England v South Africa, 1st Test, Lord's, 17-21 August, 2022

England now eight down and just shy of making the visitors bat again which they should be able to do. Jansen cleaned up Potts.

Now Rabada gets Stokes.

Will have to be some partnership from Leach and Anderson to set them a testing target. Or block out two days for a draw…

Anyway, does this confirm South Africa are the real deal and genuine WTC contenders? Their batting line-up might not be much to write home about, but whose really is, right now? If they play the final at Lord’s against Australia or India I think there’s only one winner on this evidence.

SA get the victory by an innings with a few to spare. Anderson yorked by six foot eight Jansen to finish them off. Under three days with lots of day one washed out - pretty comprehensive.

Inside two days’ worth of actual cricket, if we assume 90-over days.

I still think the players should be forced to give the crowd/TV some action on the unused days if they capitulate like this. A couple of ODIs between the Test sides, for example.

well that was quick, blink and you missed it. safy bowlers were impressive, but are they really better
than indias? wish theyd started on thursday, hate these mid week starts and its all over before
the weekend.

I bet the MCC are mightily impressed about the early finish.

Basil wrote:I bet the MCC are mightily impressed about the early finish.

Yeah, as I said, they should put a match on for those who bought tickets if it ends before day 4.

Surprised Lord’s agreed to a Wednesday start anyway.

Red wrote:Jansen looks a good prospect at 22 - six foot seven left-armer who can swing the ball and he's handy with the bat too.

Sure does.

JGK wrote:

Red wrote:Jansen looks a good prospect at 22 - six foot seven left-armer who can swing the ball and he's handy with the bat too.

Sure does.

nasty

Yikes, what an awful performance by England.

Congrats to the Sith.

Re. Crawley…

Right now, there are only two men in the history of the game who have opened the batting as often as he has, and done so poorly at it, Alick Bannerman, who played his last game 127 years ago, and, Javed Omar, who propped up Bangladesh in the years after they first started playing Test cricket.

There’s patience and then there’s delusion… is it really doing him, or the team, any good? The alternatives aren’t that obvious, but a pinch-hitter or pinch-blocker/new-ball-watchman from down the order probably wouldn’t do any worse. And we’re certainly denying others an opportunity.

Really impressive from norty. consistant high pace, even if he did get a few wallops from broad.
He and jansen = good support for rabada, gave england no let up.

Root, bairstow and Stokes all looked like they hadnt played much [?any] FC cricket for 43 days.

Crawley avs 24 from 16 FC innings this season so its hard to believe he will suddenly find
his touch however much faith england have in him. But as there arnt any other openers
in the squad unless they promote Bairstow and bring in Brook, I spose hes staying.

In the lions game they recalled Sibley and Jennings, I dont wanna see them again.
Or Hamid, Roy etc those that have failed after many opportunities.
Best opener in the FC game this season is Compton another safy, whos a bit of blocker too.

The England opener with the best average since 2012 is… Jack Leach

Denly, Compton (N), Robson and Burns all averaged slightly above 30 in the role. Discarded too soon? Not sure what’s a good benchmark these days. We’d probably hope for high 30s, even in English conditions and with the best global fast bowling stocks since the early ‘90s, but maybe we need to set our expectations somewhat lower…

Aggregate average of England openers not named Cook in that time period: 26.78.

Openers of all nationalities in England since end of 2012 season average a fraction over 31. The all-time mark is 36.