England Cricket chat

[nirvana]

For me, it was a hugely enjoyable series to watch.

Smith was outstanding throughout, Stokes pretty good most of the time, excellent at least once. For one so young & raw, Jofra was sensational. If he keeps his head in the right place he'll be around for a very long time.

Biggest regret would be the absence of Jimmy.

I thought I'd miss Moeen, but Jack Leach was a most entertaining character.

DRS is immensely good, & not only does it do it's job well, but it's become part of the entertainment. VAR can do the same for football if they are willing to learn lessons.

Personally, as a lay spectator, I'll miss Botham, not so much Gower, though I'm fine with him. Botham has been such a huge part of the sporting backtrack to my life I could never dislike him. Jeez, he's piled some weight on lately though.

Isa Guha? I happen to think she's very good indeed, & would happily see her on the team at Sky, but I think she has a BBC Contract.

Bumble has not been mentioned. A little grating at times, but mostly worth persevering with, especially for those long "dead" afternoons that Test Cricket tends to have from time to time. I suppose he is cricket's answer to Peter Alliss. Both are a bit Marmite.  

I don't think there's much wrong with Sky's cricket coverage, unlike their coverage of Golf & Football, both of which are in dire need of an overhaul.  

Good summary and Labushagne and Cummins worth a mention in dispatches. Completely disagree on VAR in football catching up with cricket. You're right about cricket and generally it's because it's about black and white decisions, the game stops and starts like American football so the decisions do add to the anticipation and the game comfortably accommodates it. The marginal ones (like close to the ground catches) tend to be settled in the way most of us would expect and based on the historical interpretation..benefit of doubt to the batting side.

Football with a toe or nipple offside and much more in the way of interpretative stuff cannot be compared (in my humble view). Use the goal-line tech for sure, the rest should be consigned to the dustbin - I cannot imagine anyone who regularly goes to live games thinks it's an improvement and if they do then they're wrong of course :-)

What if football had "umpires decision "? So a toe or nipple wouldn't get overruled if the linesman said it was fine, but if they called a howler & it turns out the bloke was offside by a noticeably amount, VAR could step in to say no goal?

In principle I would agree but then eventually people will have to start interpreting noticeable amount and perhaps we're back at square one. If it was something like the attacker has to be sufficiently far ahead of the defender for their to be clear space, even a milimetre between the respective torso's then that might work a bit better than the current nonsense

[Pokerpops]

For me, it was a hugely enjoyable series to watch.

Smith was outstanding throughout, Stokes pretty good most of the time, excellent at least once. For one so young & raw, Jofra was sensational. If he keeps his head in the right place he'll be around for a very long time.

Biggest regret would be the absence of Jimmy.

I thought I'd miss Moeen, but Jack Leach was a most entertaining character.

DRS is immensely good, & not only does it do it's job well, but it's become part of the entertainment. VAR can do the same for football if they are willing to learn lessons.

Personally, as a lay spectator, I'll miss Botham, not so much Gower, though I'm fine with him. Botham has been such a huge part of the sporting backtrack to my life I could never dislike him. Jeez, he's piled some weight on lately though.

Isa Guha? I happen to think she's very good indeed, & would happily see her on the team at Sky, but I think she has a BBC Contract.

Bumble has not been mentioned. A little grating at times, but mostly worth persevering with, especially for those long "dead" afternoons that Test Cricket tends to have from time to time. I suppose he is cricket's answer to Peter Alliss. Both are a bit Marmite.  

I don't think there's much wrong with Sky's cricket coverage, unlike their coverage of Golf & Football, both of which are in dire need of an overhaul.  

Good summary and Labushagne and Cummins worth a mention in dispatches. Completely disagree on VAR in football catching up with cricket. You're right about cricket and generally it's because it's about black and white decisions, the game stops and starts like American football so the decisions do add to the anticipation and the game comfortably accommodates it. The marginal ones (like close to the ground catches) tend to be settled in the way most of us would expect and based on the historical interpretation..benefit of doubt to the batting side.

Football with a toe or nipple offside and much more in the way of interpretative stuff cannot be compared (in my humble view). Use the goal-line tech for sure, the rest should be consigned to the dustbin - I cannot imagine anyone who regularly goes to live games thinks it's an improvement and if they do then they're wrong of course :-)

What if football had "umpires decision "? So a toe or nipple wouldn't get overruled if the linesman said it was fine, but if they called a howler & it turns out the bloke was offside by a noticeably amount, VAR could step in to say no goal?

In principle I would agree but then eventually people will have to start interpreting noticeable amount and perhaps we're back at square one. If it was something like the attacker has to be sufficiently far ahead of the defender for their to be clear space, even a milimetre between the respective torso's then that might work a bit better than the current nonsense

Cricket has the overwhelming advantage here in that the game stops between balls for issues to be looked at but the Umpire’s Call decision seems to work very well. Football stops when the ball goes into the net whether or not a goal is disallowed. Give the captain a limited set of referrals to VAR for goals allowe/disallowed and have the same type of rules over whether or not they are used based on how close the decision is.

Other than that, the VAR should only be involved over ‘Clear and Obvious’ errors. Which means we need to get some clarity and agreement on what constitutes such an error.

[Skippy]

For me, it was a hugely enjoyable series to watch.

Smith was outstanding throughout, Stokes pretty good most of the time, excellent at least once. For one so young & raw, Jofra was sensational. If he keeps his head in the right place he'll be around for a very long time.

Biggest regret would be the absence of Jimmy.

I thought I'd miss Moeen, but Jack Leach was a most entertaining character.

DRS is immensely good, & not only does it do it's job well, but it's become part of the entertainment. VAR can do the same for football if they are willing to learn lessons.

Personally, as a lay spectator, I'll miss Botham, not so much Gower, though I'm fine with him. Botham has been such a huge part of the sporting backtrack to my life I could never dislike him. Jeez, he's piled some weight on lately though.

Isa Guha? I happen to think she's very good indeed, & would happily see her on the team at Sky, but I think she has a BBC Contract.

Bumble has not been mentioned. A little grating at times, but mostly worth persevering with, especially for those long "dead" afternoons that Test Cricket tends to have from time to time. I suppose he is cricket's answer to Peter Alliss. Both are a bit Marmite.  

I don't think there's much wrong with Sky's cricket coverage, unlike their coverage of Golf & Football, both of which are in dire need of an overhaul.  

Good summary and Labushagne and Cummins worth a mention in dispatches. Completely disagree on VAR in football catching up with cricket. You're right about cricket and generally it's because it's about black and white decisions, the game stops and starts like American football so the decisions do add to the anticipation and the game comfortably accommodates it. The marginal ones (like close to the ground catches) tend to be settled in the way most of us would expect and based on the historical interpretation..benefit of doubt to the batting side.

Football with a toe or nipple offside and much more in the way of interpretative stuff cannot be compared (in my humble view). Use the goal-line tech for sure, the rest should be consigned to the dustbin - I cannot imagine anyone who regularly goes to live games thinks it's an improvement and if they do then they're wrong of course :-)

What if football had "umpires decision "? So a toe or nipple wouldn't get overruled if the linesman said it was fine, but if they called a howler & it turns out the bloke was offside by a noticeably amount, VAR could step in to say no goal?

In principle I would agree but then eventually people will have to start interpreting noticeable amount and perhaps we're back at square one. If it was something like the attacker has to be sufficiently far ahead of the defender for their to be clear space, even a milimetre between the respective torso's then that might work a bit better than the current nonsense

Cricket has the overwhelming advantage here in that the game stops between balls for issues to be looked at but the Umpire’s Call decision seems to work very well. Football stops when the ball goes into the net whether or not a goal is disallowed. Give the captain a limited set of referrals to VAR for goals allowe/disallowed and have the same type of rules over whether or not they are used based on how close the decision is.

Other than that, the VAR should only be involved over ‘Clear and Obvious’ errors. Which means we need to get some clarity and agreement on what constitutes such an error.

Umpire's call is atrocious. Who wants to see the closest decisions being finally decided by the least reliable bit of the whole apparatus?

The purpose of it was to discourage frivolous reviews and preserve some respect for the umpire. It hasn't worked- people just review tactically anyway. The thing that puts people off frivolous reviews is the limited number of reviews you get.

As for VAR I like your idea of coach's challenge like the NFL, but since in a typical game there are only about 2.5 goals per game, people will just save their reviews for the goals anyway and it will be just the same. I can't see them reviewing a marginal free kick in the centre circle.

[Tal]

Why leave anything up to humans? Coach's challenge makes no sense to me. If it's out, it's out.

Umpire's call is because the technology is currently in place to overturn the bad calls, rather than the close ones. NFL uses "clear and obvious error" under the same logic.

[Pokerpops]

Captain’s challenge, not coach. The captain is on the field and has quick access to the views of his team mates. Fifteen seconds from the ball going into the net should be plenty of time to ask for a review by either side.

Tactically the use of reviews was a disaster for the Australians this summer. Way too many wasted reviews, including one nonsense in the Headingley test that meant Stokes survived the next ‘not out’ decision when a review would have given him out...

[tikay]

Ben Stokes describes Sun story about family as 'immoral and heartless'


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/49726913

[tikay]

Here's the statement that Ben Stokes posted on Twitter this morning;

Click to see full-size image.

[Woodsey]

What do people think about me taking a punt to Oz for the world T20 later this year? Don’t care about Australia too much as have been a couple of time before, primarily there for the cricket.

Seems very risky given the nature of the T20 game and hoping Eng will make the SF and Final? We’ll surely make the SF min?  

Seen a lot of big wins for England cricket over the last 15 years so mostly up for the glory of being in for a shout of winning the big events!  

[nirvana]

If you're missing you're cricket

https://twitter.com/backandacross/status/1266028849168441344?s=19

[bunnydas8888]

Gotta love athers 😂

[HutchGF]

What a great day we are in for here.

Windies chasing 200 and Jofra bowling thunderbolts!

[nirvana]

Ffs. Bairstow, played 2 straight balls, missed 2 straight balls

[vegaslover]

https://www.ecb.co.uk/news/2166948?utm_source=FBPAGE&utm_medium=England+Cricket&utm_content=100002157917749%2B&utm_campaign=New+Zealand+Tests+2021

Been thrown under the bus by the ECB, no surprises there

[bergeroo]

I'm not usually one to throw my hands up and say the world has gone mad. But - England players being investigated for 'historic tweets' where they call each other Sir. Apparently this is mocking Indian people? Now there is a tweet amnesty. This is a crazy business.

[nirvana]

I'm not usually one to throw my hands up and say the world has gone mad. But - England players being investigated for 'historic tweets' where they call each other Sir. Apparently this is mocking Indian people? Now there is a tweet amnesty. This is a crazy business.

Most fair minded people who spend more than a few minutes thinking about the subject would acknowledge that white privilege (especially male) is a real thing irrespective of how many white males live in straitened circumstances.

Its gets lost when you start raking up people's pasts as most fair minded people would also acknowledge that growing and developing one's outlook is a real thing too. It could turn the most liberal minded, empathetic person in to someone who thinks the world has gone mad.