God help me - the Test Cricket thread

[ElwoodBlues1]

Elwood, considering the pitches they played on,  it makes sense to pick the team they did and play the way they did - it got them results. Won't be able to do that in England,  Aus,  NZ, SA because the pitches aren't roads or dry turners, bowlers aren't as strangled by the rules and the red ball lasts a bit longer.

While I didn't watch any of it,  I think it is a good thought process and innovation for the conditions.

Some good points Dodge and appreciate the conditions in Pakistan made winning games difficult and called for innovation. I watched England play India and NZ in England and it was  the start of Bazball and while it wasnt the extremes like bouncers every ball or One day allrounders being picked the theme was the same and that was attack at all costs and it did rattle the opposition with Englands batting playing in short format mode. I think they intend to carry on with this style into the Ashes with their batting but might adjust back to normal cricket with their regular bowling attack available. Be interesting how the Aussies handle the Saffie quicks as that might have a bearing on how England select their team and play given they will probably have Archer and Wood available ..

[dodge]

Agree.  Going to be tough to choose their pace attack - it's a bit better than the Devon Malcolm,  Derek Pringle days!

Bazball will get shown up - hopefully we're the ones doing it.

[dodge]

Just saw Sydney Thunder all out for 15.  That's not many!

[Professer E]

Warner's form is consistent with how the Thunder batted.  Finished a year ago.

[crashlander]

Just saw Sydney Thunder all out for 15.  That's not many!

That is the record for the lowest T20 score at any senior level. The next lowest was 21, by Turkey against the Czech Republic!
Truly amazing!

[crashlander]

Warner's form is consistent with how the Thunder batted.  Finished a year ago.

I think Warner is finished as test batsman. He's never really liked the ball moving much, but now he isn't coping.
On the other hand, he'll probably play white ball cricket for a few years yet: the ball doesn't move around so much for starters.

Who to replace him with? Now that is an interesting question! Not a lot of names stand out, particularly as some of the pitches prepared this year for Shield games have been pretty ordinaire.

[Professer E]

I get the feeling Warner was tolerated when he was making runs, but no runs leaves him very exposed.

[LP]

Socials suggesting Head was dudded by another umpire who fails to understand the technology.

As I understand the argument, Snicko synchronises noise spike with video. But the ball clearly clips Head's shirt, however there is only one Snicko spike which must be the contact of the ball flicking the shirt. If it had hit his gloves there should have been two Snicko spikes in the video frames shown on the replay.

It seems reasonable, there was a clear gap between Head's hand and his body, so it seems there should have been two Snicks given one is clearly the shirt.

[LP]

The problem with the Bazball style test cricket, it's not taxing at all on opposition bowlers.

Watching today, our tail suffers because blokes like Warner at the top only punish the pill if they make a ton, we are 70 runs ahead after only 50 overs the ball looks like it's 20 overs old.

The cure for Bazball is for the opposition to channel Boycott, pound the new pill into the deck around your feet for the first 20 or 30 overs then do all your scoring in the last 40 or 50 overs. Keep the opposition out there bowling even if you are scoring at a great rate. Plan to bat an innings right through the pill, not just make a quick scoreboard impact and put your feet up. Time hurts the fielding side as much as runs!

But modern openers are a bit selfish, they want to bat like it's a 20 / 20 when the ball is hard and races to the boundary, they aren't thinking about the lower order batsmen, they aren't think about the next tests in the series, it's all about now!

Past greats like Haydon and Langer, Border, Simpson would end a oppositions whole series in the first couple of days, not just by runs, they kept them out there in the sun!

[Professer E]

Today's openers don't get the concept of "knocking the shine off" and putting overs into the bowlers.  As a side we don't do well batting time .  Then again, Warner never lasts long enough.  But on that pitch bazball was the option because you were a  walking wicket trying to bat time, as Head, Smith and Veeryn showed.  Eventually you were going to get a good one (QED Smith).