England v West Indies, 3rd Test, Lords, 7-11 September, 2017

PeterCS wrote:

skully wrote:Jebus, what carnage. Is it a juicy wicket? Or just conducive overhead conditions?

Overcast, gloomy, close damp air - ideal for swinging a ballrick at the collective 190 heads of the Oz NSP.

Fixed

Sounds like how Oz supporters felt when sokpoc's call-up was announced.

A rainy Friday predicted.

skully wrote:A rainy Friday predicted.

Just like here. Hope it is fine tomorrow in Sydney when we contend against the drug cheats.

A washout today might suit England. Looking at the forecast, whoever bats for most of tomorrow wins this.

Gabriel is singlehanded giving this game back to England.

The number 3 position in this series, for both sides, has averaged 6.6 - the worst since the 1888 Ashes.

Take a bow, Bob and Westlife...

Congratulations to Jimmy! Never ever ever ever thought he would get close to McGrath. He's on about playing until 40 as well so could end up with the most wickets of any non spinner!

Who'd have thought it when he had red hair and broke into a million pieces of glass every other week.

Yeah, remember the Anderson Cycle and Jimmy Bage... those low points when we never thought he would make it as a Test bowler. See the Glossary for several outdated references to when he was crap!

500 Test wickets for a pace bowler is some achievement, he will surely pass Walsh over the winter and McGrath is definitely in reach now if he stays fit and motivated. Hard to imagine us without him now, so hope we get a few more years of him at this level.

Anyway, think this match is 50-50 now. If we can get New Hope and Royston Chasey early on and get amongst the tail it's ours for the taking, but chasing 200+ will be nervy at best.

Well done to Jimmeh on 500.

Stokes having a blinder.

So Windies effectively 3-22. A 150 target might prove interesting in this low scoring affair.

Yep. Good onya Jimmeh. Wonder if he will tour here this time. Last time he enjoyed the pre ordered food, bullying Monty with Chinhead and rousing on KP. Did not seem to enjoy actual bowling.

First blood of the day to Jimmy.

Windies currently effectively 6-58. They will need another 100 to have any chance.

horace wrote:Yep. Good onya Jimmeh. Wonder if he will tour here this time. Last time he enjoyed the pre ordered food, bullying Monty with Chinhead and rousing on KP. Did not seem to enjoy actual bowling.

Thou sour old so-and-so ...

Jimmy, the poor man's Ravichandran. But angrier.

Jimmeh (a michelle) removes Shay to hand the game to England. WI 7 fer not enough

PeterCS wrote:

horace wrote:Yep. Good onya Jimmeh. Wonder if he will tour here this time. Last time he enjoyed the pre ordered food, bullying Monty with Chinhead and rousing on KP. Did not seem to enjoy actual bowling.

Thou sour old so-and-so ...

hehehe... of course he has been and still is a wonderful bowler.

That said he was atrocious on your last tour both in attitude and performance. Maybe if picked he will have a better one.

Target of 107 is too skinny to defend.

Jimmy celebrates with a career best.

Can't afford to take this chase for granted, even if it should be comfortable. Three batsmen in the top five with little to gain, and everything to lose - no time to make a big score, but get out cheaply and they're probably not going to Australia.

horace wrote:

PeterCS wrote:

horace wrote:Yep. Good onya Jimmeh. Wonder if he will tour here this time. Last time he enjoyed the pre ordered food, bullying Monty with Chinhead and rousing on KP. Did not seem to enjoy actual bowling.

Thou sour old so-and-so ...

hehehe... of course he has been and still is a wonderful bowler.

That said he was atrocious on your last tour both in attitude and performance. Maybe if picked he will have a better one.

If he's picked horrie?

If he has a series like the last one in Australia, I think you'll win comfortably. If he takes the form of this summer on tour - then I'd take a punt on an England win if only we had more than two top-order batsmen worthy of the description.

2010/11 proved that he can bowl in Australia, as Ponting, Clarke, Hussey & Co were made to struggle badly more than once. Your batting today doesn't have half the class of that squad - but sadly, as I said - barring Joe Root, we've not found anyone fit to be mentioned in the same breath as Strauss, Trott, KP, Colly and Belf, so it will be a case of who's batting is more craptastic match by match.

Going forward, unless we unearth at least one more half-decent bowler (at present uncapped) before next winter, don't bet against Jimmy A overtaking Glenn McGrath's wicket haul against India next summer, and the chance of going through 600 when your boys are here the following year.

In fact, bugger that. Never mind unearthing a new bowler - as beams pointed out just up the page, he justifies his place by career batting average against the feeble efforts by our number threes thus far

Westworld drinking in the last chance saloon here...

Anyway, all done with the minimum of fuss. The first three overs set the tone, with a quarter of the runs knocked off... the inexperienced players held their nerve. 9 wickets flatters us somewhat though, that was a close Test until we got rid of A New Hope... WI fought well after being overwhelmed at Edgbaston, though they had a number of walking wickets in their top seven.

Still more questions than answers for the Ashes. I doubt we'll see a bunch of uncapped players/youngsters in the squad. The top order still fails to convince though. Probably this XI plus Hameed, Ballance, Woakes, Wood, backup keeper and backup spinner.

As someone previously posted - test cricket in 2nd week of Sept in England is a bit suspect. I'd almost suggest there's maybe a nefarious plan at work and it's a sign of the shape of things to come.

A 3 test series in April and a 3 test series in Sept leaving the ECB to fill the whole summer with a T20 and ODI gangbang. And with results in those bookended series assured within 3 days (weather permitting) then test cricket as we know it can be killed - and they'll use the results from those games as proof that that is a winner of an idea.

As beamer says, nothing really resolved fr England by this Test. The conclusion makes it more difficult to drop Westley (and/or Stoneman) from the tour bus, and may take the pressure off Malan too.

Personally, I wouldn't take all three - too much shakiness in the top five.


Anyway, congrats to the James - and WIndies appear to have discovered a star in Shai Hope.

PeterCS wrote:As beamer says, nothing really resolved fr England by this Test. The conclusion makes it more difficult to drop Westley (and/or Stoneman) from the tour bus, and may take the pressure off Malan too.

Personally, I wouldn't take all three - too much shakiness in the top five.


Anyway, congrats to the James - and WIndies appear to have discovered a star in Shai Hope.

Totally agree - those 3 in Oz is a scary proposition.

And Shai Hope does look good. Give them a couple of years and they might have the semblance of a decent batting unit. Brathwaite can obviously play and now that he feels there's some mid order talent behind him it should give him even more reason to fight as it is no longer necesssarily going to be a totally futile pursuit for him to resist oppo attacks. Powell seemed to have worked a few things out in this game and was handling our attack pretty well in some challenging conditions - so hopefully he can push on. Blackwood will presumably fare better on flatter decks and sunnier climes so he's going to sometimes be a scorer, and he does so quickly. Can they do anything with their bowling though?

The bowling had its moments, even if it's nowhere near what we came to expect from them in years gone by.

The openers looked just about as serviceable as most teams' do these days, and Shai Hope could be the star they can build around. But the hopeless Kyle Hope and Dowrich were passengers to say the least, Blackwood was pretty reckless and Chase showed little (though he clearly has more than he displayed here). If they can get the Bravos etc. back in though, who knows...