England v New Zealand, 1st Test, Lord's, 2-6 June 2021

(Regarding the home squad:)

OLLIE! OLLIE! OLLY!

OI! OI! OI!

Some Test cricket at last.

Well, sort of... both teams will be missing some of their Covid Circus players so it will be patchwork XIs really. Chance for the seamers to cash in, though not as early as the typical early English season Test series.

Aye. Kane Richardson will be a massive loss to the Snoozers.

The Australian bowler?

too late to call up Darren Stevens into the squad?

Probable debut for Ollie Robinson and Burns reinstated at the top of the order would be my guess.

Nath wrote:too late to call up Darren Stevens into the squad?

Some have suggested that if we were picking the strongest available team to win this series under early season English conditions then he would be in there, particularly given the unavailability of our regular all-rounders/bowlers who can bat...

skully wrote:Aye. Kane Richardson will be a massive loss to the Snoozers.

Williamson. Sorry.

skully wrote:

skully wrote:Aye. Kane Richardson will be a massive loss to the Snoozers.

Williamson. Sorry.

For a while, every time I saw Richardson on an Aussie squad list I did a double take...

Anyway, looks like Williamson and others have made it here in time. They might well be closer to full strength than us.

Big blow for Foakes, out with a hamstring injury after slipping in the dressing room. Misses the chance to finally play a first home Test, and likely to miss much of the summer.

Debutant James Bracey will fill the keeper-batsman role, with Sam Billings, also uncapped in red ball cricket, added as backup (guess he now knows for future reference that he’s fifth-choice Test keeper!) and Hameed also added to the squad (not sure who he’s covering for).

beamer wrote:Big blow for Foakes, out with a hamstring injury after slipping in the dressing room. Misses the chance to finally play a first home Test, and likely to miss much of the summer.

Debutant James Bracey will fill the keeper-batsman role, with Sam Billings, also uncapped in red ball cricket, added as backup (guess he now knows for future reference that he’s fifth-choice Test keeper!) and Hameed also added to the squad (not sure who he’s covering for).

i was hoping that they might decide theyd seen enough of sibley [i know i certainly have] and
were gonna give hamid another try, but as hes been released already clearly its back to
the Burns and Sibley show. The bbc say bracey will keep and bat at 7, if england have 6
batters above him that must mean that crawley is at 3 and then root and Pope with
poss lawrence at 6 as in SL. Which means we will have only 4 main bowlers,
which looks very risky. Either they dont pick a spinner and rely on rooty
or they risk going in with just 3 pace bowlers, and as broad is VC, he'll def b 1 of them.

I'd prefer to leave out sibley, have crawley open and in the absence of Stokes and Woakes
give Stone or Overton a go. Stone looked quite impressive on the flat wkts this winter.

mike

At last some proper cricket to watch tonight.

Good start by the snoozers. 85/1

Jimmy gets his 615th Test wicket to dismiss Williamson cheaply, Robinson his first two to account for Latham and Taylor. Momentum back England’s way on a flat pitch.

Debutant Yarpsnooze opener Conway with 50 holding the innings together. Wood bowling in the mid-90s...

Nath wrote:too late to call up Darren Stevens into the squad?

Had all the fun of the fair finding this bloke - looked for a Darren Stevens on ESPN, found two, the younger one born in 1976 so can't be either of them, checked 'Stephens', found nothing, checked Stevenson, still nothing.....then remembered DS was also the name of Mr Elizabeth Montgomery in 'Bewitched' so maybe it was an obscure nickname, was just about to look up the name of the actor that played him but on a whim went back to Mr 1976 just to confirm he'd packed it in 10 years ago as a minimum.....did they seriously consider naming a 44 year old for a debut Test?

Fred Nerk wrote:

Nath wrote:too late to call up Darren Stevens into the squad?

Had all the fun of the fair finding this bloke - looked for a Darren Stevens on ESPN, found two, the younger one born in 1976 so can't be either of them, checked 'Stephens', found nothing, checked Stevenson, still nothing.....then remembered DS was also the name of Mr Elizabeth Montgomery in 'Bewitched' so maybe it was an obscure nickname, was just about to look up the name of the actor that played him but on a whim went back to Mr 1976 just to confirm he'd packed it in 10 years ago as a minimum.....did they seriously consider naming a 44 year old for a debut Test?

I don’t think so, but on pure county form he could have been, particularly given the lack of available all-rounders!

Been taking cheap county wickets with dibbly-dobbly seam for decades, and smashed a 190 with the bat the other week...

I remember looking at Devon Conway's career stats when he played T20 Internationals against Australia earlier this year. They are very good in all forms of the game.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/player/devon-conway-379140

South Africa could have a handy XI now if they weren’t all playing for other countries

Century for Conway, Snoozers in control again. Not sure what will be a competitive/winning score, but it’s a very inexperienced England batting line-up.

Bracey and Robinson are cap numbers 698 and 699, incidentally... our next debutant will wear number 700. Michael Vaughan was 600, though had Alan Jones been allocated his cap at the time, the honour would have gone to the rather less successful Gavin Hamilton (the last England Test player to register neither a run nor a wicket in his career. He didn’t manage a catch, either!)

Anderson is number 613, so we’ve had nearly eight full XIs through the revolving door since he started out (still a lot, even considering it was 18 years ago now).

Root said he wanted england to put on a show for the fans, but there wasnt much to cheer about after the 3rd wicket, unless you were a kiwi.

Plus all the usual PC bullshit. England take the knee, they have a special anti discrimination shirt too! and then how
embarrasing, a twitter expose. Making Robinson eat humble pie in his mea culpa written statement on his debut was truly awful. Why dont they just concentrate
on playing cricket?

Handy Test debut by Conway.

I recall when he was a youngster in South Africa, some suggested he was the next big thing.

Erratic Politics has seen the exit of some very good players from SAf.

NZ, Eng and Aus have benefited.

Good session for England, 4-50.