What's new

England vs New Zealand | 2nd Test | Leeds | May 29-Jun 2, 2015

Status
Not open for further replies.
Latham playing beautifully so far. Another good find for Kiwis.

Ronchi also looking very very good.

Crucial partnershp for Kiwis here. If they score 400 here, they will be in good shape to come back in the series.
 
Horrible fielding by England. They dropped like 3 easy catches in a span of 10 minutes. Kiwis should have been 8 down by now.
 
Latham dropped twice in succession of the Beards bowling :amla riots break out on PP, time to release a fatwa against Woods and Ballance; deem them "haram" cricketers and ineligible to wear and English shirt again :yk
 
England's transformation into Pakistan continuing by the week.
 
Broad has been better than that 6 RPO suggests. Bhai on the other hand has been significantly worse than that under 5 RPO tells.
 
latham played like a monkey on fire in the last 30 minutes, Total lack of concentration there. Threw it away.
 
pretty flat pitch tbh, expect England to pile them up

Nz are a good side but haven't got it together this series, not sure McCullum is the best man for the job, seems a bit disinterested somehow
 
Williamson gone way too early - Anderson

dCINQNl.gif
 
majiz said:
pretty flat pitch tbh, expect England to pile them up

Nz are a good side but haven't got it together this series, not sure McCullum is the best man for the job, seems a bit disinterested somehow
Click to expand...

England used the best of the conditions and got NZ into trouble before middle order rescued Kiwis a little bit.
 
Juansar_07 said:
Ronchi being too aggressive.Good innings nonetheless.

mIXHdE7.gif
Click to expand...

Watching this is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. McCullum has got eight of them batting as suicidally as himself. They are totally irresponsible. Does any Test team need its number five to get out for a 28 ball 41?

How does it help our Ashes preparation to take sweets off children? Beating this undisciplined Kiwi rabble is like warming up against a school of special needs children. The excitement has gone, replaced by a feeling of faint embarrassment. I thought that a 2 match series was too short, but now it is becoming as bad as hosting India or the 2010 Pakistanis.
 
Junaids said:
Watching this is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. McCullum has got eight of them batting as suicidally as himself. They are totally irresponsible. Does any Test team need its number five to get out for a 28 ball 41?

How does it help our Ashes preparation to take sweets off children? Beating this undisciplined Kiwi rabble is like warming up against a school of special needs children. The excitement has gone, replaced by a feeling of faint embarrassment. I thought that a 2 match series was too short, but now it is becoming as bad as hosting India or the 2010 Pakistanis.
Click to expand...

Well,i am particularly annoyed with Brendon's approach in the last few games.There was absolutety no need for that shot at such a crucial moment where Kiwis were craving to rebuild the innings.He is a gem of a player and his attacking game is mostly effective.But,in games like these he needs to read the situation more rigorously considering he is the key figure of the side.

However,the first game wasn't that bad tbh.In fact i found it quite intriguing.But,Surely NZ have been resposible for their own downfall.They are doing exactly what England are making them do.
 
Junaids said:
Watching this is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. McCullum has got eight of them batting as suicidally as himself. They are totally irresponsible. Does any Test team need its number five to get out for a 28 ball 41?

How does it help our Ashes preparation to take sweets off children? Beating this undisciplined Kiwi rabble is like warming up against a school of special needs children. The excitement has gone, replaced by a feeling of faint embarrassment. I thought that a 2 match series was too short, but now it is becoming as bad as hosting India or the 2010 Pakistanis.
Click to expand...
Agreed it's a lot more cavalier than it needs to be but in the context of this game I don't think it was the worst idea. Scoring at over 4.5 rpo means that even if 1.5 days get rained out there may still be a result. baz is quite capable of rearguard action but this whole media narrative of him being an uber aggressive raging bull of a skipper seems to be turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lol. He doesn't need to bat like Afridi.
 
The problem isn't the high run rate, the problem is the absolutely moronic way mccullum has been getting out, ronchi followed his lead. Both of the shots were absurd
 
From wishing a 2-0 whitewash of England under Cook and a subsequrnt thrashing in Ashes with his prediction of Cook and Strauss being fired from their job mid series, [MENTION=132916]Junaids[/MENTION] is suddenly worried about England's Ashes preparation!!

End of the day 300 is an excellent total batting first on this track. BMac and Ronchi's innings got NZ to this total otherwise with a defensive approach under 200 is what they would have ended up with on this pitch.
 
McCullum has been overdoing the macho crap. And seriously NZ getting out to someone with an atrociously boring name like Mark Wood?

Well atleast Bhai got a beating.
 
Last edited:
cricketindiafan said:
From wishing a 2-0 whitewash of England under Cook and a subsequrnt thrashing in Ashes with his prediction of Cook and Strauss being fired from their job mid series, [MENTION=132916]Junaids[/MENTION] is suddenly worried about England's Ashes preparation!!

End of the day 300 is an excellent total batting first on this track. BMac and Ronchi's innings got NZ to this total otherwise with a defensive approach under 200 is what they would have ended up with on this pitch.
Click to expand...

Yep.I pretty much liked the way Ronchi played in his debut innings.When he came in Kiwis were in danger of succumbing to under 250-260 odd.But he injected that much needed pace to the innings with his natural game that assisted them to add crucial 50-70 more runs.

But,still the way he got out to that delivery was displeasing.It looked as if he intentionally wanted to target the man at fine leg.
Good innings though.
As for McCullum,his dismissal cringed me out.
 
Junaids said:
Watching this is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. McCullum has got eight of them batting as suicidally as himself. They are totally irresponsible. Does any Test team need its number five to get out for a 28 ball 41?

How does it help our Ashes preparation to take sweets off children? Beating this undisciplined Kiwi rabble is like warming up against a school of special needs children. The excitement has gone, replaced by a feeling of faint embarrassment. I thought that a 2 match series was too short, but now it is becoming as bad as hosting India or the 2010 Pakistanis.
Click to expand...

Your Brendon obsession is killing me because it's so boring now, give it up.

Not even the Kiwis are as upset as you with Mccullum, maybe you're a closet NZ fan.

Also you're out of your depth with your disrespect for quick scoring in Tests because it's certainly required at times, as far as you are concerned you prefer 7-8 guys that go out there and block for eternity leading to a boring draw. NZ have made this test interesting actually so credit needs to be given to them for giving the fans at headingly their moneys worth.
 
shaz619 said:
Your Brendon obsession is killing me because it's so boring now, give it up.

Not even the Kiwis are as upset as you with Mccullum, maybe you're a closet NZ fan.

Also you're out of your depth with your disrespect for quick scoring in Tests because it's certainly required at times, as far as you are concerned you prefer 7-8 guys that go out there and block for eternity leading to a boring draw. NZ have made this test interesting actually so credit needs to be given to them for giving the fans at headingly their moneys worth.
Click to expand...

The worst part is, as long as you block he doesn't even care if they block for 10 balls and get out for a duck! Anything but score quickly is fine for him. Williamson and Taylor failed totally but that's fine by him whereas the guys who scored 41 and 88 are the villains....
 
CricketAnalyst said:
The worst part is, as long as you block he doesn't even care if they block for 10 balls and get out for a duck! Anything but score quickly is fine for him. Williamson and Taylor failed totally but that's fine by him whereas the guys who scored 41 and 88 are the villains....
Click to expand...

And that is the one ideology that has held English cricket back for a very long time. No wonder we struggle in Limited forms of the game and get rid of guys like KP; it's apparently criminal to think out of the box or throw the text book out the window. He should also criticise stokes for the two knocks he played in the last game, in fact he did indirectly by giving Cook more credit for the win :)))
 
shaz619 said:
And that is the one ideology that has held English cricket back for a very long time. No wonder we struggle in Limited forms of the game and get rid of guys like KP; it's apparently criminal to think out of the box or throw the text book out the window. He should also criticise stokes for the two knocks he played in the last game, in fact he did indirectly by giving Cook more credit for the win :)))
Click to expand...

Yeah I mean it's obvious in the things he says. When you analyze the last 15 overs of an ODI by saying one guy should score 30 (45) so the others can score 70 (45) (in order to get a score that would never have been enough, even though much more was possible) it just shows his level of understanding. 30 (45) at the death with 7 wickets for 15 overs is criminal. Any player doing that should never play for his country again, but that's what he advocated they should have done.
 
Junaids said:
How does it help our Ashes preparation to take sweets off children? Beating this undisciplined Kiwi rabble is like warming up against a school of special needs children.
Click to expand...

I think NZ got too many having been put in.

Just shows: if you win the toss, bat. Get the runs on the board first. Anything else and you will probably lose the initiative.

England should have a better day tomorrow, though.
 
Juansar_07 said:
But,still the way he got out to that delivery was displeasing.It looked as if he intentionally wanted to target the man at fine leg.
Good innings though.
As for McCullum,his dismissal cringed me out.
Click to expand...
And people wonder why I argue that the ACSU needs to aggressively investigate ALL international cricket?

I fully accept that New Zealand are playing like morons rather than being criminals. But they are doing the same things that fixers would do (in my opinion out of stupid loyalty to a testosterone-drunk captain who is unfit to lead at Test level).

So we can't just say "gosh, he couldn't have picked out the fielder any better if he tried". This is New Zealand, a country which like Pakistan and South Africa has a history of matchfixing because the legitimate money on offer is low (which is also why people like Adam Parore retired prematurely as they couldn't make a living from the game).

Investigate them to clear them to put all of our minds at rest. Because this is getting so unorthodox that it's either an insult to Test cricket or outright criminality.

Come on, ACSU, put our minds at rest!
 
CricketAnalyst said:
Yeah I mean it's obvious in the things he says. When you analyze the last 15 overs of an ODI by saying one guy should score 30 (45) so the others can score 70 (45) (in order to get a score that would never have been enough, even though much more was possible) it just shows his level of understanding. 30 (45) at the death with 7 wickets for 15 overs is criminal. Any player doing that should never play for his country again, but that's what he advocated they should have done.
Click to expand...

Whereas instead of getting 100 from the last 15 overs my way they got 33 from the last 15 overs your way.
 
I hope NZ smash Eng to see how "Mr Test Cricket can only be played a certain way or you're a fixer" reacts. How dare these crowd pleasing bigots play like this; they should have blocked their way to 200 all out! In the end despite being 2-2 in the morning they have posted close to 300, your posts are an insult to the game more then anything tbh.
 
shaz619 said:
And that is the one ideology that has held English cricket back for a very long time. No wonder we struggle in Limited forms of the game and get rid of guys like KP; it's apparently criminal to think out of the box or throw the text book out the window. He should also criticise stokes for the two knocks he played in the last game, in fact he did indirectly by giving Cook more credit for the win :)))
Click to expand...

My friend, Stokes was terrific. Wonderful. But he needed the foundation that Cook laid by batting for 124 overs to allow him to go off like a firework at the other end.

Remember, I'm the one who wants KP back. I think a TEST team needs a mixture of accumulators, grafters and strokeplayers.

But KP has a better cricket brain than McCullum or Ronchi. He is like a superior version of Dave Warner: he can score fast without taking any particular risks.

But best of all, KP adapts to the situation. He might score 40 from 30 balls in one part of a Test innings and then as the bowling or the situation changes might make 30 from the next 60 balls. And then accelerate again.

The problem with the Kiwis latterly is that they are totally one-paced, like a Formula One car that can't slow down to go round the corners.

Attacking Test cricket is exhilarating when it is accompanied by judgment and balance. But it is pointless otherwise.

Batting was hard at the start of this Test due to the atmospheric conditions. But once they settled and the ball lost its shine this was an easy pitch to bat on, like the Lords one.

But Mr BB McCullum has played 3 of his 4 innings in the series, and has scored a paltry 83 runs at an average of 27.66, which is a disgrace. Worse still, in three Test innings he has survived just 67 balls for three times out. That's a third of as many balls as Moeen Ali, Jos Buttler or Ben Stokes - and they have all batted only twice.

I was really looking forward to this series, and while the First Test was thrilling, now that the Kiwis are continuing to attack brainlessly and suicidally as if Field Marshal Haig is leading them over the top at the Somme it is just depressing to watch my own team which is fairly good playing against a better team which is not even trying to play properly.

It's only watchable because the team which isn't playing properly is intrinsically superior so they are competing even after they tie both of their own hands behind their back.
 
Junaids said:
My friend, Stokes was terrific. Wonderful. But he needed the foundation that Cook laid by batting for 124 overs to allow him to go off like a firework at the other end.

Remember, I'm the one who wants KP back. I think a TEST team needs a mixture of accumulators, grafters and strokeplayers.

But KP has a better cricket brain than McCullum or Ronchi. He is like a superior version of Dave Warner: he can score fast without taking any particular risks.

But best of all, KP adapts to the situation. He might score 40 from 30 balls in one part of a Test innings and then as the bowling or the situation changes might make 30 from the next 60 balls. And then accelerate again.

The problem with the Kiwis latterly is that they are totally one-paced, like a Formula One car that can't slow down to go round the corners.

Attacking Test cricket is exhilarating when it is accompanied by judgment and balance. But it is pointless otherwise.

Batting was hard at the start of this Test due to the atmospheric conditions. But once they settled and the ball lost its shine this was an easy pitch to bat on, like the Lords one.

But Mr BB McCullum has played 3 of his 4 innings in the series, and has scored a paltry 83 runs at an average of 27.66, which is a disgrace. Worse still, in three Test innings he has survived just 67 balls for three times out. That's a third of as many balls as Moeen Ali, Jos Buttler or Ben Stokes - and they have all batted only twice.

I was really looking forward to this series, and while the First Test was thrilling, now that the Kiwis are continuing to attack brainlessly and suicidally as if Field Marshal Haig is leading them over the top at the Somme it is just depressing to watch my own team which is fairly good playing against a better team which is not even trying to play properly.

It's only watchable because the team which isn't playing properly is intrinsically superior so they are competing even after they tie both of their own hands behind their back.
Click to expand...

Say what you like but after being 2-2 NZ have almost made 300, if anything you should be criticising England for not going for the KO! Platform or no Platform Stokes is only going to play a particular way irrespective of the situation, in the 1st innings he got his runs when Eng were in deep trouble actually playing the same way. Sure Cook's contribution was great but Stokes played match winning role. NZ style of play has made this series exhilirating and the crowd is absolutely enjoying it! we need more of this! I love it, it's quite hypocritical of you to criticise it and say Stokes was wonderful because he did the same thing. NZ do have a good mix, not everyone in their line up is a boom boom afridi; you have Taylor, Latham, Williamson, Guptil etc and then the likes of Anderson, Mcculum and Ronchi bring the fire power.
 
cricketindiafan said:
From wishing a 2-0 whitewash of England under Cook and a subsequrnt thrashing in Ashes with his prediction of Cook and Strauss being fired from their job mid series, [MENTION=132916]Junaids[/MENTION] is suddenly worried about England's Ashes preparation!!

End of the day 300 is an excellent total batting first on this track. BMac and Ronchi's innings got NZ to this total otherwise with a defensive approach under 200 is what they would have ended up with on this pitch.
Click to expand...

Hold on, don't take me so seriously.

At the end of the day, I'm English. It's very hard for you to turn on your own team to the point that as the match unfolds you want them to lose. And I always try to be thought-provoking anyway with what I write so that, like CricketAnalyst wrote yesterday, I am "a caricature of myself" That's exactly what I am! A lot of what I write is an exaggerated, tongue in cheek version of what I really think.

I would like to see Pietersen back if Ballance or Bell continue to fail. And I would like to see Andrew Strauss fail and be replaced by someone I respect more, such as Michael Vaughan or Alec Stewart.

But when the game is in progress, it's pretty hard, well nigh impossible, to barrack against my own countrymen.

Australia is going to attack hard at times this northern summer. But there will also be passages of play when they knuckle down and fight a war of attrition and when England has to break down their containing bowling or defensive batting.

New Zealand have a fine team (weaker in my opinion when Guptill and Anderson are there rather than Ryder and Neesham, but that's another argument). I had hoped that they would give England a true test to ensure that both teams are at their best when the Ashes come along, because the Ashes are the number 1 event in cricket.

So I feel let down that they aren't even trying to play properly. By all means attack, but don't throw your wickets away.
 
Robert said:
I think NZ got too many having been put in.

Just shows: if you win the toss, bat. Get the runs on the board first. Anything else and you will probably lose the initiative.

England should have a better day tomorrow, though.
Click to expand...

Yes, you're right.

I don't understand why ANYBODY ever puts the opposition in except on a once-every-five-years greentop.

I've written a lot on this forum about people like Tendulkar and Sehwag who underperformed in the fourth innings. People like you and I know that it's always harder to score runs at the end when the consequences of getting out are defeat with no more changes to escape.

I think that in cricket the trick is to score more runs in the First Innings than the opposition can get in the Fourth Innings. All things being equal, batting in the middle two innings should be a fairly level playing field.

That means you should only insert the opposition to bat if you are CERTAIN that the conditions will allow you to dismiss them for less than 250, because in less than 3% of Tests in history has a team scored 250 or more to win batting last.

And I don't think that we have the firepower to do this. Anderson and Broad are fine but Wood is too short for Test cricket and is already going for 4 runs per over in his nascent Test career. And Moeen Ali is clearly not a Test class spinner - his only real success was against India who really have gone massively backwards in terms of spin in the last decade.

Big day tomorrow. Lyth, Bell and Ballance have everything to prove.
 
The reason people get ticked off at batsmen making a quick 42 then getting out as opposed to 0 (10) is simple.

Odds are a batsman playing defensive will get out to a good ball by the bowler. Getting done in by that is no shame.

Being 42 (27) however and going after a wide one first ball after tea for absolutely no reason is infuriating though as any sensible batsman at that position will realise that, sooner or later he will play one shot too many, and revert to a more cautious approach that at the end of the day should lead to a higher innings total. You cant just think aggressive and expect rewards. I'd imagine its especially annoying to a NZ'er when the main culprit has shown in the past he can dig in and do it well.

When you do what McCullum did you look like an idiot, especially when he already did his job of accelerating, after tea is when you use your head and try lose as few wickets as possible till the end.

Also, a test openers primary job is to survive first and foremost so the middle order can pile on runs when a base is set and scoring is easier. Any test opener batting brainlessly in the name of aggression will fail 9/10 times. The great aggressive test openers like Warner or Sehwag still make use of their brains most of the time and wont just slog everything.
 
Good innings from Ronchi. Good to see he's regained his batting form.

Dumb shot to get out on though but overall it's what I used to expect from him anyway
 
Junaids said:
And people wonder why I argue that the ACSU needs to aggressively investigate ALL international cricket?

I fully accept that New Zealand are playing like morons rather than being criminals. But they are doing the same things that fixers would do (in my opinion out of stupid loyalty to a testosterone-drunk captain who is unfit to lead at Test level).

So we can't just say "gosh, he couldn't have picked out the fielder any better if he tried". This is New Zealand, a country which like Pakistan and South Africa has a history of matchfixing because the legitimate money on offer is low (which is also why people like Adam Parore retired prematurely as they couldn't make a living from the game).

Investigate them to clear them to put all of our minds at rest. Because this is getting so unorthodox that it's either an insult to Test cricket or outright criminality.

Come on, ACSU, put our minds at rest!
Click to expand...

I can assure you that Ronchi played like that for like 8 years for WA

Nothing to do with McCullum
 
Convict said:
I can assure you that Ronchi played like that for like 8 years for WA

Nothing to do with McCullum
Click to expand...

I know! I think McCullum's continuing antics are far more worrying than one Wonky Donkey innings. Three times out in 67 balls playing these dumb slogs!
 
Baz is overdoing it these days. Nothing wrong in playing an attacking innings but slogging from ball one is not what a test batsman should do let alone the captain.

Yes Ronchi played similar innings and put his team in a better position but not without his share of lucks. Would have looked ugly if got out early.

One should make a bowler earn his wicket not gift his wicket. That doesn't mean blocking everything.
 
Last edited:
Junaids said:
Whereas instead of getting 100 from the last 15 overs my way they got 33 from the last 15 overs your way.
Click to expand...

This is why I said you don't understand probability and statistics. If they tried my way 100 times, I don't think they would get lower than 200 less than 5 or 6 times. I have hyper-extensive professional experience with stats so I understand probability well; in particular, I am capable of understanding that just because something actually happens doesn't mean that it wasn't highly improbable.

Yes, I get it. This IS ABSOLUTELY an insult to guys who think about cricket like you. It's not fixing however. It's a deliberate ignoring of orthodoxy though. Also, do note, they don't actually have a dictated strategy. Every individual batsman is free to decide how they want to play, which is we Latham 72 (156) Ronhci 72 (56).

The problem is in sports guys like you are on the wrong side of history. In baseball guys like you dwindled one by one as sabermetrics took over doing things looked crazy and nonsensical. In poker (the most mathematical and objective discipline conceivable) experienced professionals whined all the way from 2003 to 2010 as internet kids used bizzare strategies that the pros thought were nonsesnse, too risky or "just not poker" as Sam Farha described the play of Chris Moneymaker the guy who owned him at WSOP Main Event and sparked a global boom for the game. Even in cricket England have been left behind at limited overs cricket because they are so stuck in their ways they can find ways to rationalize the math away.

You insist on a double standard that looks like this:

Defensive Failure: No problem, it happens.

Defensive Good Innings: Well played, a proper innings and a good job

Defensive Magnificent Innings: That was an all-time classic, only a "Test class" player could do this

Attacking Failure: Drop him for the rest of his life! He is responsible for everyone else who may get out after him!

Attacking Good Innings: He needed to do more! What a stupid shot to get out! Setting a bad example!

Attacking Magnificent Innings: That was a great innings, but why couldn't it be 300 instead of 200. He can't do this regularly.

It's this repeated and unjustified double standard that's getting old. What's more in the long run in sports, these double-standards are stomped out loss by loss as sooner or later (like now) somebody like BMac is going to have permission to be objective.
 
rooster said:
Baz is overdoing it these days. Nothing wrong in playing an attacking innings but slogging from ball one is not what a test batsman should do let alone the captain.

Yes Ronchi played similar innings and put his team in a better position but not without his share of lucks. Would have looked ugly if got out early.

One should make a bowler earn his wicket not gift his wicket. That doesn't mean blocking everything.
Click to expand...

Who cares what it looks like?

Did Willamson's duck look good to you?

I care only about the numbers. Since he started the kamikaze stuff Mac's numbers have improved.
 
Donal Cozzie said:
The reason people get ticked off at batsmen making a quick 42 then getting out as opposed to 0 (10) is simple.

Odds are a batsman playing defensive will get out to a good ball by the bowler. Getting done in by that is no shame.

Being 42 (27) however and going after a wide one first ball after tea for absolutely no reason is infuriating though as any sensible batsman at that position will realise that, sooner or later he will play one shot too many, and revert to a more cautious approach that at the end of the day should lead to a higher innings total. You cant just think aggressive and expect rewards. I'd imagine its especially annoying to a NZ'er when the main culprit has shown in the past he can dig in and do it well.

When you do what McCullum did you look like an idiot, especially when he already did his job of accelerating, after tea is when you use your head and try lose as few wickets as possible till the end.

Also, a test openers primary job is to survive first and foremost so the middle order can pile on runs when a base is set and scoring is easier. Any test opener batting brainlessly in the name of aggression will fail 9/10 times. The great aggressive test openers like Warner or Sehwag still make use of their brains most of the time and wont just slog everything.
Click to expand...

Donal, I really can't believe the blinders are on so tight.

When you begin by saying "the odds are you'll get a good one you can't handle soon enough, why don't you realize

THIS IS ABOUT THE STRONGEST ARGUMENT FOR GOING HAMMER AND TONGS.

I don't actually agree that you're bound to get a good ball sooner or later, but if that's what you think that's ALL THE MORE reason to hit out and maximize the returns as long as you are there.

Seriously, whether you are right or wrong, I guarantee you the blinders are on if you think that second line of yours is an argument for defensive batting.
 
Donal Cozzie said:
The reason people get ticked off at batsmen making a quick 42 then getting out as opposed to 0 (10) is simple.

Odds are a batsman playing defensive will get out to a good ball by the bowler. Getting done in by that is no shame.

Being 42 (27) however and going after a wide one first ball after tea for absolutely no reason is infuriating though as any sensible batsman at that position will realise that, sooner or later he will play one shot too many, and revert to a more cautious approach that at the end of the day should lead to a higher innings total. You cant just think aggressive and expect rewards. I'd imagine its especially annoying to a NZ'er when the main culprit has shown in the past he can dig in and do it well.

When you do what McCullum did you look like an idiot, especially when he already did his job of accelerating, after tea is when you use your head and try lose as few wickets as possible till the end.

Also, a test openers primary job is to survive first and foremost so the middle order can pile on runs when a base is set and scoring is easier. Any test opener batting brainlessly in the name of aggression will fail 9/10 times. The great aggressive test openers like Warner or Sehwag still make use of their brains most of the time and wont just slog everything.
Click to expand...

This is so illogical. This is question begging. When people are questioning the efficacy of the old strategy, just saying "this is your role under that old strategy" is missing the point entirely. Also, Sehwag and Warner aren't more intelligent than other dashers; they just had in Sehwag's case and have in Warner's case better hand-eye coordination.

By the way, one thing I find ABSURD is the extent to which the old-school approach is based on the assumption that exceptional hand-eye or reaction speed is abnormal. The idea seems that you design strategy with the assumption that the bat is an average mug with all kinds of limitations and thus don't try various things because mediocre players can't do them. Surely you should assume world-class players have the abilities to do things others can't.

I suppose cricket coaching was designed to paper the weaknesses of mediocre losers rather than bring out the most in super-stars.
 
CricketAnalyst said:
Donal, I really can't believe the blinders are on so tight.

When you begin by saying "the odds are you'll get a good one you can't handle soon enough, why don't you realize

THIS IS ABOUT THE STRONGEST ARGUMENT FOR GOING HAMMER AND TONGS.
Click to expand...

Won't win you test matches. You are more likely to get your side skittled. Better to hang in and defend, and smash the bad ball when it comes. Occupy the crease long enough and the runs will come.
 
Robert said:
Won't win you test matches. You are more likely to get your side skittled. Better to hang in and defend, and smash the bad ball when it comes. Occupy the crease long enough and the runs will come.
Click to expand...

I get that this is your view. My point is if you think a good ball will get you sooner or later, that should make you more likely to attack then less.

No matter what you think; if your response to "a good ball will get me sooner or later" is to play slower, you are making a big mistake.

Also, can we quit the question begging and have some kind of evidence based argument? It seems that the 'Test purists' don't really have anything to say but "this is not the way it's done", and it will take loss after loss after loss for any sense to set in; this is how sport evolves though.
 
CricketAnalyst said:
Who cares what it looks like?

Did Willamson's duck look good to you?
Click to expand...

Williamson lost his wicket not threw his wicket. He started at a strike rate around 70 in Lords but had to cut down is high risk shots because of wickets falling around him. That's how you construct an innings. Not slogging from ball one but punishing bad balls.

I care only about the numbers. Since he started the kamikaze stuff Mac's numbers have improved.
Click to expand...

Baz batted with sense in those knocks. Here he batted for reputation. I'm not against his style of play but he should adapt to match situations like he did before World Cup.
 
CricketAnalyst said:
This is why I said you don't understand probability and statistics. If they tried my way 100 times, I don't think they would get lower than 200 less than 5 or 6 times. I have hyper-extensive professional experience with stats so I understand probability well; in particular, I am capable of understanding that just because something actually happens doesn't mean that it wasn't highly improbable.

Yes, I get it. This IS ABSOLUTELY an insult to guys who think about cricket like you. It's not fixing however. It's a deliberate ignoring of orthodoxy though. Also, do note, they don't actually have a dictated strategy. Every individual batsman is free to decide how they want to play, which is we Latham 72 (156) Ronhci 72 (56).

The problem is in sports guys like you are on the wrong side of history. In baseball guys like you dwindled one by one as sabermetrics took over doing things looked crazy and nonsensical. In poker (the most mathematical and objective discipline conceivable) experienced professionals whined all the way from 2003 to 2010 as internet kids used bizzare strategies that the pros thought were nonsesnse, too risky or "just not poker" as Sam Farha described the play of Chris Moneymaker the guy who owned him at WSOP Main Event and sparked a global boom for the game. Even in cricket England have been left behind at limited overs cricket because they are so stuck in their ways they can find ways to rationalize the math away.
Click to expand...
Actually, you are showing exactly why people who understand statistics and baseball cannot understand international cricket.

Baseball is a typical American franchise sport, in which a player draft applies and ensures a level playing field with approximately equal spread of talent and ability. This is reinforced by a salary cap in the form of a "luxury tax" which equalises strength even further, and further prevents any team from achieving excellence.

In international cricket talent is not evenly distributed and nor does it necessarily follow each country's relative economic strength.

You simply cannot say "New Zealand has 15 overs left in the World Cup and six wickets left, they should add 140 more runs."


It doesn't work that way. It was the biggest day of their lives and there were no specialist batsmen left to come out at the fall of a wicket. And the bowling was far, far better than any other attack in the tournament.

There were only 2 relevant statistics to consult:

1) One month earlier, on home turf, New Zealand lost 5 wickets for 15 to this Australia attack from 131-4.

2) Three days earlier, India's output in the final 15 overs against the same Australia side was 6 wickets for 63 runs.

It therefore was overwhelmingly obvious that that weak Kiwi middle and lower order against that strong Australian bowling attack was going to score somewhere between 15 and 63 runs in the final 15 overs.

With respect (and I mean that, because I enjoy jousting with you even though we disagree) you need to rely less on statistics and more on cricket history and develop a feel for the game. Because you like ODIs much more than I do, but my judgment is clearly better than yours, not because I'm smarter than you - I'm obviously not :) - but because I have a feel for the sport at international level that comes from decades of watching it and learning about it.
 
rooster said:
Williamson lost his wicket not threw his wicket. He started at a strike rate around 70 in Lords but had to cut down is high risk shots because of wickets falling around him. That's how you construct an innings. Not slogging from ball one but punishing bad balls.



Baz batted with sense in those knocks. Here he batted for reputation. I'm not against his style of play but he should adapt to match situations like he did before World Cup.
Click to expand...

You're missing the essence of my point and modern sports strategy.

There is no difference between "lost your wicket" and "threw your wicket away". Both of those mean you can't bat any longer and are of no further use. End of. There is no further implication. Over a decent sample size if two players score the same number of runs it doesn't matter how they did it.

Prioritizing one way over another will lead to a host of inefficiencies and perverse incentives which cricket is riddled with. In particular, giving batsmen an incentive to prioritize defensive failures over attacking failures is disastrous and leads to teams in death-spirals because batsmen absolutely refuse to attack or try and win, because they are playing for their places rather than to win. Many teams have seen this recently. Ironically, the last example was India in England last summer; after Rohit Sharma and Rahane were roasted for hitting aerial shots and being dismissed, the entire squad decided they would rather fail defensively than be accused of IPL batting. What's more I called in REAL-TIME as it was happening, that this would be the exact consequence.
 
CricketAnalyst said:
I get that this is your view. My point is if you think a good ball will get you sooner or later, that should make you more likely to attack then less.

No matter what you think; if your response to "a good ball will get me sooner or later" is to play slower, you are making a big mistake.

Also, can we quit the question begging and have some kind of evidence based argument? It seems that the 'Test purists' don't really have anything to say but "this is not the way it's done", and it will take loss after loss after loss for any sense to set in; this is how sport evolves though.
Click to expand...

No again.

A player with a sound defensive technique - Michael Clarke, Kane Williamson, the current model of Alastair Cook - is much, much less likely to get out to the good ball (because he plays with soft hands and leaves balls in the channel outside off-stump) than a dasher who plays at balls that he could and should leave.

England won the First Test by 124 runs. They might have won without Stokes' second innings 101. But they could not have won without Alastair Cook's innings of 162. And he got 162 by batting for 124 overs, and tiring out the strike bowlers so that Root, Stokes and Moeen could hit 228 runs late on Day 4. It's no coincidence that when the Kiwi bowlers had had a rest the next morning they took the last 4 wickets for just 49 runs.

Alastair Cook has had two bad years because he was playing ODIs as well as Tests and was contaminating his Test game by playing shots he didn't need to to balls in the corridor of uncertainty.

Now he has gone back to playing Test cricket only, and suddenly those balls don't get him out any more.
 
CricketAnalyst said:
You're missing the essence of my point and modern sports strategy.

There is no difference between "lost your wicket" and "threw your wicket away". Both of those mean you can't bat any longer and are of no further use. End of. There is no further implication. Over a decent sample size if two players score the same number of runs it doesn't matter how they did it.

Prioritizing one way over another will lead to a host of inefficiencies and perverse incentives which cricket is riddled with. In particular, giving batsmen an incentive to prioritize defensive failures over attacking failures is disastrous and leads to teams in death-spirals because batsmen absolutely refuse to attack or try and win, because they are playing for their places rather than to win. Many teams have seen this recently. Ironically, the last example was India in England last summer; after Rohit Sharma and Rahane were roasted for hitting aerial shots and being dismissed, the entire squad decided they would rather fail defensively than be accused of IPL batting. What's more I called in REAL-TIME as it was happening, that this would be the exact consequence.
Click to expand...

Nobody's asking Mac to bat slowly but sensibly. He can hit six sixes an over in tests but not from ball one. That's what I'm trying to say.

And yes I know one cannot bat after getting out but there's a huge huge difference between losing your wicket and gifting your wicket.
 
Junaids said:
Watching this is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. McCullum has got eight of them batting as suicidally as himself. They are totally irresponsible. Does any Test team need its number five to get out for a 28 ball 41?

How does it help our Ashes preparation to take sweets off children? Beating this undisciplined Kiwi rabble is like warming up against a school of special needs children. The excitement has gone, replaced by a feeling of faint embarrassment. I thought that a 2 match series was too short, but now it is becoming as bad as hosting India or the 2010 Pakistanis.
Click to expand...

It's raining though, to force a result, NZ need to get quick runs. 8/297 is a pretty decent first day total if you've been sent in. Better still if it's been raining.
 
Junaids said:
Actually, you are showing exactly why people who understand statistics and baseball cannot understand international cricket.

Baseball is a typical American franchise sport, in which a player draft applies and ensures a level playing field with approximately equal spread of talent and ability. This is reinforced by a salary cap in the form of a "luxury tax" which equalises strength even further, and further prevents any team from achieving excellence.

In international cricket talent is not evenly distributed and nor does it necessarily follow each country's relative economic strength.

You simply cannot say "New Zealand has 15 overs left in the World Cup and six wickets left, they should add 140 more runs."


It doesn't work that way. It was the biggest day of their lives and there were no specialist batsmen left to come out at the fall of a wicket. And the bowling was far, far better than any other attack in the tournament.

There were only 2 relevant statistics to consult:

1) One month earlier, on home turf, New Zealand lost 5 wickets for 15 to this Australia attack from 131-4.

2) Three days earlier, India's output in the final 15 overs against the same Australia side was 6 wickets for 63 runs.

It therefore was overwhelmingly obvious that that weak Kiwi middle and lower order against that strong Australian bowling attack was going to score somewhere between 15 and 63 runs in the final 15 overs.

With respect (and I mean that, because I enjoy jousting with you even though we disagree) you need to rely less on statistics and more on cricket history and develop a feel for the game. Because you like ODIs much more than I do, but my judgment is clearly better than yours, not because I'm smarter than you - I'm obviously not :) - but because I have a feel for the sport at international level that comes from decades of watching it and learning about it.
Click to expand...

Ok, for a change, that post is a clear and identifiable argument. I don't agree that my judgement of ODI's is bad (and I have tested it extensively with real consequences at stake), but obviously you can't take my statement for that. That's why you should see my statements, because unlike posters here I make a lot of real-time projections that can be tested against what actually happens.

Moving onto your analysis, for a change your approach is right; you've tried to identify the relevant statistics and ignore the wrong ones. I don't think you've done a great job of this (though your conclusions definitely follow from the statistics you've isolated). Here's why I don't agree with your stats.

To me these are my relevant stats:

1) Except Pakistan NO team in the entire tournament defended a score below 300 against a Test playing nation. Digest that. Only one team defended a sub 300 score against a Test playing side. Australia had the best batting line-up in the entire tournament. No matter which way you look at it, the probability of 250 being enough was utterly negligible in my view; around 15% at best. Without score-board pressure and knowing they faced an easy target, a line-up batting down to No. 9 and filled with dangerous hitters and world-class batsmen was never going to fail to score 250.

2) The pair at crease was on a 110 run partnership and were fully set. The pace of scoring accelerated with the length of partnerships at this tournament and there was no reason these guys couldn't score quickly, they had been speeding up rapidly as they approached the power-play and both batsmen were looking excellent.

3) The batsmen behind are in good form (whether you want to call them specialists or not) and if you can't trust them to play 10 overs, you may as well give up before the game starts. This is a non-option for me.

4) You might have missed this subtle point, but Taylor and Elliot attacked Faulkner, the absolute weakest of the Australian bowlers with the deadly ones yet to come; their dismissals sparked the collapse. Ronchi and Anderson actually didn't play my way; they panicked and scratched around intensifying the pressure when they needed to do something change the momentum because the Aussies were smelling blood. Defending only postpones the crisis while giving the other team confidence and reducing the final number you can get. One key aspect of T20 and limited overs death batting you don't understand is that neither 5 balls nor 15 balls is enough to get you in. In T20 and death overs batting, you can only get going by hitting it and getting the confidence rush from the boundaries; there just is no time to play yourself in the traditional way.

NewZealand actually scored at 3 runs per over at the death and didn't play my way; and in my view, they didn't roll the dice hard enough; 183 was no different from 161. It was mostly academic after Ronchi went but Elliot really needed to roll the dice and swing at everything and hope for a miracle, because nothing else was going to be enough.

Please do understand, if a side loses lots of wickets and doesn't score any runs, that isn't my way any more than it is yours. My way, is a lot of quick runs (which doesn't always coincide with wickets falling, which is why you don't identify with my approach when it works).

Finally, I agree with you about feel; I think it's my edge in many ways. In the fields I work in (especially capital markets), "feel" is short-hand for "you don't know what you're doing", and most stats guys have serious problems with knowing how to apply stats and knowing which ones matter. I actually think feel is my strongest edge compared to a lot of the people I compete with and against. But even feel requires a solid analytic foundation.

I'll also tell you that wrong feel or more importantly feel that is specific that to particular underlying conditions can be wrong when this conditions vanish. Certain strategies can work very well in particular environments, but when others start doing others that look bizzare or outlandish because you haven't seen them before, you can feel like you're doing the right but keep losing till you realize what's happening. I think professional poker is a great analogy, because of the sheer numbers of old-school poker pros who went broke between 2003 and 2009 because they didn't realize hyper-aggressive internet style poker was actually mathematically correct though it felt bizzare to them; the strategies they were using for years felt good but they hadn't run into strategies that worked well against those strategies

Consider that when you realize that no Test bowling side has much experience with a relentless onslaught; when BMAC did it to Pakistan in the UAE, the bowlers were looking lost because it was just out of their list of things which could potentially happen.
 
Junaids said:
No again.

A player with a sound defensive technique - Michael Clarke, Kane Williamson, the current model of Alastair Cook - is much, much less likely to get out to the good ball (because he plays with soft hands and leaves balls in the channel outside off-stump) than a dasher who plays at balls that he could and should leave.

England won the First Test by 124 runs. They might have won without Stokes' second innings 101. But they could not have won without Alastair Cook's innings of 162. And he got 162 by batting for 124 overs, and tiring out the strike bowlers so that Root, Stokes and Moeen could hit 228 runs late on Day 4. It's no coincidence that when the Kiwi bowlers had had a rest the next morning they took the last 4 wickets for just 49 runs.

Alastair Cook has had two bad years because he was playing ODIs as well as Tests and was contaminating his Test game by playing shots he didn't need to to balls in the corridor of uncertainty.

Now he has gone back to playing Test cricket only, and suddenly those balls don't get him out any more.
Click to expand...

I'm not denying that.

I agree with you that good batsmen can survive any ball.

My point was IF he thought that a good ball is bound to get you, then you should play like BMAC.
 
CricketAnalyst said:
Also, can we quit the question begging and have some kind of evidence based argument? It seems that the 'Test purists' don't really have anything to say but "this is not the way it's done", and it will take loss after loss after loss for any sense to set in; this is how sport evolves though.
Click to expand...

Well, the super-attacking Kiwis lost the last test, because the English had the sense to know when to defend as well as when to attack in the long game. There are passages of test cricket play when the bowlers get on top and you have to dig in and consolidate before they get tired and you can bat more assertively again. And there are other periods where you just have to defend and defend with no hope of winning, in the context of a long series, and that can be very exciting to watch too.
 
McCullum played the bowling on merit for the most part. Not like Lords where he was running down the track at slogging it to midwicket. It was a big half volley that he got out to. Its not the choice of shot that was the problem, its the execution.
 
CricketAnalyst said:
I'm not denying that.

I agree with you that good batsmen can survive any ball.

My point was IF he thought that a good ball is bound to get you, then you should play like BMAC.
Click to expand...


A pity that legends like Tendulker, Dravid and Gavasker didn't know this.

If you play with a tight defense, the number of balls that can get you out decreases drastically. Throw your bat at everything and even a half-volley can get you out.
 
The Kiwis got 150 runs too many to justify the insertion.
 
Bilal7 said:
[/B]

A pity that legends like Tendulker, Dravid and Gavasker didn't know this.

If you play with a tight defense, the number of balls that can get you out decreases drastically. Throw your bat at everything and even a half-volley can get you out.
Click to expand...

Bhai, do you not understand what IF means?

I said IF X then Y.

That is NOT the same thing as saying Y.

Just think about this for a few seconds.
 
Proper test match batting at two an over. 160-1 at the close. None of this Kiwi 295-8 nonsense.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

The Bald Eagle
  • Locked
England vs India | 1st Test | Headingley | June 20-24 | Pre-Match Discussion
2
Replies
80
Views
2K
Rajdeep
R
The Bald Eagle
England (465 & 373/5) cruise to a comfortable 5-wicket win over India (471 & 364) in the opening Test of the series
27 28 29
Replies
2K
Views
31K
hks222
H
BouncerGuy
  • Locked
England vs India | 2nd Test | Edgbaston | July 02-06 | Pre-Match Discussion
2
Replies
152
Views
4K
mominsaigol
mominsaigol
Bhaijaan
New Zealand cricket team's remarkable rise since 2015
Replies
75
Views
1K
harshjoshi87
harshjoshi87
Cricket Warrior
New Zealand (259 & 255) beat India (156 & 245) convincingly in the 2nd Test by 113 runs to seal a 3-Test series victory (2-0) with one match remaining
10 11 12
Replies
955
Views
16K
sweep_shot
sweep_shot
Back
Top