The Sports-India Community

Finally, the ICC taking a look at scrapping the toss in Test cricket. I have been a proponent of this for a long time. It will be great to see this happen. Cricket will be fairer. That is, no team will start off with a huge advantage. The home team has the advantage of home support and a tailored pitch. Give the visiting team the choice of whether to bat or bowl first. More teams will win abroad. Or at least not lose. Good.

AB de Villiers retiring from all the forms of international cricket has to be the saddest news we'll hear today.

Pakistan defeated England comprehensively at Lords. England has some crappy batsmen. Cook, Root, Bairstow, Stokes, and Butler are useful. They need two more. Stoneman and Malan are useless. Hameed is out of form. Gary Ballance showed some promise but he is not in form either. He also had some personal issues. They need a good opener. Maybe give Sam Robson another chance. Or Keith Jennings. Nick Gubbins of Middlesex may be an option. And maybe they will get back Moeen for the middle order bat.

In the first half of an English summer, the formula in tests is clear: bat first, lose test. Happening to Pakistan at Leeds now!

Keith Jennings is getting more chances. He did okay but did not produce a long innings. I hope they do not fix their opening problems before the Indians come over

And England complete a quick innings defeat. Bat first, get thrashed. QED.

Scotland beat England in a proper ODI yesterday by 6 runs. Scotland made a massive 371/5 in their 50 overs. England were 365/8 with 8 balls to be bowled, but melted down thereafter, losing their last two wickets without adding another run. Good for the plucky Scots!
(Mike Denness was a Scotsman who captained England, succeeding the Welshman Tony Lewis, so Scotland has produced the occasional cricketer of note).

Went to Gray Nicolls for some equipment purchases and came across this interesting collaboration. Rolling Stones have teamed up with Gray Nicolls to sell their Cricket Bats.

https://www.wisden.com/stories/your-gam ... stones-bat

Interesting! Mick Jagger was at the Oval for much of the day yesterday, and Mark Nicholas spent a lot of time talking to him. Later, he was also found chatting with Anshu Jain, the former chief executive of Deutsche Bank, who is a big cricket fan (and a pretty decent cricketer: we were once team-mates for Prior Cricket Club in a Philadelphia league game in 1993 or thereabouts!).

33 year old Bilal Asif is making his test debut for Pakistan, and has reduced Australia from 159/1 to 171/5 with four quick wickets. If only our selectors were less age-ist! (Manoj Tiwary, for instance, averaged over 100 in List A cricket last year, but was left out of all tournaments that involved India A, B, C teams this year -- presumably because he is now 32, having been kept on the bench for 14 matches immediately after making his first ODI century).

Australia played out 140 overs to get a draw in that test against Pakistan. They do seem to have decent players of spin.

So, for our series against better idea is to focus on our seam attack. Otherwise, in absence of them Smith/Warner it looks like a weak batting line up. Mitchell Marsh at #4 ? Are they missing anyone else other than those 2 ?

For whatever reason, Australia decided not to pick Handscomb. He was possibly well suited to be at #4.

The Aussies got bowled out for 152 in an ODI. They have decent bats in Finch, Head, Stoinis, and Carey, all of whom are more hitters than accumulators. The rest are new and seems like flashy players. They need at least one more player either lower down the order like Callum Ferguson or lower down the order like Bailey who can hold fort when other hitters collapse.

And, perhaps a definition of insanity is that they chose Mitchell Marsh as their vice-captain in the Emirates in tests and Glenn Maxwell as the all-rounder in Perth! They should get back both Marshes in Australia in ODIs. Tests are another matter. Both are iffy.

Of course, they will get everything in order before playing India or by playing India

It is pretty amazing to see how weak Australia look in the absence of David Warner and Steve Smith. Suddenly they seem unable to put a batting line-up together. Their bowling is theoretically unaffected but has been dismal all year. Surely this is a once in a generation chance for India to win a test series in Australia.

With the completion of the T20I series, India drew equal with West Indies. Now, both teams have won 5 matches. The other team with whom we are equal is England. Our record is 7-7. The rest we own except New Zealand, against whom our record is 2-6. Go figure! I hope we can fix that one soon.

This is, of course, much better than our results in ODIs, where we have losing records to Australia, Pakistan, South Africa, and West Indies.

And, in tests, we have losing records against Australia, West Indies, Pakistan, England, and South Africa.