For you for us it’s just beginning
Five out of six wins. Several inside three days. Final innings batting records broken.
No major runs from Root or Stokes
Branderson play every match.
Stokes on one leg
Crawley still surviving as first pick
Robinson back, fitter and sharper
…it has been a very, very strange summer in which Test cricket has entertained and England have somehow reminded us they are always a tough proposition at home. NZ and then SA (Test Champs and current No 1 respectively) have looked unprepared and at times callow.
Not sure what it all means but definitely not dull. Unless you had tickets for D4 or 5. Or 3 at The Oval!
Bruce
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It’s probably costing the ground authorities/ECB et al money to stage today’s (Monday) finale to the game. The weather looks OK (more cloud than sun?). Shame. If it was a ~150 run chase it could have been worth a trot up to The Oval but not 33!
Once again though, I think England, bar the India game, have been flattered by home ‘swing & seam’ conditions and poor opposition (esp. SA). Apart from Robinson and his ability to bowl a decent line & length, I’m concerned they will come unstuck abroad, especially if the top6/7 bat like headless chickens, which even Root has aspirations of doing it seems. Yes, Bairstow was in very good nick but he remains vulnerable to a good ball early doors.
Anyway, now we move on to 7 x pyjama cricket outings in Pakistan, just what you need after seeing a Test match dispatched in under 2 days and (we assume) one session.
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Good thing the South Africans didn’t rebook their flights.
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I think that was a fair shout by them. I suspect they may have had challenges in doing so as, I understand, many flights are heavily booked at the moment and many of them only have a short window at home before other cricket looms.
Strange though how Hussain on Sky (always full of hyperbole) said after the first Test that this is a quality SA team but yesterday the Sky team (inc. him) were reflecting on how it lacks the quality of the SA sides of yesteryear, which is a large understatement IMV. Their top-6 bar Elgar look to have big furry tails and have made the England top-6 look good (and that takes some doing).
Only saw parts of the last nights game but they certainly looked out of touch. Testes ending this quick is a problem for lots of reasons, the main concern is revenue. The caterers, field staff etc would all be doing it for nothing. Hope they haven’t placed large orders of food and beer.
There have only been a few football matches involving premiership teams since the queen’s death. I didn’t hear any negative reports concerning these matches. In fact it was reported West Ham fans sang god save the king.
Have you heard something different?
SA’s bowling remains top notch, but batting seems woeful with Edgar out of sorts. Albeit everyone must have found this last test match strange: day 1, rained off; day 2, cancelled, day 3, new national anthem and subdued crowd; day 4, hang over from previous day, and day 5 short changed.
Fatcat
Domestic football over the weekend was cancelled. A member of the Football Supporters Association said they had been in discussion with the FA and wanted play to continue but the FA essentially said they didn’t trust crowds to behave with appropriate dignity and restraint. An opportunity lost in my view, and a rather sad admission,
Good for West Ham on Friday. Maybe the FA should have had more courage?
Bruce
My club on Saturday. Would local football League clubs really have been unwilling to do the same?
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I’d say your remark was based on conjecture.
Women’s football was postponed, is it seriously being suggested women’s football supporters would misbehave.
The Premier league and the FA are quite happy for games to go ahead this week, with the same risk of misbehaviour.
There are idiots who watch football. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few supporters misbehave, although the probability of it happening in football will obviously greater than cricket, given there will probably be over 750,000 attending club football matches this week, as opposed to 750 attending club cricket matches. 
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Perhaps the wrong thread to discuss ( the football thread has addressed also) but my take is the PL and FA found themselves with a ‘damned if we do, and damned if we don’t’ decision on their hands which, for clarity & consistency, needed to embrace all PL & FA governed matches.
Simple risk management in my view, as had there been some untoward behaviour at such a raw time post the very sad event, the fall-out across the authorities, clubs and for some supporters could have been enormous, and doesn’t bear thinking about. Best stop here.
Getting annoyed again by First Class Cricket being stuck in April and Sept. Stuffed by the weather. Booted out of summer by the One Day Cup that is nearly County 2nd elevens and T20 which is now looking redundant to TV viewers, as the “Hundred” now gets the main focus. Too many tournaments??
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Too many tournaments imo leads to viewer boredom and lack of quality.
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I think a lot believe the issue is too many teams (Counties) rather than tournaments.
Bruce
On the various TMS social media threads there is a lot of scepticism about the analysis of work load compared to other test playing countries. Ed Smith’s new book talks about balancing the data with human insight, and Mo Barot (?), performance head at ECB, has spent a long timing understanding the human side of cricketers. To paraphrase Ben Stoakes: we’re not robots.
How you factor in the money into this balancing act is beyond my pay scale.
It’s Mo Bobat, who was appointed in 2019 to work with Silverwood and Ed Smith(?).
There are so many angles, questions and lenses which can be brought to bear on the subject of performance and, perhaps more appropriately, availability e.g. how the ECB and other national bodies, the IPL teams/owners and the players are reconciling the demands on the latter — as above in this thread, I must record I don’t like competitions where playing sides keep changing due to player availabilities but this is now the modern way.
One can but agree with Stokes’ view, especially during the Covid times. The flip side of course is, what have the players signed up to, and who holds the pen/authority to say ‘no’, which was of course attempted by the ECB (and others?) in the early days of the IPL…and the rest is history!
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I spotted on cricinfo that as part of taking over the Duchy of Cornwall Prince William has inherited the Oval.
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Indeed, which added to the sensitivities at the start of the Test match, noting Surrey’s county badge contains the PoW’s 3 feathers post the land being handed down to the then PoW in 1611 (remember it well 
).
Of course, the Duchy of Cornwall has quite extensive property holdings.
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Does this mean Princess Kate is now hand making those Duchy Originals at Waitrose ?
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This is sad.
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