International cricket thread

2nd test, 2nd session, day 1 and the West Indies have already destroyed South Africa.

35 overs in, day 1 and SA having won the toss, selecting themselves to bat first… 97/9… 😎

Aggressive fast bowling, aggressive attacking field placement, swing, seam and speed !

The inexperienced Shamar Joseph 5/29

jeeez i thought being at home West Indies would have cruised this after knocking over SA so cheaply. Boy was I wrong.. 128/9 😵‍💫

Mind you, tail wagging now, Shamar Joseph, number 11 batsman……14 off 3 balls, 4,4,6 😅

I clearly jinxed SA, from 118/1 to 144/5! The lead out to 160 but the game is back in the balance, could be over in three days, 4 at most.

so 263 the target…gonna be tough

Louis gone early, poor shot, pointless prod, ball not threatening the stumps but he hangs the bat outside off and edges one, a good low catch though… ball hit bat rather then the bat hitting the ball.

6 down, a collapse in the offing. As you say, loads of time to get these runs and fellas going stupid, going aerial and in T20 mode. Why ? Could do with using their smarts a bit more this lot…

So the England vs Sri Lanka series…so with Stokes gone and Pope captaining. Be interesting. I see one bookie has Sri Lanka at 11/1 to beat England at OT this week. England are 1/4…

I’ve looked at 3 different forecasts for Manchester, none in agreement over the 5 days, 😵‍💫. Weather forecasting these days akin it seems to pinning a tail on a donkey but I’m thinking or hoping there is enough play for a result. Best day as of now is day 1, Wednesday, we should get a full days play. After that, mixed bag….England team…be interesting to see how Pope gets on with the pressure of batting at 3 and the captaincy at just 26. Confirmed team…

Dan Lawrence,

Ben Duckett,

Ollie Pope (captain),

Joe Root,

Harry Brook (vice-captain),

Jamie Smith (wicketkeeper),

Chris Woakes,

Gus Atkinson,

Matthew Potts,

Mark Wood,

Shoaib Bashir.

Atkinson bowled really well against the West Indies and Potts didn't look out of place when he last played test cricket. I'll be pleasantly surprised if any boot filling is done against the English attack this series. Not much sign of it in the warm up match against unknown young bowlers.

80/5 Sri Lanka, they are as bad as I expected, another 3 day test in progress

from the outside looking in , you’d have to say the younger cricketers now being immersed into T20 cricket from day one, the insane dosh to be made playing it… look at some of the countries where cricket is played, poor countries. Sri Lanka being one so young people with a degree of identified talent will themselves be more frequently pushing to prioritise getting a lucrative T20 contract over getting in a test side.

114/7…. All England have had to do is bowl very competently. Some of the shots that led to wickets going down 😦

Decent fightback by SL obviously de Silva and Rathnayake in particular to reach 236.

Josh Little is stealing a living now in some 10 over slogging tournament, just got hit for 29 by some fat village blacksmith, the opposition are 40/0 off 2 overs, the superstars against the supergiants at superstar Park in the super league, except there is **** all super about it. Players who want to play slog cricket all year round don't improve their game, and he has gone rapidly backwards, I think his early success was because no one had seen him, now everyone has.

never got the hype about Little. What might be an advantage is he’s young but has a lot of experience. He’s not 25 yet. So maybe…biggest issue aside from going for runs is the lack of wickets..

International Matches/Wickets…ODIs : 36/56. T20i. :69/78

Always seems to be a tonne of hype / support around him. In the cricket media and…At the grounds there are always a lot of JL fanboys/fangirls…. Why ? because, he hasn’t done it for his country. He looks the part but it’s a results game. Big fit lad, 6’5, languid and fluid technique, quick but bowls far too inaccurately and inconsistently.

24, but, been globetrotting around the franchises, turned out for 8 different franchises so far around the world. So not shy about positioning himself making lots of money, been certainly shy about taking wickets for Ireland.

Averages 1.5 & 1.2 wickets per match per respective international format…

Wtf… everybody standing around waiting and watching Rathnayake do about a 3 minute warmup before he bowls a ball… any chance that when he gets the nod from his captain that he can stretch and warm up on the boundary ? No ? …. Enough overs will be lost because of the weather, now bwut….bowlers warm up time, shall that now become another time killer in cricket ? Everyone waiting….Umpires again..

England go 3 down… Lawrence with a stinker of a shot.