General Cricket Thread ...

[prasen9]

Shocking. Warne was my contemporary slightly older than I am ... Big loss. Perhaps the best leg-spinner ever or certainly one of the best bowlers ever ...

[suresh]

What is the point in having test matches with scores like this? 14 wickets in five days of play!

1st Test, Rawalpindi, Mar 4 - 8 2022, Australia tour of Pakistan

Pakistan 476/4d & 252/0
Australia 459

[prasen9]

'Pindi gives us a blast from the past. Maybe the groundsman is related to the Ul-Haqs? Imam used it to pad his averages to a very respectable 37+.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Seems Pakistan doesn't believe in their current test set up against strong opposition, so they chose safety first approach by playing in a dead pitch

[suresh]

Tamil Nadu's Ranji trophy match in Guwahati had similar scores. This will only produce flat track bullies. All stats, both bowling and batting, have no real meaning.

[prasen9]

Seems Pakistan doesn't believe in their current test set up against strong opposition, so they chose safety first approach by playing in a dead pitch

I don't think this was planned. The Aussies are horrendous players of spin. The formula should have been to just prepare spinning pitches. It would be a tough fight but the Pakistani batsmen are still better players of spin than the Aussies and they have decent bowlers too. So, they would have come out on top. But, Pakistan is chaotic. So, some idiot prepared this pitch, maybe not by design.

If this happens again, then I will accept your theory. This is what Bangladesh used to do at Fatullah and Khulna in the last decade. Our own Rajkot is a pretty batting pitch, I think. The Aussies have WACA (yes, WACA in the last decade!), Canberra, and maybe even Sydney. South Africa's dead itch is at Pontchstefstroom, and Dunedin in NZ.

If we look at the last 20 years, then the grounds would be Gujranwala, Bulawayo, Jaipur, Sheikhupura, and the peerless Premadasa in Colombo! Followed by Hyderabad in Pakistan. The Pakistanis always had a bunch of dead batting pitches. Mohali started as a green pitch with pace but has become a batting pitch in the last 20 years or so. Then, we have Nagpur. The hapless Sri Lankans brought Mohali's dead reputation down even though the pitch was rather docile. Let's see what happens in the next match.

[Atithee]

Australia’s bowling average! However, Australia were all out with a six wicket haul for our “9 ton” spinner.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/pak- ... ts-1304388

[prasen9]

Another century from Bairstow. He scores at about 35 a pop but that is perhaps the best England can do wrt middle order bats. West Indies is a relatively weak opposition but their batting is much weaker than their bowling, which is fine, meaning at about par, in home conditions. So this is a good century. The initial data showed that Bairstow and Foakes are better bats than Buttler. Buttler was preferred again and again because of his exploits in LOIs. Shows once again that selecting in tests based on one's LOI performances is a bad idea.

On another hand, Lawrence perhaps has to fire in inning 2. Ollie Pope is perhaps rated higher than him as shown by him being in the side even though he failed more times than Lawrence. So, Lawrence may be ditched for Pope especially if England lose. But, I think WI batting is weaker and they will lose.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

ICC New Rule to be enforced from 1st October


1) Crossing system finished, new batsman to take strike in case of dismissal by catch out, non striker to take strike only if over finishes.

2) Mankad out gets legalized

3) Ban of use of Saliva

https://www.news18.com/cricketnext/news ... 52925.html

[suresh]

I thought Mankading was legal -- it only violated some vague notion called the "spirit of cricket".

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Jayden Seales is showing massive improvement. He should pair up with Joseph in Odi Cricket to make West Indies pace bowling look strong.

[prasen9]

I thought Mankading was legal -- it only violated some vague notion called the "spirit of cricket".

They moved it from Unfair Play section to Run Out section to make it seem more legit.

Also, per Sportstar,

A new law on replacement players has been introduced. It states that replacements in a match are to be treated as if they were the player they replaced, inheriting any sanctions or dismissals pertaining to that player in that match.

and this:

The umpire will signal dead ball if either team is disadvantaged by a person, animal or other object within the field of play.

The ICC should just drop person. The law would still remain the same. And, btw, someone should tell the ICC that an inanimate object such as the ball cannot die.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Pujara to play for Sussex in upcomming county season
https://www.google.com/amp/s/indianexpr ... 8813476562

[Kumar]

400 runs lead with little over two days (and 30 minutes), Australia chose to bat for 22 overs giving themself 97 more runs and around 160 overs to get Pakistan out which they failed to! We really cannot make sense of this move.

Cummins is probably getting pilloried for this move and rightfully so. Even assuming that Pakistan batted for 140 out of remaining 180 overs and scored 560 runs, Australia would have to survive just 40 overs to win or draw the game.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Indian batsman in past decade had huge struggle against left arm pacers, specially after 2013. Mohammed Amir, Junaid Khan, Mustafizur, less known like Bollinger, Jason Behrendorff has always troubled Indian top order. Mitchell Johnson & Starc have done well in patches against India.

In recent times,Boult, Wagner, Sam Curran ,Shaheen Shah , Marco Jansen has huge impact in getting early wickets against India. Specially the delivery that comes in seems a major threat. Marco Jansen looked unplayable after first test in recently held SA Tour, indian batter looked clueless with horrible feet movement. This weak point seriously needs to be solved