Cricket

Of course, time was, esp. in the 1970s/80s, when we’d have taken every rain delay in a match against the WI :grinning:

Some of the retrospectives on Sky are wonderful to watch but also scary. A number of times facing ‘Percy the pace bowler’ at club level with a box, thigh pad and cap was a chastening experience…and at professional level they would have been at the lower-end of fast-medium. I heard stories of Viv Richards having nets against ground staff bowlers without pads.

I must say though, the professional ground wickets were a lot easier to bat on as while they were quicker and truer they had less bounce but more carry than many club tracks - apart from Fenner’s, which was a pudding of a wicket.

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That doesn’t look good, the English summer might cost you guys a win.

So pleased for him … on commentary they have said his average has improved with the more wickets he took. I’m glad, as Strauss has just said, be is bowling fuller - no longer the enforcer.

Unless the weather intervenes think you guys will wrap this up. I might get some sleep so I can wake early to find out what Naims big announcement is.

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A good mornings work, 84-5 at lunch.
Apart from the Broad 500th, Woakes is doing damage on 2 fer 15 off 4

Well done England, job done in under 2 sessions
129 all out
Woakes was the man today with a 5 fer
Broad got his 4 fer to make it a 10 wicket match & take his tally to 501

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Well a good series has ended with a pretty dominant win. Squad depth a key factor in England’s win plus of course a resurgent Broad. The big criticism of recent years (and in the first Test) has been the failure to post a big first innings score and it looks as though this line up is beginning to address that more often.

Have to wonder if the years are beginning to tell on Anderson. If he doesn’t get many wickets against Pakistan I suspect he may not tour in the winter, and that may be it. I guess write him off at your peril but eventually time catches up with everyone.

The ODI Eng V Ireland today looks interesting, and has been per the scoreline (no spoilers).

On paper, the England team looks very strong, noting the Test players from Manchester (OT) aren’t involved due to being in a different ‘bubble’.

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This chap Campher looks useful.

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By the looks, Ireland are to post a score which should mean England have to bat ‘sensibly’.

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…unlike our batters as I type this.

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Well Banton needs to take this opportunity.

I agree - it should be a case of ‘it’s only ~3 runs an over, hit the rubbish and be careful with the rest’.

…which should mean England by 6/7 or 8 wickets but…

Edit - this is getting like a Sunday club game where everyone gets a bat!!!

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BBC2 yesterday evening broadcast The Edge, effectively a documentary about the England cricket team from c.2010 thru 2013 (IIRC), when it rose to #1 Test ranked team (briefly). It was a fascinating watch, with a very large slant towards the mental health challenges of consistent & acceptable performance (selection), touring and the management of the team by the coach Andy Flower for the most part. The issues which emerged for Messrs Finn, Panesar and Trott were put across in a considered way.

Something to access on catch-up if you can.

I must admit some personal disquiet about using such activities as ‘boot camps’ in trying to generate team bonding. I thought such things had come to be regarded as being old school, as they were proven to do quite a lot of mental damage to some people and could equally cause schisms in groups rather than unite them.

While Pietersen was unquestionably a maverick character, I have some sympathy for his view that he was playing too much cricket (and I assume the IPL is included here) across the 3 formats…perhaps this was driven by monetary greed (not something I detected from his demeanour), it came across as more the case he just didn’t have the will power to say ‘No’ and/or the management didn’t see the need to ease his workload albeit the IPL participation was, of course, entirely voluntary.

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I get the BBC channels on cable hopefully I’ll get to see that. Thanks, I’ll keep an eye out.

I saw The Edge and would recommend it although it is not as entertaining as The Test documentary about the Aussies.
I agree that any regime which damages the health, mental or otherwise, of members of a team as evinced by Trott, Finn, Panesar and Pietersen is too high a price to pay for success.

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I am going to try and watch this again, as I’m still reflecting on the deeper message which is swirling around in my mind.

My current thoughts are that while everyone wants to be part of a winning team, and will bear with some things in pursuit of this, what I would describe (sometimes charitably) as ‘forceful management styles’ can have their place in achieving short term goals but they tend to leave behind them a lot of (HR) wreckage, in this case the marginalisation of some players and/or over-cooking some with constant pressure, whether the latter be self-generated or via management actions, of course none of this helped by the weight of expectations on some e.g. Pietersen.

I’m sure many of us have encountered similar circumstances in our working lives where working for a boss with a forceful style gets results and respect but, ultimately, it gets wearing and they tend to burn through their staff.

As you allude, the cost in this instance looks too high.

Unfortunately, the regrets expressed my Andy Flower on film are a bit late IMV and serve as a warning that counter-balances are required.

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It was a fascinating and, I think, honest watch. A few things come to mind. Firstly Pietersen never appears to me to say anything without considering his own agenda. That continues to this day with his spiky contributions to commentary that almost always end up being about himself. He seems to me to be the ultimate non-team man who enjoys his little digs at those around him and I wouldn’t trust him in inch!

Secondly I was thinking about Klopp. A team manager who appears to have created excellence, hunger and huge team spirit in a very, very different way to what we saw from Flower. Different sports I know but perhaps evidence it can be done in a more healthy, inclusive and supportive way. So it appears from outside anyway

Bruce

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Pete - not sure if you can access this, which is the BBC’s promotional article:

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Credit to Ireland for a fantastic ODI chase yesterday. Fine batting, never significantly behind the rate and finished well by the youngsters after the two centurions were out.

Surely Vince need not mark his diary for any future England matches, but then I was suprised he played on these three.

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