Thanks PEWS for all of your replyNo worries. I really enjoyed your brief foray into the rugby league section of CricSim this season; I felt like we buried any hatchets we had there.
Welcome back. I'll try to get your accounts merged if you're okay with that (or at least swap the names so you don't have to be "Hurricane2").
The presenters and analysts on hotstar have been using 'captain fearless' as their new moniker for Kohli and it's ****ing painful.The Kohli interview afterwards was such a meme. "I don't think there's any technical weaknesses as such, we just need to be a little more brave."
#intent
Same. I think a lot of people would have gone to bed at lunch grumpy about Southee dropping that catch and expecting it to be a draw. I woke up to find 156 messages on my club team's WhatsApp group. Also, messages from people who I hadn't heard from since the final of the WC. It's nice that in triumph or defeat cricket is this common thread that we share.I turned off the TV last night after the Pant drop. Was sure I was going to wake up to a draw in the morning. Then when I opened my eyes and saw a text from a friend of mine who follows the game, I knew it was either a win or a heartbreaking loss. Had sweaty palms watching the highlights this morning but seemed like a fairly comfortable win in the end. So thrilled for this bunch, they’ve desperately deserved a trophy after all they’ve done over the past decade and now they’ve got it. Now hopefully Trent and KW can finally let go of the pain from 2019. I know I can. I cried after that super over. Were tears of a different sort seeing the guys jumping up and down in celebration on the balcony.
A first series win in England in 22 years and now World Champions. Not a bad 3 weeks work. Full credit to the coaching and support staff who’ve done a magnificent job of getting the boys into top shape over the past month. Left no stones unturned.
To India, well played. They’re a much improved side from the team NZ beat 18 months ago, even if the scoreline suggests a similar sort of game to the last between these two. Had the cloud cover not stopped play on day 2 they may well have put up 300 in the first innings, which would’ve been match winning. Kohli’s shown his qualities as a leader in this match. I’ve watched him and Kane butt heads since the two of them were high schoolers, such a lovely moment to see the two of them embracing on the world stage at the end of such a hard fought contest.
Finally, to everyone in the thread, thanks for creating such a funny, supportive and engaging community to talk about this match and this sport. We have our disagreements (no Athlai, Southee still shouldn’t play in the ODI side ahead of Henry) but we always have fun andI don’t know if I would’ve stuck around for the journey from easy beats to world champs without you guys.
Now let’s all get drunk!
Yeah, as bad as we were in the last day, this is one aspect of the game I am happy with. It deserved a result and I like it when both teams were setting the tone of going for the win even after so much **** weather and conditions. I think I said very early on in the game that I would rather lose than a weather affected draw and that is what it was. We did not play well enough and NZ played excellent cricket and they won. I understand draw is a legitimate test match result and I am pretty sure India's hands were forced once Virat and Puji were sniffed out early in the day but I hope we play with that attitude but with better skill and judgement going forward.Well played to both sides, they did test cricket proud.
Also have this sneaking feeling that England will bear the brunt of India's disappointment from this game.
Hopefully, yeah. It was great.Sure I mean this is great for NZ and great for Test cricket. But is a long 5 day game really going to attract another generation of insta-now youngsters?
Yeah it may be a meme but "that's just the way he plays" is well and truly relevant. If a guy has the ability to what Pant does and take a game away in a session then you accept some dire ugly dismissals along the way. Now if he goes 8-10 tests without a matchwinning knock and still gets out like this then maybe start asking questions. Still think he has a bit of work to do keeping-wise though, consider the big 4 bats, Stokes, Jamieson, Jadeja, Cummins and maybe a few more to be more valuable.He played 2 ATG 5th day knocks in Australia to get us to a historic series win. On top of that, he scored a beyond incredible 101 in Ahmedabad taking India out of trouble from 146-6 against England in very, very difficult batting conditions which included the Jimmy Anderson reverse sweep and another 91 (88) from 4-70 in Chennai coming in during a collapse.
He did this all in his last 5-6 tests. I did not even mention a bunch of cameos he played as well in those tests such as the 40 yesterday and 58* in Chennai.
He is ranked the 6th best batsman currently after the Fab 4 and Labushagne in the iCC rankings and I think that is entirely deserved. Along with keeping, that makes one of the (if not the) most valuable cricketers in the world.
Looks about right even if the lower order batting looks thinWTC Final XI
Conway
Rohit
Williamson (C)
Taylor
Rahane
Pant (wk)
Ashwin
Jamieson
Wagner
Southee
Shami
No.7 is too early for Ashwin/Jamieson ideally but went with the players who performed in the match.