West Indies Vs England - Test Series

[Red Astaire]

Nice to have a bit of test cricket back on the TV. Day 2 and England are pretty much par for the wicket. The tail is wagging with Jimmy and Jordon playing some nice strokes. 378-9. Feel bad for Trott who is one of favourites. He fell for a duck. Saw the highlights of yesterday and Bell as usual played sublime. Should be a good series this.

 

[Judge Jules]

They'll have been hoping for a higher total after being 340-odd for 4 though. That'll encourage the Windies.

 

[Red Astaire]

Indeed but the wicket is getting quicker and the breeze is in Jimmy's favour. This could be a historic test if Jimmy does what me and you both know JJ

 

[gkmacca]

England cricket star Moeen Ali has been named as an honorary ambassador for Liverpool’s fan club in Pakistan, according to foreign media sources.

The lifelong Liverpool fan, 27, who has been called up for England’s final two Tests in the West Indies, made the announcement on Friday.

He said: ‘I’m happy to announce I’m the new brand ambassador of Pak Reds. I look forward to this association. You’ll Never Walk Alone.’

The Pak Reds, founded in 2011 and granted official supporter club status two years later, has branches in Lahore, Islamabad, Hyderabad, Karachi, Peshawar and Chakwal.

Ali, who was born in Birmingham and is of Pakistani descent, joins former Liverpool club doctor Dr Zaf Iqbal, ATP Tour tennis player Aisam-Ul-Haq and BBC Asian Network presenter Noreen Khan as Pak Reds ambassadors.

The cricketer was recently at Anfield for the LFC All-Stars match and had his photograph taken with Raheem Sterling and Emre Can.

 

[Portly]

Moeen is in the England team for the second test in Grenada. England won the toss and will bowl . . . . . . . when it stops raining!

 

[tony]

Amazing how much turn there was yesterday for a first day test pitch, hopefully he will get his length right because he's going to have a lot of bowling in the next 4 days!

 

[Portly]

The slow wicket made it quite tedious viewing!

 

[Judge Jules]

Slow wickets in the West Indies. What's the world coming to? [Totters away muttering to himself]

 

[Portly]

It's in Grenada. I think it's the first time England have played a test match there. Interesting scenery and some wacky shacks on the hillside propped up by fragile-looking legs.

 

[Portly]

Irritating last-wicket stand by West Indies.

Just get out, you cunts!

 

[Red Astaire]

Pleased for Cook and especially Trott to get some runs. With this pitch they should be filling their boots!

 

[Portly]

Agreed it would be good for the career prospects of Cook and Trott if they can fill their boots on the easy Grenada wicket. However, it is a very slow wicket and neither side has shown that it is possible to score at anything better than 3 runs per over. So if Cook and Trott do fill their boots, it will probably make for tedious viewing and end up in another draw!

 

[Red Astaire]

Yep Boycott was furious. He reckons the groundsman has completely ruined the game and tailored the pitch specifically to get a draw. I'll stick on TMS anyway. It's a beautiful day here in Herts - Perfect for catching some sun and playing with my 2 year old lad in the garden.

 

[Judge Jules]

Haha. Boycs can talk, considering how deathly boring he was as a batsman. Far more entertaining as a pundit than he ever was at the crease.

 

[Portly]

Boycott was so painfully slow, that it resulted in a "brighter cricket" campaign. Questions were even asked in Parliament as to what could be done about it!

 

[tony]

Botham running Boycott out has to be one of the funniest things to have happened in sport.

Boycs " what have you done, what have you done! " Botham " I ran you out you cunt "

 

[gkmacca]

I loved Boycott as a batsman. Beautiful classical technique. Boring in a way, true, but I found the way he did his job weirdly fascinating. I love teams with contrasting players and styles - Boycott, Randall, Gower, Botham, Knott - that kind of mix was wonderful.

 

[tony]

What a fielder Derek Randall was, well ahead of his time. Came across as mad as a box of frogs though

 

[Red Astaire]

I loved Boycott as a batsman. Beautiful classical technique. Boring in a way, true, but I found the way he did his job weirdly fascinating. I love teams with contrasting players and styles - Boycott, Randall, Gower, Botham, Knott - that kind of mix was wonderful.

I was thinking earlier of how similar Gower was to Bell now. Such a beautiful player to watch. His late cuts and cover drives were so sublime it hardly looked he was trying!

 

[gkmacca]

They were all fascinatingly mad in their individual ways. Watching that lot as a kid spoilt me because I find contemporary England players, on the whole, pretty dull by comparison. There was Derek Underwood - running with his feet pointing east and west, at medium pace(ish) but spinning the ball - utterly sui generis (I remember watching him and thinking, 'What the heck IS he???'). Then Knott - barking mad. Then Randall - who played like most people imagined they might play if they got struck by lightning and suddenly got talent. Then a weird loner like Boycott. Then a dreamy Mozartian artist like Gower. Just a glorious mix of talented eccentrics. It all went wrong for me when Gooch became captain and started being ludicrously intolerant of anyone who didn't fit his template of the jogging, dutiful player of percentages.

 

[tony]

Yes but on the otherhand you had your Tavares, Edrichs, Brearleys and Taylors who were the most stultifyingly boring batters you could wish to see.

 

[gkmacca]

Oh god, yes, Tavare. Horrible.

 

[Portly]

It all went wrong for me when Gooch became captain and started being ludicrously intolerant of anyone who didn't fit his template of the jogging, dutiful player of percentages.

I think there's something in that. Gooch was a Cromwellian who sat on the Cavaliers. I always think Phil Tufnell should have had more games for England but Gooch just didn't approve of him.

 

[gkmacca]

Gooch was a Cromwellian who sat on the Cavaliers.

Well put!

 

[Red Astaire]

Yes but on the otherhand you had your Tavares, Edrichs, Brearleys and Taylors who were the most stultifyingly boring batters you could wish to see.

Brearley is an interesting one. I wonder how much of the '81 Ashes was down to him. I was six so couldn't possibly comment but I'll throw it out there to my more learned posters. I know (rightly) that Beefy and Willis get all the plaudits but I wonder if a case can be made for him too?

 

[Red Astaire]

A little wobble and a shame for Bell but I feel this test is quite compelling now. I love watching Root and Ballance.

 

[Portly]

It's a good opportunity for England because the West Indian pacemen are knackered, but Bishoo is bowling filth.

 

[gkmacca]

Brearley is an interesting one. I wonder how much of the '81 Ashes was down to him. I was six so couldn't possibly comment but I'll throw it out there to my more learned posters. I know (rightly) that Beefy and Willis get all the plaudits but I wonder if a case can be made for him too?

I'm sure he played a big part. Botham was a brilliant idiot. He'd bowl the stupidest balls at batsmen and they'd hit them straight to a fielder. He actually had excellent technique but rarely showed it, preferring instead the 'let's give it some welly' approach. Brearley handled him really well. (A depressing story is that someone arranged for Brearley to have an informal chat with Cook when he took over from Straus. Brearley tried to give him some advice, but Cook's eyes looked dead and he looked competely uninterested. Then Brearley gave him a copy of his book on captaincy and Cook left it behind, saying that he didn't really read books. And this is the captain who doesn't seem to understand why he gets criticism for his own captaincy. Some just lack curiosity.)

 

[Portly]

My opinion of Cook went down a notch recently when he claimed that it had been a mistake to drop him from the one-day side. His career as captain of the ODI team was one of unmitigated failure. Long before the selectors decided to do anything about it, he had demonstrated that he was totally unsuited to it. There's a difference between confidence and arrogance.

 

[Judge Jules]

Brearley was a very interesting case because TBH he was never a good enough batsman to deserve a Test place purely on that basis. Just goes to show how, in a team game, it's the sum of the parts that counts.

Cook's been ruined IMO by all the talk from early in his career about him being England captain-in-waiting. This has meant that (a) he began to believe his own publicity and (b) the pressure's been on him full blast from Day One of his appointment, a deadly combo if ever there was one. TBH I'm surprised he's lasted this long before the wheels came off his wagon. I'm also worried that some are now saying we should replace him with Joe Root, who may well be his successor one day, but who may suffer equally if English cricket tries to hothouse him into the job as it did with Cook.