International cricket thread

Other than Jamie Smith's performance and Harry Brook's century in the first innings, that was a fairly horrific performance from England. Crawley and Pope will always be unreliable and England know that and will still consistently pick them but with Duckett and Root having a poor test match as well, they were always going to be up against it. Picking to chase was always going to eventually backfire but Stokes and McCullum always know more than everyone else.

India should have won the first test match really and it papered over some of the cracks for England. Their bowling is atrocious and with Deep and Siraj able to extract so much more with the new ball, it was embarrassing how poor England were in home conditions. I wouldn't be surprised if all their bowlers will be replaced with Archer, Atkinson and Cook coming in and they have huge problems with Bashir.

For India it looks like they have their team for the rest of the series with Bumrah now going to replace Krishna and with Deep and Siraj, they will be confident that they can now go on and win the series. Gil and Pant have been absolutely imperious and somehow England have got to come up with something.

Amazed at the South African decision to declare when Mulder is on 367. Surely an extra hour batting to get over the 400 or get out wouldn't have made much of a difference to their inevitable victory. And they take a wicket with their first ball of the Zimbabwe innings.

I thought it could be a 4-day test match which would perhaps give some reason to it but it appears to be a 5 day one so he could have done whatever he wanted to. The only thing I can think of is that maybe he didn't want the record hanging over him. It does seem an extraordinary thing to do though.

Zimbabwe already 4 down as well and South Africa are going to crush them anyway. Mulder of course getting a wicket with his bowling.

a video I’ve seen purportedly from earlier today shows the pitch being watered by Lords groundstaff. Looked seriously green…also saw a rather frank and careless interview with Jofra Archer who was admitting that the English management had asked the Lords ground staff to prepare a pitch that would aid their fast bowlers…

Why not just say nothing. Like..” we’ll see and be ready for whatever the conditions are, anyway they’ll be the same for both teams..”

England have named their team for the third test and I am stunned that they have just only made one change to their anemic bowling attack with Archer replacing Tongue. Carse and Woakes looked absolutely cooked and most importantly both rarely looked like taking wickets at Edgbaston. Woakes is averaging 96 and Carse 52 in the series. Flat pitches for sure, but Deep and Siraj showed the English bowlers up. Jamie Overton and Sam Cook are the reserve bowlers in the squad and if they can't get in now, they may as well give up.

Looks like Atkinson has joined the squad with the view of coming in for the 4th test and Wood has a chance of making the 5th.

Archer, it’s almost like a sort of bleedin fetish at this stage. Am I missing something ? Anyone ? 🤯 guy is 30 so there won’t be a lasting step up of an improvement …guy is overrated..

Tongue has 11 wickets in 2 tests in this series. He’s currently the top wicket taker in the series, that is across both teams.. but he’s dropped… his average and economy is respectable too. How is Carse retained, Archer called up and Tongue ninjad ?….. 11 wickets for Tongue in the series vs Carse’s 6..

I’d be damn pïssed off and irate if I’m Josh Tongue tonight…after 2 tests his only issue was dropping a straightforwardish catch…. Otherwise, series leading wicket taker… what gives ? 🤪

England 185 for 4 After 58 overs

Joe Root 65 (129)

Ben Stokes 10 (13)

T20 World Cup qualifier on at the moment in The Hague.

Netherlands, Scotland, Italy, Jersey & Guernsey playing round-robin for 2 spots.
In theory you'd have expected the first two to qualify easily but still all to play for in the final day today.
Italy lead the way with 5 points including a win over Scotland, and if they can avoid a heavy defeat against the hosts today then they'll likely be a debutant qualifier.
Jersey play Scotland, both on 3 points so only the winner has a chance and will need to close up their NRR deficit.

2025 Men's T20 World Cup Europe Regional Final - Wikipedia

disaster, England lose 3 wickets in the first half an hour, England 260/4 to 271/7…

Had been looking good for 400+, now just limping up towards 300. Very poor batting as opposed to anything other worldly by the Indian bowlers…

disaster for England or any of us who enjoy seeing India getting beaten 😉

Siraj and Gill giving the umpire a bollöcking , unhappy about the ball selected by them. Few years ago that wouldn’t be tolerated. Quite persistent and full on..ughhhh

Gill gets the ball change and now having another moan. What are the umpires doing engaging ? Tell him to stfu and play cricket !

Jersey have beaten Scotland by 1 wicket which eliminates Scotland and now puts Jersey into a qualifying spot.

Italy have 99% qualified with that result unless the get absolutely annihilated but now Netherlands have to beat Italy to deny Jersey.

It was sort of seen as a given that Netherlands and Scotland would qualify so a major surprise. Italy have been using a number of Australians with Italian heritage but lovely to see another European side in the mix. It would be lovely to see a European Championship of sorts every so often with Ireland hopefully in the middle of it too.