NWR Cricket

Your best batter from the first innings hasn't even come in yet, so there is still hope.

5 for 9 off 13 is certainly impressive figures. Was he really that good or was the batting slightly suspect?
 
I think it's fair to say the pitch is a little uneven but also the batsmen making some poor choices given what they had seen in windies' first innings. No doubt that Mayers is a skillful bowler though, you still have to make best use of conditions and I'd say he was getting the ball to do exactly what he wanted in terms of movement through the air and off the deck and if you know a certain spot is going to have really variable bounce then you need to be good enough to hit it - he was.
It's funny I have often looked at test bowlers in recent years and wondered why they don't try more variations. Mayers is mostly outswing but has a number of really good options which he uses very well and disguises with no apparent change in his action. Watching Mahmood and Overton and Woakes it seemed to me that whenever they tried something it was blindingly obvious. Not everyone can bowl a knuckle ball of course but to be honest its no use trying to bowl a 4th stump line when you are in fact bowling a 6th or 7th (woakes) No good bowling yorkers when it seems like 10mph comes off your pace (overton), no good trying to bowl late swing when your seam position isn't quite good enough (mahmood) and no good bowling when you are not 100% (Stokes). If you can find some footage of the seam position from Mayers when bowling swing vs Mahmood you'll see a perfect axis from the former and a slightly wobbly one from the latter.
I think it's fair to say that has Mark Wood been fit to play then on this deck he would have done some real damage however it would have all been over within 3 days.
 
So a new captain, new management etc etc. Continuity is important so Langer is available, I would select 30 players for the squad, trim it down to 18. To achieve a collective attitude fielding would be my priority and hone the skills of the squad. Also a young squad with flexible skills. All rounders and team ethics a must
 
max.oldfield said:
So a new captain, new management etc etc. Continuity is important so Langer is available, I would select 30 players for the squad, trim it down to 18. To achieve a collective attitude fielding would be my priority and hone the skills of the squad. Also a young squad with flexible skills. All rounders and team ethics a must
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What they could do with is somebody who can actually bat and somebody who can bowl faster than 130kmh and get out on the field to do so on a regular basis.

A captain with a clue would also be a prerequisite.
 
There’s a certain irony in the fact that Jimmy & Broad have better fitness records than Mark Wood. Or Olly Stone. Or Jofra Archer.
It was a expletive deleted stupid decision not to take them.
I’ve bleated for 3+ years that Root is a rubbish captain. A poor man’s Michael Clarke. He has seriously damaged his legacy & do the decent & resign post Test. If there was a repeat miracl of Headingley, it makes no difference: he is not up to the role of captaincy.

In the name of Brearley, Go.
 
Mark Carrington said:
There’s a certain irony in the fact that Jimmy & Broad have better fitness records than Mark Wood. Or Olly Stone. Or Jofra Archer.
It was a expletive deleted stupid decision not to take them.
I’ve bleated for 3+ years that Root is a rubbish captain. A poor man’s Michael Clarke. He has seriously damaged his legacy & do the decent & resign post Test. If there was a repeat miracl of Headingley, it makes no difference: he is not up to the role of captaincy.

In the name of Brearley, Go.
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You might like this on Root’s captaincy in the Observer today…
England’s big reset is undermined by Joe Root’s third-class captaincy | Tim de Lisle

I think the possibility he raises of a Broad captaincy might be enormously entertaining, though maybe for all the wrong reasons.
 
Australian coach, Irish (-ish) captain has worked out well for the rugby team hasn’t it?

I thought the best article over the weekend about this mess was by the perennially shrewd Vic Marks in the Observer. He’s right about the problems with the ‘Brearley mystique’. I’m sure some here will have enjoyed his mischievous suggestion of appointing Buttler…

I would have liked to watch Broad do it, but years ago. (As regards the other massive shame about his career, I also badly wish he’d never been hit by Varun Aaron obviously.)
 
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