Great win, and without (arguably) their best player.
Amazing. As you suggest, an all-timer.
The start of the decline, age catches up with all.
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Cricket
- Thread starter mb64
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Amazing. As you suggest, an all-timer.
The start of the decline, age catches up with all.
The pitch in India was fascinating.
Raked end to end with grooves and ridges resulting.
So what happened for the slower bowlers was the ball would either go straight or deviate depending where it hit.
On top of this...it barely broke up..so the ball came on quickly...either normal height..low..sometimes bounced higher..but always quickly.
Batters could do nothing if it hit the right spot.
Bowled..LBW..slip catches.
Santner has great control so got his two best figures ever in the one game.
Imagine SKWarne on this pitch...completely umplayable....they never prepared a pitch suiting him in India.
Raked end to end with grooves and ridges resulting.
So what happened for the slower bowlers was the ball would either go straight or deviate depending where it hit.
On top of this...it barely broke up..so the ball came on quickly...either normal height..low..sometimes bounced higher..but always quickly.
Batters could do nothing if it hit the right spot.
Bowled..LBW..slip catches.
Santner has great control so got his two best figures ever in the one game.
Imagine SKWarne on this pitch...completely umplayable....they never prepared a pitch suiting him in India.
Great effort by NZ to win a series over there. What’s the betting that once India get here they turn into world beaters and hand our arses to us?
We can argue that the wins by NZ and Pakistan are good for the game but is that the type of cricket we really want?
the India-NZ game was about 300 overs and only about 30 of them were bowled by quicks for no wickets. The best test cricket provides something for all bowlers. These wickets don’t.
The results were probably good for the game, the actual matches and the pitches they were played on were probably not.
the India-NZ game was about 300 overs and only about 30 of them were bowled by quicks for no wickets. The best test cricket provides something for all bowlers. These wickets don’t.
The results were probably good for the game, the actual matches and the pitches they were played on were probably not.
Na. They are no doubt on the decline.
Kohli would be dropped if he wasn't Kohli. Last 4 years (58 innings) has scored 1833 runs @ 32.7
Sharma/Jadeja/Ashwin all on the decline. Jadeja may not get a gong?
Who supports Bumrah? Siraj &?
Does Pant keep and bet 5?
It all rests on Bumrah - who is a freak and the worlds best pace bowler IMO.
The pitches were spin-friendly but far from diabolical. Australia plays on worse whenever India desperately needs to beat us. And in Sri Lanka. The English techniques and temperaments just emphatically failed the test.
Bazball needs flat decks so players can swing through the line confident there'll be no deviation. And what do you know, English Test pitches are suddenly roads. In those conditions Bazball is great and entertaining and puts the opposition on the back foot, but in testing conditions requiring sound technique, fierce concentration and mental application for long periods, the Poms just didn't want to do it. They tried to hit their way out of trouble instead of digging in and playing the kind of subcontinental innings we've seen from Khawaja for example over the last few years. Patience, backing your defence, selling your wicket dearly and being prepared to bat long.
A few blokes exposed. Crawley, for every dominant innings that takes the game away from the opposition there are half a dozen failures. Hence after 50 Tests he averages just under 32. Pope's similar - too many failures and averages 33 after 52 Tests. He's only 26 so has plenty of time to improve that but he needs to. Stokes averages 26 in Asia, in 27 Tests. And with 11 wickets in his past 21 Tests, can we really call him an all-rounder any more? At 33 are his days of meaningful contributions with the ball done? Jamie Smith can belt some runs but made some costly misses behind the stumps.
On the bright side Bashir and Rehan are highly promising young spinners. I think Rehan will do well in Australia, and I actually think England should do well given the good pitches they will get. If they have Wood and Archer fit and firing, Atkinson continues his bright start and Rehan is backed in, that's a pretty good attack for Australian conditions. It will then be a question of if the batting stands up in Australia for the first time since 2010/11 (can you believe England has not won a single Test match in Australia since then!). Australia might not have won the Ashes in England since 2001 (who would have thought that back then!) but we win at least one Test every time (and were robbed in 2019).
Anyhoo, onto this summer. Going to be interesting to see who gets the opening spot for Australia. Looks like it's either Konstas or McSweeney - I'd back the latter if I had to guess, but Konstas is a NSWman so I'm probably wrong.
NZ-England series will be a great watch. Home-like conditions for England so no excuses against a strong, disciplined Kiwi outfit.
Disagree. You have to be able to play spin on the subcontinent. Always been the way. Pitches should test batters, otherwise they should just play on concrete.
Did you watch? The pitches were not 'too far'. England was 'not good enough'.
I agree our batting needs work, but how many tests in the past on the sub continent, has the home side bowled not 1 ball of pace bowling in either innings? Can't have happened often, how can you claim that that hasn't gone too far? All wickets should be designed to take at least some level of pace bowling, even if they are favoured for spin.
Don't agree on the other wickets either, how its acceptable in this day and age, to play 2 back to back test matches on the exact same wicket is beyond me. Again, how many times has that happened before?
It's an opinion
I watched some but when you see a trundler like Santner bowling hand grenades then too much for me. Basically pointless picking fast bowlers, even a champion one like Bumrah. That's not test cricket to me.
We all know sub continent pitches spin but it's the equivalent of having green tops for every test in Australia, which I would be against as well.
Anyone else have an issue with current players being compared to previous generations' greats?
Joe Root here in England is a great example. An exemplary batsman no doubt, with sound technique and a dogged determination not to give his wicket away. But his runs accumulation (just overtaken Alistair Cook) has come on the back of ever diminishing ground sizes. It's a real bugbear of mine at the moment. Advertising hoardings are routinely 5-10m inside the fence, and then the actual Toblerone boundary line is another 5-10m inside that. It has to have a massive effect on the overall amount of runs a batsman makes, and is making the current day batsman seem like they're all run machine freaks.
Long gone are the days of trying to reach the fence at the MCG, or when hitting a boundary straight at the Adelaide Oval was something to marvel at.
The women's game is on another level. Was watching some of their Big Bash stuff the other day and couldn't believe how far in the ropes were. Hit it off the square and it's a boundary.
Just another way the 20/20 form of the game has ruined cricket in it's traditional sense.
Joe Root here in England is a great example. An exemplary batsman no doubt, with sound technique and a dogged determination not to give his wicket away. But his runs accumulation (just overtaken Alistair Cook) has come on the back of ever diminishing ground sizes. It's a real bugbear of mine at the moment. Advertising hoardings are routinely 5-10m inside the fence, and then the actual Toblerone boundary line is another 5-10m inside that. It has to have a massive effect on the overall amount of runs a batsman makes, and is making the current day batsman seem like they're all run machine freaks.
Long gone are the days of trying to reach the fence at the MCG, or when hitting a boundary straight at the Adelaide Oval was something to marvel at.
The women's game is on another level. Was watching some of their Big Bash stuff the other day and couldn't believe how far in the ropes were. Hit it off the square and it's a boundary.
Just another way the 20/20 form of the game has ruined cricket in it's traditional sense.
We may struggle in the tests because our batting is brittle although Shami is a big loss for them.
We have relied heavily on khuwaja and Head recently with Smith fading and Labushagne not making runs like he was. We may rely heavily on Carey to continue his stellar form.
Our biggest hope is Starc, Cummins and Hazelwood but I just can’t see us making enough runs.
Kohli will be an interesting watch as he has had an ordinary last 12-18 months by his standards.
India has been picking Pant to bat in the top 6 to accomodate 3 spinners on home pitches with Jadeja at 7 but it is more likely they would pick 6 batters, a keeper, a spinner and 3 quicks out here which means either Ashwin or Jadeja miss out. Ashwin averages over 40 in Australia as a bowler !
