ year Test careers? Even the more long-lived ones of the past like Richard Hadlee didn't get the chance to play 12+ Tests in a calendar year.

Jimmy's numbers are remarkable in their own right, but personally I'll always view them as a testament to his longevity rather than an indicator of ability. I can think of at least 10 Test pace bowlers of the past 25 years I'd want in my side before him, so regardless of what the wickets total says, I will never entertain anyone suggesting he's in the convo for GOAT. Far too often in his career he looked pedestrian in dry, flat conditions, and was a liability for much of his limited overs career, while it lasted anyway.

 

I also think he's benefitted a wee bit from playing in a era where even opening batsman are happy to fling the bat early on and go chasing runs, and are far less risk-averse than a lot of top-order players were 30, 40 years back.

Edited July 12 by Boo Khaki

[Sir Tarmo]

I definitely don’t view him as the best pace bowler of all time, his wickets are down to his longevity, but that has to play a factor when deciding these things and he’s certainly right up there. This century I struggle to put anyone above McGrath and Steyn though.

[die hard doonhamer]

I don’t think he’s the greatest there has been, but he is absolutely my favourite to watch. He’s the best swing bowler there has been, and I could watch the way he moves a ball forever. 

[HTG]

Anderson has been fantastic for England. A legend and a grumpy c**t - fantastic combination. Farewell to the King of Swing - 8 months or so too early. He should have had the summer and the tour of NZ. 

[Boo Khaki]

2 hours ago, die hard doonhamer said:

I don’t think he’s the greatest there has been, but he is absolutely my favourite to watch. He’s the best swing bowler there has been, and I could watch the way he moves a ball forever. 

I'm assuming you mean that contextually, as in "best English swing bowler of recent times", because I'd have both Malcolm Marshall and Wasim Akram way ahead of him in terms of being able to move the ball in the air. Marshall was literally a do-it-all pace bowler who would get the most out of any sort of conditions, and Wasim's control of the ball was like he had it on a string at times. He's known for the exploitation of reverse with Waqar, but he also had total mastery of conventional swing and could make batsman look just as stupid trying to play that.

With Jimmy, I'd complement him by saying that I think he actually got better as a bowler the longer his career went on, but early days he chucked at least one down leg every single over, and for the first five years or so he was totally overshadowed by Matthew Hoggard to begin with, and then Ryan Sidebottom as England's premier "swing" Test bowler. It's weird that the most effective part of his career has really been late-20's to early 40's, whereas most of the greats 10-15 years is from early 20's to mid 30's. He's not really had a more prolific career than a lot of genuinely great bowlers, just that the first 5 years or so was so ropey, then 15 years of good production, when most great bowlers can produce 15 solid years but beginning in their late teens or early 20's. It's a bit of a weird, unusual shape of a career, because I think he really wasn't far away from being thrown on the "tried and failed" scrapheap around 2008,9,10, but then they did tamper with his action one hell of a lot.

First time I saw him bowl I immediately thought "this guy is never going to make it" because of the way he tucked his head in and wasn't even looking at where he was bowling, so fair play to him for ironing that out and proving me wrong.

Edited July 13 by Boo Khaki

[Savage Henry]

He didn’t iron out that tucking in/not looking thing.  He still doesn’t look at the ball landing.    The English coaches tried to - I remember the commentators on Sky saying it was something he had to change - and it cost him about a year and lead to a stress fracture.  
 

He’s unquestionably England’s greatest ever bowler and undoubtedly in the very top tier of all-time greats.   The rest is just conjecture.  
 

For many of us on Pie and Bovril, I’d suggest, he’ll be the last top level sportsperson of our age.  
 

edit: Even at 42, he’s one of the best fielders in international cricket - ignoring the C&B dolly.   A bit of a freak in that sense.  
 

Gus Atkinson looks very very good on first look, if exceptionally posh. 

Edited July 13 by Savage Henry

[Boo Khaki]

5 hours ago, Savage Henry said:

He didn’t iron out that tucking in/not looking thing.  He still doesn’t look at the ball landing.    

Yip, it's not as pronounced as it was earlier in his career though, when he was already looking at his left foot before the ball was out of his hand.

[Red Kite]

Shame yesterday's weather wasn't today, at Forthill.  However, saw Scotland play some good and big shots until rain stopped play.  They had bowled and fielded well.  Very friendly folk volunteering and happy to have a chat.  The wee complex set-up there reminds me of Neston in the Cheshire Comp, although their view is the hills of North Wales.  The early finish means I can squeeze in a visit to Tannadice, tonight.

 

[Sir Tarmo]

England already have more than enough to win this game, and may not need to bat again, but christ, talk about cheap dismissals. Root, Brook, Stokes and Smith might as well have gift wrapped their wicket to the Windies. 

[Savage Henry]

34 minutes ago, Sir Tarmo said:

England already have more than enough to win this game, and may not need to bat again, but christ, talk about cheap dismissals. Root, Brook, Stokes and Smith might as well have gift wrapped their wicket to the Windies. 

I think they might have enough for an innings victory. 

[Boo Khaki]

43 minutes ago, Sir Tarmo said:

England already have more than enough to win this game, and may not need to bat again, but christ, talk about cheap dismissals. Root, Brook, Stokes and Smith might as well have gift wrapped their wicket to the Windies. 

Thing is, they'll play like this against Australia or India, trying to smack 400 in a day, then get rolled for 250 on a 500 pitch.

They've already blown one Ashes series due to brainless Bazball, and I'm 99.9% confident the next series will show they've learned absolutely nothing.

 

[Sir Tarmo]

3 hours ago, Boo Khaki said:

Thing is, they'll play like this against Australia or India, trying to smack 400 in a day, then get rolled for 250 on a 500 pitch.

They've already blown one Ashes series due to brainless Bazball, and I'm 99.9% confident the next series will show they've learned absolutely nothing.

 

They’ll win this series comfortably as West Indies have been bowling and fielding dreadfully, to go along with their non existent batting. So nothing will be said until the next India or Australia series (whatever comes first, I can’t remember).

I appreciate Pope had more lives than a cat but Root and Brook’s dismissals were nothing short of embarrassing. Stokes being set on 70ish before holing out to a half tracker from a part time spinner with no Test wickets prior was also a bit pathetic. Think England could still be batting towards 500-550 with a bit of care.

[Scorge]

Windies making a fist of this one at least.

At Forthill tomorrow, hopefully.

[Sir Tarmo]

As said before I suspected England left quite a few runs behind in that careless first innings. I just didn’t think the Windies would be capable of exposing that. Very nice innings from Hodge, Athanaze looks a really special player.