aye, wasn’t aimed particularly at you – it might have been on here or might have been on TMS or the TV but someone was picking his action apart for angles and rotation and…..

whereas one of the best bowlers I played with in my time bowled horrible late swinging dibbly dobblers off the wrong foot and totally chest on, but would frustrate the **** out of batsmen who couldn’t work out why a 55mph trundler tied them in knots.

bowled horrible late swinging dibbly dobblers off the wrong foot and totally chest on

Sounds like Joe Mennie, apart from the ‘effective’ bit.

Watched a bit more of the game from Hobart, they really are shit.

his nickname was Larse, from Gavin Larsen.

his nickname was Larse, from Gavin Larsen.

Larsen’s own nickname was ‘Larceny’ – probably with more than a nod to the fact that no one could explain how he got his wickets(!)

Ah, the days of the production line Kiwi dobber. Such luminaries as Ewan Chatfield, Martin Sneddon and Willie Watson.

As Gooch said, Richard Hadlee at one end, Ilford seconds at the other.

NZ tours were always great – a real chance to see cricketers who you had genuinely never heard of play test cricket.

Murphy Su’a – the left arm seamer with a beautiful action who was rubbish.

Heath Davis – the cross-seam bowling paceman with the unpronounceable middle name and a radar so defective that just hitting the cut bit was cause for celebration.

Matthew Hart – probably the most beautiful left arm spinners action since Bishen Bedi, just couldn’t land the ball in the same place twice in a row, ever.

Then they got all serious, we picked our joke team (Mullally, Tufnell and Giddins anyone?) and they stuffed us to put us bottom of the rankings. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

Tufnell, joke?

I played against Ed Giddins the day after he retired, in a jazzhat game. Me for the Stragglers, he for the Bluemantles i think. he was badly hung over and hadn’t attempted any sort of warmup. As a result I crashed the first ball i received off him through square for four.

he livened up a bit after that………

Tufnell named as part of the worst tail ever – actually by this stage I was despairing of him as he had become obsessed with speed and flight and barely turned the ball off straight, not an inch.

Didn’t Chris Schofield get a run out in that summer as well? Rumor has it that Shane Warne offered to spend some time with him after a day’s play somewhere to impart some help and advice. Apparently Schofield was rather more keen on getting out on the piss ASAP and said as much to the greatest leg spinner to have played the game, not the best career move from someone who only got a go because he was considered better than Ian Salisbury for about five minutes.

Anyway, probably a bit hard on Tuffers but that tail of Caddick, Mullally, Tufnell and Giddins was symptomatic of English cricket at that time.

Contrast that with today – Broad at eleven with a test century (and a daddy ton at that) to his name.

Well as we wait for the next installment I’m keeping an eye on the Day/Night test in Adelaide, I had to check that it was really 3 from SA that were out before they made 50!!Stabalising now but I also spotted Cricket.com.au has a boss mode for the scorecard page 😉

Interesting appointment as new Sussex Chief Executive, Rob Andrew.

A bit of evil genius from SA: they declared when Warner was off the field, so he wouldn’t be able to open the batting.

A bit of evil genius from SA: they declared when Warner was off the field, so he wouldn’t be able to open the batting.

I was thinking of posting about that – very funny.

A bit of evil genius from SA: they declared when Warner was off the field, so he wouldn’t be able to open the batting.

I don’t know if it would have been 100% Faf’s idea, but you’ve got to applaud the knowledge of the situation and using unorthodoxy to put your opponent off of their stride. By the way Warner has played in this series it is probably a 50/50, though – do you want to get him early under lights or is it too risky that he’ll take you out of the game with a comparatively low total on the board?

Good interview with BabyBoycs on TMS now.

I don’t think England have had the correct balance in any team this tour yet. 4 seamers?? It also seems to only spin big every now and then.

Oh dear. India appear to have batted England out of the game. I blame brexit 😉

There’s a reason India win so many tests at home – they are absolute masters of home conditions. This tour just shows how well we played last time out there to beat them. This England side has a lot of potential, but is a long way from the finished article.

The other side of that coin is when they come to England and can only lay bat on about one ball an over, mostly to nick it behind. I have no problem whatsoever with England preparing wickets the colour of spinach if India are going to prepare pitches that rip square after lunch on the first day. It is fairly revealing when the ground staff’s weapon of choice is a wire brush.

And it’s all part of the reason we love the game!

And it’s all part of the reason we love the game!

Absolutely. It’s the main reason that my number one and two cricket heroes are Wasim and Waqar. The harnessing and honing of the one true new bowling skill in the last 30 years was the product of having to adapt to conditions that weren’t conducive to normal fast bowling. The way in which the English press denigrated them for their skill and innovation was a disgrace, even if they did have to accelerate the process in English conditions. Even I could make the older ball reverse in club cricket once I worked out how to look after it properly, but they were the pioneers. And they bowled it with pinpoint accuracy at over ninety mph!

I was wondering with a mate in the pub the other night whether the balance does need a bit of redressing – should home advantage really be such a major factor? The best we could come up with was allowing the toss advantage to the away team – so in this case if you do prepare a green seamer, expect to be put in on it. Prepare a raging bunsen and expect to bat last on it*

* Yes; I know that we won the toss and scored 400 this time only to still be facing an innings defeat. Just proves the point – if you’re good enough (India) you’ll win out anyway. If they’d batted first this time we’d have been beaten by now.

(we did come to the conclusion that we shouldn’t change the rules anyway, were just playing whataboutery)

(we did come to the conclusion that we shouldn’t change the rules anyway, were just playing whataboutery)

Right conclusion.

The one change I would like to see is if a team appeals for a catch, but then doesn’t opt to review when it is turned down, they should lose five or ten runs. If you don’t think it is worth a review, why are you appealing in the first place?

define appeal – there have been plenty of cases where the keeper’s convinced and goes up properly only for the bowler to be all ‘Eh? You what?’

The other rule change we would like would be for appeals to not be used up on an umpire’s call overrule. U-C means that it’s a matter of mm, and if it had been given the other way on field would have been upheld. To lose an appeal over that seems harsh.

Just remembered another part of the conversation – similar to your Wasim and Waqar observation. In the past cricketers used to go overseas to expand their ability (albeit mainly players coming here to play); if a player wants to be comfortable in these alien conditions could they look to go abroad and spend a couple of months a year playing in say India or SL in order to master spin on raging turners. I know with touring schedules that it would be hard to find the time, the money would be shit compared to playing 20:20, but we thought if say a Jennings or a Hameed were to ask the management if they could be excused a tour to go and learn that would show a real desire.

I don’t think the tickets have been the biggest problem. The English batsmen by and large haven’t been able to apply themselves, too many careless shots, something they’ve been guilty of for too long. Hopefully now we have a top four that can set a good foundation for the likes of Stokes etc to capitalise on.

One reason that India continue to be really shit in England is that hardly any of their batsmen play domestic cricket here any more now the IPL is so lucrative. Buttler getting runs in this match is perhaps not as big a surprise as people might think seeing as he is one of English players who has played a fair bit in the IPL, albeit in Mickey Mouse twenty over slogs.

And the Wankhele, Mumbai, is his home IPL ground.

And thats it, hope nobody was getting up early!

To be fair no touring side has won a match let alone a series in India since England did in 2012.
I love test cricket but it’s not in good health, too much money going to England, Australia, and India, too much home advantage, not many able to watch matches live, either a stadium or on TV.

To be fair no touring side has won a match let alone a series in India since England did in 2012.

In 2012 we had two top-quality spinners: I think that’s a pre-requisite for winning in India.

so mutterings now about Cook’s position. In honesty, i think he’s captaining better now than ever before, I think he’s worked well with Bayliss and got out from under the shadow of Flower and been a lot more dynamic. Sure there are still errors but as above Swann and Monty vs Moeen and Rashid means he hasn’t had a safe end all series, and that amplifies everything else.

I’d be sad to see him resign / lose his job over what is probably the toughest gig in cricket currently, away in India with no world class spin of your own. And I’d hope it doesn’t cause Rooooooooooooot to wither if he were to get it in the event of Cook’s demise.

IMO the issues are
1) poor mental preparation. Ok this morning they were going to find it very hard to bat out the day but to fall over in half an hour says to me they were not mentally prepared for the task
2) inexperience on Indian pitches – not enough warm up matches
3) poor selection. Both for the tour ( do we really not have another spinner?) and for this match – 4 seamers? really?

An advert on 5Live is stating “England’s tour of India continues with the fifth test in Chennai”.

My initial reaction was “why bother?”

The way they gave up this morning was sadly reminiscent of the bad old days. Rashid and Anderson just chipping the ball to fielders and sauntering off really pissed me off. The real issue now is that they just don’t want to be there, simple as. If they could forfeit the last test and piss off home early for Christmas without penalty, I reckon they would.

Anderson was his usual ungracious self in the post-match stuff. Ashwin and Kohli are not shrinking violets, but Anderson is one of English cricket’s premier curmudgeonly **** since Fred Trueman. For Anderson to accuse Kohli of being a home conditions bully is absolutely deliciously ironic! I know he is a brilliant bowler, but he has never been able to move the kookaburra ball off straight, and so become a (by test standards) piss-paced straight up and down trundler.

The dearth of spin options is the most depressing thing, though. Batty and Ansari were supposedly the ‘horses for courses’ selections yet neither bowled anywhere near well enough for Cook to put any trust in them. Four seamers in the last match was all Cook could do. Why pick Batty if he’s not going to bowl around 25-30% of the overs?

Might as well ship the Lions squad over for Chennai and let the lads get on a plane. They clearly aren’t interested.

We have several other spinners. I’m not sure any of them are better than those selected for the tour, or even up to the required standard. We shall see with Dawson presuming he gets a run out in the next match, but he’s a complete rookie (and realistically he’s a batsman who bowls nowadays – not that that would necessarily be a bad thing for the team!)

Good knock so far from Wiltshire boy Dawson on day boo.

Here’s to his bowling being as successful.

India 665-6 and showing no signs of actually wanting to declare and win the match. Their record test score is 752…and the highest in history I think is about 950-odd. Within reach?

This is carnage. Cook might well bin it tonight and fly home before the game’s finished!!

Ah, their record has already gone. Will they put England back in for shitz and giggles?

what a muppet thing to do by jadeja? Takes up 4 mins while new bat comes in. Could have walked a single anywhere and been off by now. Even worse now he’s off strike for potentially a whole over with a new bat in. Prob cost them 2 or 3 overs at England.

I think their skip should declare now, leaving Nair on 299. 😀

Time left for an England collapse this evening?