coxyhog Posted July 21, 2023 Author Share Posted July 21, 2023 38 minutes ago, Painter said: From the bbc ... Mark Wood and Chris Woakes have taken a combined 23 wickets at an average of 17 since coming back into the side at Headingley. If only they could stay fit... Especially Wood! 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Painter Posted July 22, 2023 Share Posted July 22, 2023 It seems strange, as an Englishman, to have woken up hoping for no rain in an Ashes test....or any test for that matter! 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
galenkia Posted July 22, 2023 Share Posted July 22, 2023 15 hours ago, Painter said: From the bbc ... Mark Wood and Chris Woakes have taken a combined 23 wickets at an average of 17 since coming back into the side at Headingley. If only they could stay fit... Been a fan of Woakes for years, vastly underrated player. Similar to Zak Crawley, can be inconsistent, but on their day, brilliant. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coxyhog Posted July 22, 2023 Author Share Posted July 22, 2023 & we have some play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Painter Posted July 22, 2023 Share Posted July 22, 2023 4 minutes ago, coxyhog said: & we have some play. Amazing when you saw the puddles earlier.... 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coxyhog Posted July 22, 2023 Author Share Posted July 22, 2023 & we have another wicket! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Painter Posted July 23, 2023 Share Posted July 23, 2023 Match abandoned. Damn shame to miss 2 days due to rain in July. Bloody weather. 1 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coxyhog Posted July 23, 2023 Author Share Posted July 23, 2023 4 hours ago, Painter said: Bloody weather. Bloody Manchester😂 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coxyhog Posted July 23, 2023 Author Share Posted July 23, 2023 A lot of sense here.... We began an infernally frustrating weekend with the outrage of Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, that no Tests had been awarded to the north of England in 2027. And we ended it with the creeping suspicion that it would perhaps be better for everybody if all five in four years’ time were scheduled on the Isle of Wight. Nobody is culpable for the Stygian gloom that passes for high summer in this corner of the kingdom. Still, there were moments here at Old Trafford, peering out between the gauzy curtains of drizzle, when you wondered whether cricket was its own worst enemy. The one fleeting window of hope, the one dry spell to help bring a captivating Ashes series to a decisive resolution in England’s favour, arrived a little after noon. Play would resume imminently, came the message over the public address system. But not before there had been a 40-minute break for lunch. Even Phil Tufnell, veteran of many a soggy day with England, could not hide his frustration on Test Match Special. “Let’s skip lunch today, lads,” he muttered. “Get yourself a boiled egg and a tomato and let’s get on with it.” Ben Stokes and his players have grasped the imperative to dial up the Bazball belligerence, conscious that the approaching deluge could truncate the Test. For three-and-a-half days they turned on the afterburners, racking up England’s highest score in a home Ashes Test since 1985. They did everything in their powers to force a positive outcome. And yet, in a truly pitiful anti-climax, they were thwarted. Yes, it was the product of an act of nature, but it also owed much to the utter inflexibility of the game’s authorities in adapting to the circumstances. With the Ashes on the line, this was one occasion where every over, indeed every ball mattered. So why keep the traditional start time of 11am? Why not bring it forward to 10.30am, as happened in the World Test Championship final at the Oval just six weeks ago? Why not even earlier? In Manchester in late July, the sun rises around 5.10am and sets at 9.20pm. At this very ground on July 28, 1971, a one-day match between Lancashire and Gloucestershire ended at almost 9pm, without floodlights. When David Lloyd, the home side’s opening batsman, raised the issue of fading light with the officials, umpire Arthur Jepson pointed skywards and asked: “What’s that up there?” “The moon,” a befuddled Lloyd replied. “Well, how far do you want to see then?” Jepson huffed. Evidently, common sense prevailed then. Fast-forward 52 years and there is no such margin for compromise, no such readiness to tweak with the time-honoured rhythms of an English day at the cricket. On day four, everybody drifted around until 2.45pm watching the downpours. But no sooner was there an interlude for a couple of hours’ play than the players were summoned back to the hutch for afternoon tea. And sure enough, the mizzle returned: not enough to stop playing, but too much to start again. You can deny an Englishman his Ashes victory, it seems, but do not even think about depriving him of his cakes and crustless sandwiches. It made even the equable Joe Root, who had just prised out centurion Marnus Labuschagne, want to scream. “It doesn’t get dark here in England until 10pm in the summer, so why can’t we just play until we bowl the overs?” he asked. “At every opportunity, at every stage, you should be looking for ways to get the Test on. We batted in worse conditions at Edgbaston. You just want consistency.” Good luck finding any consistent thread from cricket’s administrators, a breed defined primarily by their intransigence. One key question arising from this dismal anti-climax is why no reserve day had been planned for a Test of this magnitude. For both WTC finals to date, the International Cricket Council made sure that a sixth day was kept on standby so that a draw could be averted. Why not for this Ashes-defining fixture? Lest this be construed just as a bitter English lament, it was worth remembering what was at stake here. A series-levelling win for England promised to elevate the fifth Test at the Oval into a truly seismic climax, a spectacle that would have enraptured audiences in both hemispheres. How often does cricket have the chance to savour such global exposure? Instead, what awaits this week is a dead rubber. There is an argument that England can still grasp a Pyrrhic victory by restricting Australia to 2-2, but this smacks of desperation. Stokes and head coach Brendon McCullum have made it a mantra that they are not interested in parity. Only in cricket could so little have been done to avoid this dampest of squibs. At the 2019 Masters, an impending Georgia thunderstorm persuaded organisers to send the players out at dawn in a two-tee start. The upshot? That a little after 2pm, Tiger Woods won his fifth green jacket in a sports story for the ages. English cricket, sadly, has been starved of its equivalent. And the bureaucrats must shoulder their share of blame. The English and Wales Cricket Board have shown this series no love, crowbarring the crown jewel that is the Ashes into a 45-day June-July window just so that the Hundred franchises could colonise the whole of August in their crisp-packet uniforms. With the ICC mandating a minimum three-day gap between Tests, there was, ultimately, no extra time for this match to be completed. What a senseless call. And what a bleak, disheartening way for this precious rite of summer to be concluded. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pumpuynarak Posted July 24, 2023 Share Posted July 24, 2023 (edited) Way toooooooooooooooo much rain in the north Coxy, much better off playing in the sunny south, the IOW is lovely lol Edited July 24, 2023 by Pumpuynarak 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coxyhog Posted July 25, 2023 Author Share Posted July 25, 2023 On 7/24/2023 at 1:03 AM, Pumpuynarak said: Way toooooooooooooooo much rain in the north Coxy, much better off playing in the sunny south, the IOW is lovely lol Dunno what you mean mate.... 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pumpuynarak Posted July 25, 2023 Share Posted July 25, 2023 13 hours ago, coxyhog said: Dunno what you mean mate.... Now WTF is going on there ? 🤣🤣🤣 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fygjam Posted July 25, 2023 Share Posted July 25, 2023 1 hour ago, Pumpuynarak said: Now WTF is going on there ? 🤣🤣🤣 The fifth test being played despite English tears. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Painter Posted July 27, 2023 Share Posted July 27, 2023 Jeez.... pop out to visit lidls, and we lose 4 for 30 ish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbyg Posted July 27, 2023 Share Posted July 27, 2023 15 minutes ago, Painter said: Jeez.... pop out to visit lidls, and we lose 4 for 30 ish Stay in next time! 555 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Painter Posted July 27, 2023 Share Posted July 27, 2023 283 all out. Let's hope Anderson gets fired up, and the others all get stuck in. In theory there are almost 40 overs left today, but fat chance of that happening. Wonder is Ali will be fit to bowl? I did read that Stokes had been bowling off breaks in the nets this week... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thegrogmonster Posted July 27, 2023 Share Posted July 27, 2023 Come on Aussie, come on, come on. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Painter Posted July 27, 2023 Share Posted July 27, 2023 57 minutes ago, thegrogmonster said: Come on Aussie, come on, come on. I think you had the better day today.... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coxyhog Posted July 27, 2023 Author Share Posted July 27, 2023 Should've played Tongue instead of Anderson,as in the last match. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starshine Posted July 27, 2023 Share Posted July 27, 2023 2 hours ago, thegrogmonster said: Come on Aussie, come on, come on. We want rain...and lots of it 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbyg Posted July 28, 2023 Share Posted July 28, 2023 Jeez...Bairstow is a liability behind stumps! Smith should have been out there! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stillearly Posted July 28, 2023 Share Posted July 28, 2023 14 minutes ago, Bobbyg said: Jeez...Bairstow is a liability behind stumps! Smith should have been out there! Looked out to me ... 🤷♂️ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbyg Posted July 28, 2023 Share Posted July 28, 2023 9 minutes ago, Stillearly said: Looked out to me ... 🤷♂️ Yeah, looked a strange decision but they reckon Bairstow broke the stumps before gathering the ball? 🤷♂️ He should have gone for that one handed catch by Root too imo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Painter Posted July 28, 2023 Share Posted July 28, 2023 I think the 3rd umpire was on a hiding to nothing having to make that decision... Looks like Bairstow started to break the stumps before collecting the ball, and from then with the views available to him the umpire couldn't really see when the 2nd bail was removed. However, the Sky team have just spent 50 minutes and god knows how many views to find that Smith might have been out... Anyway, ruling was not out, so onwards we plod. 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starshine Posted July 29, 2023 Share Posted July 29, 2023 Could be a massive score by stumps up 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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