*Official* India Tour of England 2018

[R!TTER]

Why is everyone only focusing on the wicket ball? Most of them played plenty of awful shots before getting good nuts.

Tbf England are diabolical with their crafty use of Clouds and pitches this time of the year. ICC should seriously look into sanctioning them for doing this regularly to visiting teams

 

[trundler]

https://youtu.be/e9PsJm-oRAM

When there's a countrysong about it, you should know better.

 

[Daemon]

Bold move to go in with two spinners in these conditions though. It's going to be a massive challenge to keep them under 200 even if the ball swings around like it did for England.

 

[cnerd123]

Yea the two spinners move seems odd now. Umesh could have taken a few wickets here.

 

[Pratters]

Idiotic to drop Umesh too. Wasn't he bowling well in the odis.. one poor test and **** off. Heh.

 

[trundler]

Weren't you guys asking for exactly this though? Kuldeep in, Yadav out.

 

[Daemon]

Weren't you guys asking for exactly this though? Kuldeep in, Yadav out.

Yeah but we thought we were getting a sun baked dry lords wicket. They could have changed the decision after Day 1 but I suppose they decided to stick with the original XI which is fair enough, but could prove costly.

 

[Borges]

Bold move to go in with two spinners in these conditions though.

It would have not been ideal if India had won the toss. This pitch will probably take a fair amount of spin in the fourth innings if it has a chance to dry.
If India would bat well enough in their second outing to pose at least a minimal challenge for England in the last innings. Two fairly big ifs, I admit.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Umesh was pretty wayward with the new ball at Edgbaston and there's no guarantee he'd have bowled great here or anything

 

[trundler]

Curran is really turning out to be something isn't he? Yes, him and Abbas are making trundlers great again!

 

[Borges]

ATG Curran was barely ok in the first innings. Behind ATVG Woakes and way behind ATVVG Anderson.

 

[Daemon]

Is there any other bowler with a 40 run difference in home and away bowling averages? If there was ever a case for horses for courses, Woakes is definitely one.

 

[R!TTER]

Is there any other bowler with a 40 run difference in home and away bowling averages? If there was ever a case for horses for courses, Woakes is definitely one.

Ashwin before 2018

 

[Prince EWS]

Fair point......but it's more the general standard I'm talking about.

I don't think it's a stretch to say Eng are one of the best ODI fielding sides atm yet we're one of the worst in tests. I've always thought (possibly wrongly) that fielding standards are more to do with culture and hard work than the talent and abilities of the individual players. But maybe Morgan, Hales, Roy et al are just generally much better than their test counterparts?

Yeah I don't really buy this when it comes to slips catching. It's a specialist skill. If you picked a team of fast bowlers with a great team work ethic and culture they still wouldn't score many runs, and I just don't think England have enough good slips catchers in their best eleven at the moment. Good ODI fielding side because they're athletic and have a good attitude towards fielding etc and it's more about commitment and ground fielding there, but it's not going to make them better at slips catching.

 

[hendrix]

I mean you can definitely improve at slips catching with practice, of course. But I agree with PEWs that as a skill it's much more about hand-eye coordination than it is about athleticism, so it's not going to improve as drastically as something like ground fielding or outfield catching. And while things like concentration can be improved with increased fitness levels, on day 1 of a test match in which a team is bowled out for a buck, it shouldn't have been an issue here either way.

 

[trundler]

ATG Curran was barely ok in the first innings. Behind ATVG Woakes and way behind ATVVG Anderson.

He's 20. Bowled with promise.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Hopefully the sun is shining today and we can bat all day. 300+ should be enough for an innings win.

 

[91Jmay]

And batsmen who are not athletic but have great hand eye coordination are generally good in the slips. Sehwag was excellent for instance.

Mainly because the fat dumplings are forced to stand there from the age of 12 (see Trescothick, M - probably the best English slipper I've seen).

 

[ankitj]

I'm just wondering how come Indian players like Bumrah and Bhumi are never unfit for IPL!

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Fair question. That is the problem with rankings: someone would be at the top, even if they aren't very good.
ICC points aside, which team should be considered to be (at least marginally) better than the others right now?
Before the disaster in Sri Lanka, i'd have confidently said South Africa. Who is it now? I suppose Pakistan, if they defeat Australia in their upcoming series.

Pakistan? They are ranked 7th in the world and Australia are terrible players of spin and missing their 2 best batsman and top fast bowlers