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When they’re not favourites, sides will often talk about proving people wrong. This is all well and good, but it can leave them susceptible to the viewing public’s fickle mood swings.
At the start of this India tour, plenty of us thought England could lose every match. In the first Test, they proved people wrong.
Having proven that they could compete, the mood changed. England then set about proving people wrong once again by conceding a 200-run first innings deficit in this Test.
‘Well, this match is basically over,” many of us concluded.
‘We’re not having that,’ replied England and promptly set about having a stupendous fourth day.
Towards the end of that fourth day, many of you England supporters may have just begun to harbour faint hopes that some sort of outlandish victory could be achieved. Go on, admit it. Against your better judgement, it crossed your mind.
England duly countered.
Faint hopes of some sort of outlandish draw, anyway.
But they sure showed me. Or rather, Cook sure showed me. Not much Hameed could have done by the sounds of it.
Anyway I’m expecting the next eight wickets to fall for twenty tomorrow.
Daisy is quietly optimistic about England for tomorrow.
I AM NOISILY PESSIMISTIC.
25 off 144 balls: it’s the stuff dreams are made of! Sadly, with Hameed and Cook both gone I don’t see anyone else in the England lineup capable of that kind of innings. Stokes and Bairstow both showed an impressive ability to rein in their attacking instincts in the first innings but you still think if that pair were to bat out the day they’d be as likely to inadvertently win it by scoring too quickly as to salvage a draw.
Just imagine if, in the process of attempting to save the test, Stokes and Bairstow were actually to win it.
‘”I was just trying to nudge it back to the bowler along the ground” said a bemused Stokes after he hit the winning runs by smashing the ball into the ground.
Meanwhile, an apoplectic Geoffrey Boycott was tranquilised after screaming at down the microphone that England’s insistence on making a fight of things was antithetical the very of essence of cricket.’
Now the blockers have gone, we’re either going to win or lose.
Summary: we’re going to lose.
Couldn’t have summed it up any better Sam.
England could have had a chance to draw if they had pickex Woakes(the batsman) instead of Duckett. Now I am afraid they only have a chance to win & no chance of drawing this match.
I thought they’d lose well before the end of play yesterday. Now I think they’ll lose by lunchtime.
If it helps, I’m even more pessimistic now….
1-0.
Send for the Buttler…
How pessimistic is pessimistic enough? I doubled it and doubled it again, but only got righter.
That was a good game. I’m not sure I like how test cricket amplifies the difference between teams so vastly in terms of the end result (200+ runs, or 8-9 wickets). I thought a list of the best batting and best bowling performances would probably split roughly evenly between the two teams.
So what are we thinking?
Buttler for Duckett?
Gaz Batts for Ansari?
Ramprakash to make a shock comeback?
Buttler has to come in, Duckett looks shot. Bairstow keeps the gloves though, as they don’t seem to be doing him any harm, and it won’t hurt to have Buttler focus 100% on his long-form batting.
I’d have said Woakes for Ansari, but with Broad likely injured the waters become a little muddied. Could be that Ball or Batty will play as well.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/scotland/content/story/1067651.html
‘Preston Mommsen, Scotland’s captain and one of their leading batsmen, has announced his retirement from international cricket to pursue a career outside of the game. … said he had received “a very exciting and attractive opportunity in the corporate world”.’
Seem to recall you love this sort of thing.
You’re not wrong. You could probably just change the names in this piece.
http://www.kingcricket.co.uk/james-bruce-retires-from-cricket/2008/02/18/
KC ,in your older post you said “On pitches that deteriorate over the course of a five-day match, England are capable of having the better of things when they bat first. When India bat first, they are good enough that they seem almost certain to dominate. That appears to be the difference between the sides.”
But if England had batted first on a pitch like Vizag then England would have probably scored 500/8d, India 230, 200.It was easier for India to survive the day 5 on Rajkot pitch.
So you’re saying that had England batted first, they could have had the better of things?
Not quite sure why this is a ‘but’. Seems like you’re just agreeing with us.