England v West Indies, 3rd Test, Old Trafford, 24-28 July, 2020

So where to now for the Ganjas?

Gabriel looks worn out after back-to-back Tests, Roach was limping. What changes for them?

And for England, will Jimmeh return? Personally I'd have him in for Sam Curran.

And will Buttler survive because a win is a win?

Buttler’s part of the furniture, he’s not going anywhere. And no rivals have had any game time to put pressure on him.

Anderson, Broad, Archer may be the strongest attack though Woakes and Curran would be unlucky to miss out. 5 seamers might be an option. Not sure what WI’s backup bowling stocks are like, other than Dwayne Leverock Cornwall...

Well, they do also have with them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemar_Holder

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nkrumah_Bonner

and if need be

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymon_Reifer

And he may be no Will Smith, but

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahkeem_Cornwall

has decent figures.

If they hide him behind the keeper when in the field, he might be worth risking.

The younger Holder seemingly unrelated to his captain, then. It appears to be a common surname in Barbados.

Indeed. And among Bajan cricketers!

Vanburn, John also come to mind.

Is this reliable, I wonder?

Note also the Brathwaite....

https://forebears.io/barbados/surnames

Yeah, I’d never heard of Brathwaite (without the first ‘i’) before... I guess small island nations tend to get stuck with a limited range of surnames driven by initial settlers.

Any chance we might play a spinner?

Basil wrote:Any chance we might play a spinner?

Could always bring back Denly...

Or Gazza Batty.

PeterCS wrote:Indeed. And among Bajan cricketers!

Vanburn, John also come to mind.

Roland

Other than deciding the Wisden Trophy, this Test will, importantly, remove the KK v QG scorecard from the Cricwaves widget.

Those Pakistani matches from March were a terrible reminder of the toll this Chinese plague has had on world cricket.

Forecast looks a bit grim.

Rain predicted for days 2, 3, 4 & 5.

Aggressive selection from England, dropping Crawley for a bowler, with Jimmy and Joffrey coming in... with Curran also out it looks like a long tail. I suppose given the weather forecast it may not matter, and we have to prioritise getting wickets.

Seems the Wisden Trophy is being retired in favour of a Richards-Botham Trophy (wasn’t Beefy generally a bit crap against WI? Mind you, who wasn’t in that era.) A shame as it’s probably the oldest and most historic series trophy other than the Ashes - but Wisden himself had no connection with the West Indies so it does make sense to recognise their own history, particularly in these times.

Windies win the toss and bowl - again.

We all know what happened in T2. Methinks Holder is afraid of the fragile nature of his top 6.

beamer wrote:Seems the Wisden Trophy is being retired in favour of a Richards-Botham Trophy (wasn’t Beefy generally a bit crap against WI? Mind you, who wasn’t in that era.) A shame as it’s probably the oldest and most historic series trophy other than the Ashes - but Wisden himself had no connection with the West Indies so it does make sense to recognise their own history, particularly in these times.

Agree, beams. Why tamper with history unnecessarily?

Perhaps it's a BLM thing?? Was Wisden a slave trader?

skully wrote:

beamer wrote:Seems the Wisden Trophy is being retired in favour of a Richards-Botham Trophy (wasn’t Beefy generally a bit crap against WI? Mind you, who wasn’t in that era.) A shame as it’s probably the oldest and most historic series trophy other than the Ashes - but Wisden himself had no connection with the West Indies so it does make sense to recognise their own history, particularly in these times.

Agree, beams. Why tamper with history unnecessarily?

Perhaps it's a BLM thing?? Was Wisden a slave trader?

Botham is black now?

First over wicket to the Ganjas.

Sibley comes back to earth.

Nath wrote:

skully wrote:

beamer wrote:Seems the Wisden Trophy is being retired in favour of a Richards-Botham Trophy (wasn’t Beefy generally a bit crap against WI? Mind you, who wasn’t in that era.) A shame as it’s probably the oldest and most historic series trophy other than the Ashes - but Wisden himself had no connection with the West Indies so it does make sense to recognise their own history, particularly in these times.

Agree, beams. Why tamper with history unnecessarily?

Perhaps it's a BLM thing?? Was Wisden a slave trader?

Botham is black now?

Well no, Nath.

More to do with removing things from the past offensive to blacks - hence my comment about Wisden being a slave trader.

Not seen any suggestion that there were any specific issues with Wisden, other than the fact his association with this particular series was pretty arbitrary (it just happened to be who was playing at the time of the Almanack’s centenary) whereas most nowadays recognise great players on each side.

Cheers beams.

Meanwhile, Gabriel limps off.

Already looking omnibus for the Ganjas.

Root playing the Sibley role, 5 off 35 balls! Obviously seriously out of nick, as normally he can achieve a strike rate of 50 without you even noticing him playing a shot.

Just as Root starts to get a wriggle on, he is run out with a direct hit (that just nicked the stumps) from backward point.

Windies needed that after an uneventful last 90 mins. Particularly with Gabriel lame.

Not a bad ball from Roach to topple Stokes. Cornwall equals cricketing corpulence.