14th June - 1st Semi-final - England v Pakistan

[Adders]

The ICC rule that you're not allowed fresh pitches for a semi final is utterly farcical - do they want attractive cricket for the biggest games, or do they want arguably the best all-rounder in the world to be scoring 30odd off 60odd balls and unable to hit a single boundary? That'll spread the game won't it.

I'm not surprised the ECB decided to go with the useless ovine botherers as one of the three grounds, despite every other Test (or suspended Test) ground being a cut above. Without England playing there it is empty and devoid of atmosphere. Playing at the Ashes-stealing venue is a sure way to provide as little home advantage as possible as it is never a quick pitch conducive to high quality cricket, and at its worst it's a horrible tired dog of a wicket, as England found out yesterday. But they should have known to expect that, because the Ashes-stealing venue is consistently and predictably shite.

JFC Scaley, you seriously are dire at the best of times but this is quite possibly the worst post you've ever made.........I can smell the salt and vinegar on that chip on your shoulder from here FFS.

Every breath in your post there is about the North East..........get over your ****ing self, it's boring and it''s wrong. I'm not even going to get into the second paragraph of your diatribe.........but as for the first, Ben Stokes had a bad day at the office, nothing to do with the wicket........he'll score runs and take wickets on far worse. Just because he is arguably the best allrounder in the world doesn't entitle him to 100 off 60 balls and a 5 fer every game. I love him as much as the next England supporter but he's not Bradman and Marshals love child FFS.......the bloke has had great games and some ****ing **** games, that is not going change over night.

 

[vic_orthdox]

The pitch did play a role. Shadab looked like a beast for example.

Really? They attacked him early, and then Bairstow got lazy against him, slow feet, etc.

Rashid looked dangerous when he got it right - had to bowl to a leftie earlier and then the other players were able to attack him better in the innings.

England were in a very good position before the middle overs wickets - they blew ten overs of batting and weren't good enough to get themselves ahead of the game after that.

And if we are going to talk about how much more like the subcontinent the wicket was, how many ODIs in the subcontinent do you win with 208 on the board?

 

[Black_Warrior]

The ICC rule that you're not allowed fresh pitches for a semi final is utterly farcical - do they want attractive cricket for the biggest games, or do they want arguably the best all-rounder in the world to be scoring 30odd off 60odd balls and unable to hit a single boundary? That'll spread the game won't it.

No they want to see the best ODI bowler beyond argument own the so called best all-rounder in the world in his own home ground. Trust me, that will spread the game to the furthest parts of certain countries.

And every Pakistani batsman smashed a 6, forget about boundaries. Even Azhar Ali, the slowest Test player from the 80s.

 

[Black_Warrior]

For those talking about Cardiff pitch being like a SC pitch, therefore advantage to Pakistan, at 'home' on slow, low tracks (UAE) Pak has 6 series losses in last 8 bilateral series (inc Eng twice). Pakistan currently have a 1-7 record against England in UAE. Try another one. Here I'll assist you "Hasan, the new 23 year old kid is ****ing brilliant"

 

[OverratedSanity]

The ICC rule that you're not allowed fresh pitches for a semi final is utterly farcical - do they want attractive cricket for the biggest games, or do they want arguably the best all-rounder in the world to be scoring 30odd off 60odd balls and unable to hit a single boundary? That'll spread the game won't it.

I'm not surprised the ECB decided to go with the useless ovine botherers as one of the three grounds, despite every other Test (or suspended Test) ground being a cut above. Without England playing there it is empty and devoid of atmosphere. Playing at the Ashes-stealing venue is a sure way to provide as little home advantage as possible as it is never a quick pitch conducive to high quality cricket, and at its worst it's a horrible tired dog of a wicket, as England found out yesterday. But they should have known to expect that, because the Ashes-stealing venue is consistently and predictably shite.

This is an absolutely pathetic waahhh

To say England didn't get a home advantage is fine, but to imply that it was somehow a poor quality game because the pitch neutralised Stokes is crap. I for one thoroughly enjoyed the game and especially watching Hasan bowl.

 

[Shri]

Still not convinced that Stokes' innings was bad. What else do you do with everyone falling around you? He could have done some damage if he had stuck around for the slog overs but he got out before he could go for it. Leave him alone ffs.

 

[Black_Warrior]

He got out in the 48th over. That is well into the slog overs.

 

[Shri]

Has the ability to smash a couple of 20 run overs.

 

[honestbharani]

Its just the MSD influence from Pune on Stokes. Should have hung around for the play offs. Will have helped him do a proper Dhoni and smash 30 runs the last 2 overs.

 

[vic_orthdox]

It wasn't bad in terms of timing - he wasn't allowed to have a crack any earlier because of the game situation. He just couldn't pull off the heroics once he did start trying to line them up in the last six or so overs.

 

[honestbharani]

My earlier post was obviously tongue in cheek. I think the reason is that he is not used to the start slow and then go big rhythm as a batsman. He is used to playing the big shot any ****ing time he wanted to while batting and when that option was taken away from him, he just lost all his batting rhythm.

 

[S.Kennedy]

The pitch excuse is pathetic. You have to beat teams on a whole variety of wickets, not always to your liking, to be considered a good team, all formats. The fact of the matter is, on a wicket in which England struggled to make 211 all out, Pakistan won by eight wickets with thirteen overs remaining!!

Pakistan barely broke a sweat, on the very same wicket.

PS

I agree with this by the way,

https://www.thefulltoss.com/england-cricket-blog/englands-fruitless-revolution/

England are a great bunch of belters but they lack brain cells and nuance on wickets that are not flattish.

 

[S.Kennedy]

The tickets sales for this by the way, an ICC semifinal match involving the hosts and Pakistan, were poor. If that was Chester-le, they'd have stripped Glamorgan of their test status and penalised their team with a points deduction.

 

[Stefan9]

Pitch wasn't a good odI wicket. England should have adapted better but that doesn't make it a good wicket.

 

[smash84]

Pitch wasn't a good odI wicket. England should have adapted better but that doesn't make it a good wicket.

Why?

Just because England couldn't adjust to it doesn't mean it wasn't a good odi wicket. Heck Pakistan were cruising on it, that says something. Pak batting isn't all that flash, in case you didn't notice

 

[Shri]

One side chased at almost 6 an over. Eng suck.

 

[Black_Warrior]

It wasn't bad in terms of timing - he wasn't allowed to have a crack any earlier because of the game situation. He just couldn't pull off the heroics once he did start trying to line them up in the last six or so overs.

My earlier post was obviously tongue in cheek. I think the reason is that he is not used to the start slow and then go big rhythm as a batsman. He is used to playing the big shot any ****ing time he wanted to while batting and when that option was taken away from him, he just lost all his batting rhythm.

Agreed. People who are making the pitch argument haven't watched the game and are judging from the final scorecard. England were cruising at the start. Junaid went for 23 off his first 3 overs, Bairstow and Root were going at almost run a ball.
Then Hassan got Bairstow out.

Root and Morgan were kind of restricted by Imad, Hafeez but not the usual chokehold that Pakistan wish for, and Root was dropped off Shadab, and he was scoring off Shadab.

Then Shadab got Root out.

Morgan was joined by Stokes but then Hassan got Morgan out

In walks Buttler, who is the single most devastating player in the death overs, SR 200 from 40-50th over, but here was in early, much earlier than he is used to, and Junaid got Buttler out.

England's lower order is probably the strongest among all teams, but then Moeen Ali gets caught at the boundary - an excellent catch by Fakhar.

Stokes was just unsure what to do. The opposition kept taking wickets and placed him in a situation he is not used to, bogged him down and finally dismissed him.

But we're not going to give credit where it's due, but instead blame the pitch and the conditions and the lack of home advantage because if a small team beats a big team, there has to be something else wrong.

 

[honestbharani]

TBF, BW, its only a few here who have been saying that. Majority of the posters have given credit to Pak for the way they played and also for the way they did not allow England to play.

 

[Black_Warrior]

Yeah true. But the overall coverage of 'used pitch' and 'lack of home advantage' kinda dominated the narrative.

http://www.cricket.com.au/news/engl...rophy-semi-final-defeat-highlights/2017-06-15

 

[honestbharani]

Nah... captains can be bitter at the presser right after a demoralizing loss when they would have expected to win. They are human too, right? And English media will forever go for the narrative from their PoV than from the opposition's. Same as any other media really but in a little bit more obvious way.

Think at least within CW, the consensus has been that Pakistan beat England by playing better cricket. So there is really no point in us going on about what 1 or 2 posters have had to say, esp. when more than enough rightful replies have been given, by fans of England themselves apart from other posters.