Fourth Test match thread

Raging_Bull said:
Yes there is no way we can win this, I reckon India will have a lead of around 150 and we will lose six or seven wickets before we're even close to that. don't get me wrong I think the red ball team are going in the right direction, we have some very good young talented players coming through like Crawley, Pope and Lawrence and these players will just get better and better, however I don't think this rotation nonsense has done us any favours whatsoever, you have a situation where players are getting used to the very difficult conditions and next minute they're on a plane out of there with a fresh faced newbie expected to instantly be match ready to play India and Indian conditions, sorry that's just not happening fella's, it takes time to acclimatise and there are not lots of easy county games like a touring side has here to be able go out and put some runs on the board and build up your confidence, it's hard enough to win on the sub continent without that clueless strategy hindering us.
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Well predicted Raging Bull - I wish Bairstow had a free flight home (which we could have voted on !)

on pitches - the 2nd and 3rd test pitches were clear ‘homer’s’ though we had opportunities

Overall, I’m judging this on the whole series, we’re watching an Indian squad which will dominate world cricket for 10 years and England are the most average test team - lacks steel, leadership, savvy selection and apart from some willing and very hard working bowlers (Anderson way above any others and the only player that might get into their team)

Umpiring - generally poor even with the reviews. I don’t think it’s affected the final test

when the England players see their pay packets - I hope they swallow hard as they really aren’t half as good as those zeroes say they are !

just my views folks - it all feels a bit like Boris Johnson’s management of Covid - NO IDEA
 
Leach has been completely underbowled by Joe Root despite only having one bad day in the series, yet still our biggest wicket taker. Not that it would have turned things round for us but Root still makes elementary captaincy mistakes for me.
 
Perhaps I was a bit harsh on Leach - our other good bowler (perhaps not in this test) but 18 wickets is our best return so well played him

onthe batting - it’s been predictable for years - Root scores runs we got a good total and mostly win - he doesn’t and we all sulk
 
In fact one crumb of comfort from this debacle is that Jack Leach looks like the kind of player who could hack it in Australia. Not that he'll get much of a bowl there!
 
fcblackpool said:
How do we think Root has done as Captain? I haven't seen enough live to make a proper call, but he does seem to have made some strange decisions.
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He has, but he's not been helped by no one making any runs!

It's also difficult to see any other candidates. Stokes already has a huge workload, everyone else is either going to get rotated (bowlers) or not established enough (batsmen)

Not sure where we go in terms of sub continent cricket without making changes to our first class summer that mean batters face spin and bowlers get to face it.
 
td53 said:
He has, but he's not been helped by no one making any runs!

It's also difficult to see any other candidates. Stokes already has a huge workload, everyone else is either going to get rotated (bowlers) or not established enough (batsmen)

Not sure where we go in terms of sub continent cricket without making changes to our first class summer that mean batters face spin and bowlers get to face it.
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I've made my points on Root above. Though I'm a fan of his bowling, he's sent all the wrong messages bowling himself at the expense of Leach and some of his fields have been odd as well. This isn't meant to be a hatchet job, but he's let a big advantage slip away in this series and should be accountable for his share in what's happened.
 
td53 said:
He has, but he's not been helped by no one making any runs!

It's also difficult to see any other candidates. Stokes already has a huge workload, everyone else is either going to get rotated (bowlers) or not established enough (batsmen)

Not sure where we go in terms of sub continent cricket without making changes to our first class summer that mean batters face spin and bowlers get to face it.
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I personally would have given Morgan the job instead of Root and have Root stepping up now- he'd have learnt so much from Morgan as his vice.
 
Mark_GT said:
I've made my points on Root above. Though I'm a fan of his bowling, he's sent all the wrong messages bowling himself at the expense of Leach and some of his fields have been odd as well. This isn't meant to be a hatchet job, but he's let a big advantage slip away in this series and should be accountable for his share in what's happened.
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Oh, I agree. I just can't see who else could do it, unless you go down the route of actually picking someone because they're a good captain, which they won't do.

This is the problem of centrally contracting young players. They don't play much for their counties and don't get to become captains...
 
fcblackpool said:
I personally would have given Morgan the job instead of Root and have Root stepping up now- he'd have learnt so much from Morgan as his vice.
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Morgan? He barely plays f/c cricket let alone test cricket...

I can see the thinking tho, he's a great captain.
 
Surprised they didnt appeal for the bump ball catch. This umpire has given everything else.

Caught behind? Nowhere near it.

Although that one is out.
 
Well the sufferings all over the Dog can go out now not a bad guess being 48 minutes out.
Utter shambles an innings and 25 run defeat a 3-1 pasting.
I think the Indians gave us that first test just to prolong the series to the 4th test.
 
Well, I just hope the meaningless one day/T20 series goes well in terms of their squad rotation and prioritising the players for that...

As bad as the pitches have been, I have enjoyed seeing spinners on top.

Note to ECB - play county cricket when it is most likely to be hot/dry in England, not just in April/September please then the millions you spend on 'player development' can be aided by actually giving some chance for players to bowl/face spin....
 
Who was it that said they wanted India to win the second to level it up? I blame them for the shambles that followed!
 
What a wasted opportunity. Test cricket makes it back onto free to air telly for the first time in years and England let the side down. I feel a bit for C4.
 
Yes a total shambles where the players had as much idea of how to play Axar and Ashwin as a Palace Shield slogger. If I was Jonny Bairstow I'd go and dig a big hole in my back garden and hide in it for a few weeks, SIX ducks in NINE innings? FFS, speaking of Palace Shield sloggers, I'd imagine even one of those lads would fancy he could do better than that. Dom Sibley will need a shrink to get his head right, he looked like mouse facing a black mamba just knowing a bite was going to happen anytime soon. Dom Bess? No wickets on what is a spinners dream of a track and then shows us he's just as clueless at facing spin as he is at producing spin, clueless. No put this one to bed and lets see how our ODI lads do, we are ranked number one in the world at both T20 and ODI's, I have a feeling Morgan's lot will put a smile on our faces in that series. They certainly couldn't do any worse.
 
FessParker said:
I'm surprised that someone as long in the tooth as you and who has been involved in coaching would consider a team to be f.ck.d after
the first day . I would never judge how a game was going until both teams had batted. Even then you just never really know how things
might develop, that is the beauty of Test cricket.
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Sorry Fess but the evidence in the series was all there to see, even for a long in the tooth former cricket coach like me and sadly it all panned out exactly as feared.We were well and truly f.ck.d.The sad thing was we never really seemed to learn anything and as someone posted there was perhaps inevitably given the results some mental disintegration out there.
 
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The thing is, we're all calling the players shite but...

1) they play hardly any first class cricket
2) when they do, it's largely in April and Sept

Give the ECB some stick because it's them that are letting us down. Players are product of a system and that system is not geared towards this sort of tour at all.

The system is probably the most expensive talent production line in world cricket but we're not actually doing the simple things (playing games in the right conditions) that cost little or nothing to let the talent develop in match situations...
 
I’ve hardly watched any of this series after getting out of the habit. But after the first test win I thought, right I’ll have some of this. Every time I’ve bothered to put it on we’ve been terrible or it’s been over, today I thought I wonder how we’re getting on & it had finished AGAIN. FFS it was as bad as watching the Scottish International football team. Very embarrassing 😳
 
td53 said:
Oh, I agree. I just can't see who else could do it, unless you go down the route of actually picking someone because they're a good captain, which they won't do.

This is the problem of centrally contracting young players. They don't play much for their counties and don't get to become captains...
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They used to pick someone purely for their captaincy, a perfect example of that is Mike Brearly. He would never have been selected on pure batting ability, but a decent batsman and an absolutely superb captain made him what he was.
 
I haven't read the thread, so apologies if I make points already covered.

There is no disgrace in losing a series in India. They are a very well balanced team, have some genuine stars and know the conditions.

All that said, I thought this was a pretty inept effort. We had the benefit of best use of the conditions three times out of four, but you wouldn't have known it. On the plus side, Anderson (again), Foakes and Pope came out of it with reputations maintained or enhanced. After that, I'm struggling. Leach was tidy enough. But Bess, Burns, Sibley and Bairstow were hopeless.

I don't understand the selectorial thinking at all. This rotation policy is nonsense, for a start, and accommodating players who want to go off and prepare to play shorter formats of the game doesn't sit well either. But there were other decisions that mystified me too :

  • who thought it was a good idea to make Archer bowl in conditions that take away his main weapons?
  • why did we play two games with such a long tail? When they have Ashwin - now with five Test hundreds - batting at 8, matched up against Archer, it tells you quite a lot
  • is Bess really the best we can do for off-spin? He displays little control and not much guile
  • what is the point of Bairstow? If he isn't going to keep wicket (and he is very much second best now), and he doesn't fancy applying himself to batting, why is he there? He could be off slogging white balls around at the circus, which is more his thing nowadays
  • what was Lawrence's role? Why does he bat at No.3 one minute and No.7 the next? (The latter is where he should be, in my view)
  • what is Stokes' role? I thought he was the all-rounder, but he only turned in one bowling performance of note, and was hardly used the rest of the time. And he should only bat above No.6 if we trust the openers to stick around - which we clearly can't

I quite like Root, he's a fine batsman and a competent captain. But if he is also part of the selection process he has to take some of the blame for this shambles. Because that is exactly what it was. I have no idea what they were trying to achieve in this series, and I don't think they did any of the younger players any favours.
 
Goforgoal said:
They used to pick someone purely for their captaincy, a perfect example of that is Mike Brearly. He would never have been selected on pure batting ability, but a decent batsman and an absolutely superb captain made him what he was.
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I can't see that in this era. I'd love to see a really astute captain but we've done 'best player captains' since Gower at least... Occasionally that player (Vaughan) is also astute, sometimes they possess inspirational qualities (Strauss) but it just feels like they pick the least likely to be dropped.

Central contracts have been great, but you simply don't get battle hardened players now coming though. At one point, you'd have had multiple player with serious captaincy experience in the same England side (off the top of my head, I'm sure Illy and Close would have played some tests together along with Boycott who is no slouch, though only really captained at end of his career, Tony Grieg was similar period and so on)

Now I think only Rory Burns has actually captained with any regularity and his place isn't secure.

The counter point is that in the earlier era, there was barely a coaching set up, let alone the teams of analysts, psychology etc etc so arguably, the captain was much more important. Someone like Brierly was more akin to a player manager in football than Root or any modern captain ever will be.

Root tries to get funky, but it feels as if he's learned on the job and has no real experience to draw upon. Yeah, he's been test captain for a.wgile but really, in terms of games, it's about the equivalent of 2 season of (old format league) county cricket which isn't actually that much.
 
basilrobbie said:
I haven't read the thread, so apologies if I make points already covered.

There is no disgrace in losing a series in India. They are a very well balanced team, have some genuine stars and know the conditions.

All that said, I thought this was a pretty inept effort. We had the benefit of best use of the conditions three times out of four, but you wouldn't have known it. On the plus side, Anderson (again), Foakes and Pope came out of it with reputations maintained or enhanced. After that, I'm struggling. Leach was tidy enough. But Bess, Burns, Sibley and Bairstow were hopeless.

I don't understand the selectorial thinking at all. This rotation policy is nonsense, for a start, and accommodating players who want to go off and prepare to play shorter formats of the game doesn't sit well either. But there were other decisions that mystified me too :

  • who thought it was a good idea to make Archer bowl in conditions that take away his main weapons?
  • why did we play two games with such a long tail? When they have Ashwin - now with five Test hundreds - batting at 8, matched up against Archer, it tells you quite a lot
  • is Bess really the best we can do for off-spin? He displays little control and not much guile
  • what is the point of Bairstow? If he isn't going to keep wicket (and he is very much second best now), and he doesn't fancy applying himself to batting, why is he there? He could be off slogging white balls around at the circus, which is more his thing nowadays
  • what was Lawrence's role? Why does he bat at No.3 one minute and No.7 the next? (The latter is where he should be, in my view)
  • what is Stokes' role? I thought he was the all-rounder, but he only turned in one bowling performance of note, and was hardly used the rest of the time. And he should only bat above No.6 if we trust the openers to stick around - which we clearly can't

I quite like Root, he's a fine batsman and a competent captain. But if he is also part of the selection process he has to take some of the blame for this shambles. Because that is exactly what it was. I have no idea what they were trying to achieve in this series, and I don't think they did any of the younger players any favours.
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I appealed above for people not to just slate players but look at the structure of the ECB policy.

I would like to say that appeal does not apply to bairstow who has pissed me off no end as he seems to not value his wicket at all. Jack Leach showed better technique than him ffs.
 
Goforgoal said:
They used to pick someone purely for their captaincy, a perfect example of that is Mike Brearly. He would never have been selected on pure batting ability, but a decent batsman and an absolutely superb captain made him what he was.
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That was 40 years ago of course and it`s never happened since and probably never will again.They pick what they think are the best eleven available and only pick the captain then.
 
1950`spoolfan said:
That was 40 years ago of course and it`s never happened since and probably never will again.They pick what they think are the best eleven available and only pick the captain then.
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Which I personally don’t think is the right way. A captain in cricket is far more important, in my opinion, than any other sport. A thinking captain through field placings, astute bowling changes etc can change the whole complexion of a game. Good captains, good leaders are born not made.
 
Goforgoal said:
Which I personally don’t think is the right way. A captain in cricket is far more important, in my opinion, than any other sport. A thinking captain through field placings, astute bowling changes etc can change the whole complexion of a game. Good captains, good leaders are born not made.
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I think a bit of both. Undoubtedly you have to be a certain kind of thinker, Brierly literally was a psychologist was he not?... but I think the sheer demand of multi format cricket and lack of 4 day games is preventing potentially decent captains learning the tricks.

Potential is hardened by experience so to speak. I'm sure Brierley wil leave made mistakes as Middlesex captain before he was England captain that were useful experiences to draw upon.
 
basilrobbie said:
I haven't read the thread, so apologies if I make points already covered.

There is no disgrace in losing a series in India. They are a very well balanced team, have some genuine stars and know the conditions.

All that said, I thought this was a pretty inept effort. We had the benefit of best use of the conditions three times out of four, but you wouldn't have known it. On the plus side, Anderson (again), Foakes and Pope came out of it with reputations maintained or enhanced. After that, I'm struggling. Leach was tidy enough. But Bess, Burns, Sibley and Bairstow were hopeless.

I don't understand the selectorial thinking at all. This rotation policy is nonsense, for a start, and accommodating players who want to go off and prepare to play shorter formats of the game doesn't sit well either. But there were other decisions that mystified me too :

  • who thought it was a good idea to make Archer bowl in conditions that take away his main weapons?
  • why did we play two games with such a long tail? When they have Ashwin - now with five Test hundreds - batting at 8, matched up against Archer, it tells you quite a lot
  • is Bess really the best we can do for off-spin? He displays little control and not much guile
  • what is the point of Bairstow? If he isn't going to keep wicket (and he is very much second best now), and he doesn't fancy applying himself to batting, why is he there? He could be off slogging white balls around at the circus, which is more his thing nowadays
  • what was Lawrence's role? Why does he bat at No.3 one minute and No.7 the next? (The latter is where he should be, in my view)
  • what is Stokes' role? I thought he was the all-rounder, but he only turned in one bowling performance of note, and was hardly used the rest of the time. And he should only bat above No.6 if we trust the openers to stick around - which we clearly can't

I quite like Root, he's a fine batsman and a competent captain. But if he is also part of the selection process he has to take some of the blame for this shambles. Because that is exactly what it was. I have no idea what they were trying to achieve in this series, and I don't think they did any of the younger players any favours.
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Just to take your bullet points one by one
Perhaps you have confused Pope who did not enhance his reputation in this series with Lawrence who in this last game definitely did.

Strauss said that he found being isolated in a bubble for just two weeks was very difficult let alone the much longer isolation the players had to cope with so he fully understood why the rotational policy was needed . I tend to accept that was probably unavoidable.

Archer with his pace and hostility was certainly worth a go given that there was rotation and we were almost certain to play 2 pace bowlers.I couldn`t argue with that.

No Bess is not good enough and my son(who is a semi professional cricketer) and I said previously to this tour that he did not look good enough and he confirmed that opinion in spades out there but in England the top class spinners cupboard is empty but we knew spinners would be essential in India.

Bairstow does look finished now in Test cricket although against inferior opposition in Sri Lanka he had done ok. He will still be in our white ball team.

Lawrence will certainly bat in the top 6 in future Test Matches.

Stokes is currently regarded as a batting all rounder and has had fitness and lack of game time issues that previous to the latest game have restricted his bowling contributions. He is a flair player who can be brilliant but not very consistent though I do agree with a more dependable top order number 6 would be his best position.

As for Root he is a reasonably competent captain and regarded as an excellent ambassador for English cricket and if not the very best certainly a fine batsman,though a little disappointing after his great innings in the first Test.
 
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Bess bowls far too many pies, to put that in to context, Axar bowled 2% of his deliveries "full" and only 4% short, a massive 94% bang on the money. Bess? Well before they dropped him he bowled three full tosses on ONE over, that sums up the difference for me. I mean I can confidently say any Sunday league cricketer with half an idea would not bowl three full tosses in one over.
1950`spoolfan said:
No Bess is not good enough and my son(who is a semi professional cricketer) and I said previously to this tour that he did not look good enough and he confirmed that opinion in spades out there but in England the spinners cupboard is empty but we knew spinners would be essential in India.
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Goforgoal said:
Which I personally don’t think is the right way. A captain in cricket is far more important, in my opinion, than any other sport. A thinking captain through field placings, astute bowling changes etc can change the whole complexion of a game. Good captains, good leaders are born not made.
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I agree with you to a degree but unless there is clearly no-one in the team that can do the job and there is a very strong captain whose leadership could make a huge difference which is pretty unlikely it`s unlikely to happen.Root may not be the best but isn`t a bad captain.
 
I try to cut Bairstow a bit of slack because he's been to hell and back in his life. He's no longer a test cricketer though and we have enough fair to middling middle order batsmen to let him go at this stage. Waste of a pick, as was Archer who wasn't fit and in any case has the batting and fielding brains of a rocking horse. Number eight? Do me a favour!
 
We can argue to death about Bess but like I said above, we should slate the players less and the ECB more.

It's no coincidence we produce next to no spinners when there's no incentive to produce spinning pitches as we play county cricket at the times we do (beginning and end of season) when it's cold and suited to seam.

Who else is there?

Parkinson is a raw leggy with no real first class record, Rashid's shoulder is fucked, Moeen probably should have played but he's not *that* special, he's handy and bats a bit but he's averaging about 40 is he not?

Who else? Ollie Raynor. He's ok, Amir Virdi, similar. They're 'ok' 'steady-ish' Bring back Gareth Batty?

We put faith in Bess. It didn't work in the last game but we shouldn't be developing players within the test matches - that's the problem we have. We don't really have the players with a record and experience to play in the team.

We can drop Bess but where does it get us? Back to aging and often expensive Moeen or another player like Bess who has to learn in the test match.

That's because the ECB have sidelined county cricket. It's not that long ago you had players with records like Gary Keedy who never got a cap. He'd be shoe-in now.
 
Mark_GT said:
I try to cut Bairstow a bit of slack because he's been to hell and back in his life. He's no longer a test cricketer though and we have enough fair to middling middle order batsmen to let him go at this stage. Waste of a pick, as was Archer who wasn't fit and in any case has the batting and fielding brains of a rocking horse. Number eight? Do me a favour!
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That's a fair point. Difficult not to want him to succeed cos of his life story.
 
I agree with much of what you say td but cricket is a professional game dependent on its income and sadly these days county cricket draws so few supporters in that it is sidelined for the more commercial white ball game so the scope to develop Test Match players is much diminished.

I agree with you about Keedy too who was and remains in the Liverpool Competition an excellent left arm spinner who my son tells me is the best he has faced, full of flight and guile.
 
1950`spoolfan said:
Sorry Fess but the evidence in the series was all there to see, even for a long in the tooth former cricket coach like me and sadly it all panned out exactly as feared.We were well and truly f.ck.d.The sad thing was we never really seemed to learn anything and as someone posted there was perhaps inevitably given the results some mental disintegration out there.
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Fair enough but we weren't 'f.ck.d ' after the first Test which was played on a fair wicket i.e. good for batting for 2 days then taking increasing spin. They got stuffed so resorted to doctoring the pitches and backed their spinners to do a better job than ours which proved to be the case.

Anyway on to the football now .
 
FessParker said:
Fair enough but we weren't 'f.ck.d ' after the first Test which was played on a fair wicket i.e. good for batting for 2 days then taking increasing spin. They got stuffed so resorted to doctoring the pitches and backed their spinners to do a better job than ours which proved to be the case.

Anyway on to the football now .
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I think the final Series result of 3-1 tells the story on those dry crumbling wickets which to a certain degree, but not to that extent, we expect over there. India despite losing three very important tosses showed they are much the better side crucially both in playing spin bowling on turning wickets and also the standard of their spin bowlers compared to ours.

My comment after the first day of the fourth Test was based on all the evidence of the series to that point illustrated not just on that first day but overall very clearly and the outcome was unfortunately exactly as predicted much though I would have liked it to have turned out otherwise.

I assessed the situation we faced at that point and that`s exactly how it turned out so I have absolutely no apologies to make for assessing our chances without the benefit of any hindsight and getting it right.
 
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FessParker said:
Fair enough but we weren't 'f.ck.d ' after the first Test which was played on a fair wicket i.e. good for batting for 2 days then taking increasing spin. They got stuffed so resorted to doctoring the pitches and backed their spinners to do a better job than ours which proved to be the case.

Anyway on to the football now .
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1950`spoolfan said:
I think the final Series result of 3-1 tells the story on those dry crumbling wickets which to a certain degree, but not to that extent, we expect over there. India despite losing three very important tosses showed they are much the better side crucially both in playing spin bowling on turning wickets and also the standard of their spin bowlers compared to ours.

My comment after the first day of the fourth Test was based on all the evidence of the series to that point illustrated not just on that first day but overall very clearly and the outcome was unfortunately exactly as predicted much though I would have liked it to have turned out otherwise.

I assessed the situation we faced at that point and that`s exactly how it turned out so I have absolutely no apologies to make for assessing our chances without the benefit of any hindsight and getting it right.
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Reading my last post back I do have one apology for sounding far too smug.
 
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