ICC Cricket World Cup - Part 3

First topic message reminder :

Table

Australia	8	14	1.00
India	7	11	0.85
New Zealand	8	11	0.57
England	8	10	1.00
Pakistan	8	9	-0.80
Sri Lanka	8	8	-0.93
Bangladesh	7	7	-0.13
South Africa	8	5	-0.08
West Indies	8	3	-0.36
Afghanistan	8	0	-1.42

Remaining Pool Fixtures

Tue, Jul 2 
10:30 Bangladesh vs India (Edgbaston)

Wed, Jul 3 
10:30 England vs New Zealand (Riverside Ground)

Thu, Jul 4 
10:30 Afghanistan vs West Indies (Headingley)

Fri, Jul 5 
10:30 Bangladesh vs Pakistan (Lord’s)

Sat, Jul 6 
10:30 India vs Sri Lanka (Headingley)
13:30 Australia vs South Africa (Old Trafford)




Knock Out Fixtures


To Follow

That was a fantastic delivery to remove Stokes. One of the best we'll see all tournament.

Pakistan to make the semi finals?

I know people will have a dig at Vince but he did get a ball that would take 90% of top class openers out.

The Aussies have just been better in all aspects of this match and as I said earlier, they are just the better side.

England will not beat India but they do stand a chance against the Black Caps.

eirebilly wrote:England may not even get 200 here now.

Pal Joey, do you get annoyed with Michael Slater? He tries to be too Aussie for me.

Yes Billy. He recently was thrown off a flight* for causing a stir. Never really liked him as a person. Remember the 2001 Ashes when he was dropped and skipped the country so quickly? He's from the country (Wagga Wagga... same town as Tubby Taylor) but I too find his voice very whiny.

Good night Ali...

* when the aircraft was still on the ground...

compelling and rich wrote:just as i was starting to feel like it was possible. ali wont stick around here. the aussies have him on toast

even tempting fate didn't work

Sri Lanka are on 6 have South Africa, Windies and India
Pakistan are on 5 and have New Zealand, Afghans, Bangladesh
Bangladesh are on 7 and have India and Pakistan

How's Ali's place looking?

Duty281 wrote:That was a fantastic delivery to remove Stokes. One of the best we'll see all tournament.

Yep. Fantastic delivery from Starc, a top quality bowler. Lethal combination of pace and accuracy. He may go for a few at times but he so often makes things happen. One of my favourite cricketers.

Pal Joey wrote:

eirebilly wrote:England may not even get 200 here now.

Pal Joey, do you get annoyed with Michael Slater? He tries to be too Aussie for me.

Yes Billy. He recently was thrown off a flight* for causing a stir. Never really liked him as a person. Remember the 2001 Ashes when he was dropped and skipped the country so quickly? He's from the country (Wagga Wagga... same town as Tubby Taylor) but I too find his voice very whiny.

Good night Ali...

* when the aircraft was still on the ground...

I know Wagga Wagga, I picked apples in Batlow and played rugby for them against Wagga Wagga many years ago LOL

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:Sri Lanka are on 6 have South Africa, Windies and India
Pakistan are on 5 and have New Zealand, Afghans, Bangladesh
Bangladesh are on 7 and have India and Pakistan

if i were predicting id go with sri lanka to win 2, pakistan to win 2. bangladesh none. so if we pick up one win think it may still be enough on run rate if ive figured it out correctly

I think England are out of this CWC. A win here today was crucial after loosing to Sri Lanka. I believe that Pakistan will take their place in the final four.

I will also say that Finch has out-captained Morgan today by a country mile.

definitely out fielded

eirebilly wrote:

Pal Joey wrote:

eirebilly wrote:England may not even get 200 here now.

Pal Joey, do you get annoyed with Michael Slater? He tries to be too Aussie for me.

Yes Billy. He recently was thrown off a flight* for causing a stir. Never really liked him as a person. Remember the 2001 Ashes when he was dropped and skipped the country so quickly? He's from the country (Wagga Wagga... same town as Tubby Taylor) but I too find his voice very whiny.

Good night Ali...

* when the aircraft was still on the ground...

I know Wagga Wagga, I picked apples in Batlow and played rugby for them against Wagga Wagga many years ago LOL

I'm actually going through there this weekend on the way to Albury. Not to visit the Slaters you know... but because it's on the proposed new Inland Rail route. Having a meeting in Albury-Wodonga early next week. Batlow is a nice place.

I do think rub of the green came into it a little, they could have easily lost Warner and Finch early.

I worry England don't look to build, being that they made their reputation as a one day side based on accumulating masses of runs in an attacking style. There's a good few shots there that didn't need to be played. Root and Vince got done more than any of the others, really (bar Stokes, but that's a different matter)

Also, Roy is a huge loss. 

They've got to look at whether Ali is worth his place over Plunkett. 

A hope may well be that New Zealand are not concentrating as much by the time they play us, but are focused for Pakistan.

Pal Joey wrote:

eirebilly wrote:

Pal Joey wrote:

eirebilly wrote:England may not even get 200 here now.

Pal Joey, do you get annoyed with Michael Slater? He tries to be too Aussie for me.

Yes Billy. He recently was thrown off a flight* for causing a stir. Never really liked him as a person. Remember the 2001 Ashes when he was dropped and skipped the country so quickly? He's from the country (Wagga Wagga... same town as Tubby Taylor) but I too find his voice very whiny.

Good night Ali...

* when the aircraft was still on the ground...

I know Wagga Wagga, I picked apples in Batlow and played rugby for them against Wagga Wagga many years ago LOL

I'm actually going through there this weekend on the way to Albury. Not to visit the Slaters you know... but because it's on the proposed new Inland Rail route. Having a meeting in Albury-Wodonga early next week. Batlow is a nice place.

You must also have to go past Gundagi (spelling) to see the dog on the tucker box

Safe travels Mo Chara and enjoy your win today.

Pal Joey wrote:

eirebilly wrote:England may not even get 200 here now.

Pal Joey, do you get annoyed with Michael Slater? He tries to be too Aussie for me.

Yes Billy. He recently was thrown off a flight* for causing a stir. Never really liked him as a person. Remember the 2001 Ashes when he was dropped and skipped the country so quickly? He's from the country (Wagga Wagga... same town as Tubby Taylor) but I too find his voice very whiny.

Good night Ali...

* when the aircraft was still on the ground...

I think it was in the 2001 tri series between Pakistan, England and Australia where my 15 year old friend bowled him out in the nets. Didnt have the good grace to congratulate him on an excellent delivery. This was in the break between innings, pakistan won the match off the last ball when Saqlain had Caddick caught off the last ball with 3 runs left to win.

Was a glorious tough fought match and there was great banter between the drummers in the england fan section and the trumpeters in the pakistan section. But I always remembered that snub to my friend who sort of played it off but you could see he was upset.

eirebilly wrote:

Pal Joey wrote:

eirebilly wrote:

Pal Joey wrote:

eirebilly wrote:England may not even get 200 here now.

Pal Joey, do you get annoyed with Michael Slater? He tries to be too Aussie for me.

Yes Billy. He recently was thrown off a flight* for causing a stir. Never really liked him as a person. Remember the 2001 Ashes when he was dropped and skipped the country so quickly? He's from the country (Wagga Wagga... same town as Tubby Taylor) but I too find his voice very whiny.

Good night Ali...

* when the aircraft was still on the ground...

I know Wagga Wagga, I picked apples in Batlow and played rugby for them against Wagga Wagga many years ago LOL

I'm actually going through there this weekend on the way to Albury. Not to visit the Slaters you know... but because it's on the proposed new Inland Rail route. Having a meeting in Albury-Wodonga early next week. Batlow is a nice place.

You must also have to go past Gundagi (spelling) to see the dog on the tucker box

Safe travels Mo Chara and enjoy your win today.

Thanks mate. Yes, will go through Gundagai and pay my respects to the Dog on the Tucker Box.

I thought Australia was very lucky earlier on today... looked like 5 or 6 very near misses in that opening partnership.

Hope England don't lose too much heart... if they can scrape into the final 4; anything's possible.
You guys really needed this World Cup to be staged last year... when it was hot and dry.

Best of luck against Norway in the Women's World Cup btw... and if successful; I hope they prevail against the US or France and whoever they meet after that.

The key point is that we are still 4th.

Pakistan play New Zealand tomorrow
Sri Lanka play South Africa on Friday
Pakistan play Afghanistan on Saturday

before we play India on Sunday. By then we'll know a lot more. If all 3 of those games go against England (Pakistan and Sri Lanka wins) then Sunday becomes must win.

For the confidence of the team though, Sunday is must win. If I were the England coach, I would be trying to relax the players. They're good enough, they just aren't executing at a high enough level.

Yeah Robbo, I'd try to relax them too and tell them to "go out and enjoy themselves" on Sunday... and hope for fine weather.
The main thing is not to dwell on the table too much. Just get out there on Sunday with smiles (like Aus had before this match) and do their best.
The rest is in the lap of the Gods.

To be honest I think they need a rocket up em

And sharp

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:To be honest I think they need a rocket up em

And sharp

I guess it comes down to individual player management, but the impression I get from most of them is that they're confidence players. Looking at how we play in tests, we either win by 100 or lose by 100 with not much in between. Similarly today wasn't close but other times we've absolutely buried teams.

Some players may need a rocket up them but others you'll just do more damage too.

Looking at selection, what is everyone thinking? With and without Roy? Without looking at the pitch I've heard Plunkett for Ali suggested, and also Plunkett for Vince with Ali up to open. Not sure whether I'd buy that. The other option would be Root to open with possibly Woakes into the top order.

That was a shocking display, other than Stokes really. Not sure what the options are for Sunday given fitness etc, but needs a drastic turnaround mostly from the players that played tofay. Really need the real Bairstow, Buttler and Woakes to turn up, they've all been poor apart from a few glimpses here and there in the tournament overall.

If Roy isn't fit for Sunday, I think it's time to bite the bullet and swap him out of the squad for Hales. We can't keep opening with Vince and expecting him to get off to the start we need.

this England side is very talented it only takes a couple of the big match winners to have a good game to change our fortunes, unfortunately only stokes turned up today (although i thought rashid did well) the rest were really poor.

i do like the way this side plays but it is a bit reckless in a knockout format like a world cup. in odi series you can afford a few slip ups and still win the series without the pressure really being on. complete opposite here and were seeing how under pressure and tough conditions this style has serious flaws. never thought id be hoping for dry sunny conditions against india but thats what we play best in. we were crying out for a decent swing bowler today

Pak will start 50-50 tomm vs NZ....they have found the right combination

Their seamers match those of NZ.....and have superior 4th and 5th bowlers in Shadab and Imad.
They are playing the right batsmen and gotten batting right batting order.

if they get to bat first.....their chance increases to 60-40 and if they put 260+ on board it becomes 70-30

and should they win tomm.....they will for the first time be considered as possible world cup contender IMO.

No team raises their level of game like Pak do....and no one epitomizes that more than Wahab Riaz as seen in his second spells.

On Eng:

-It's become undoubtedly clear that they did not understand & hence cannot handleworld-cup pressures...nor the fact that many other sides raise their level of game for this big stage..compared to bilateral ODIs.

-What's strange though that their cricketing template is lopsided compared to Ind & Aus

Ind has about 5 to 6 batsman who try to get in slowly, rotate strike go at 4 to 5 RPO, slowly build innings & gradually accelerate....i.e Rohit Sharma template.

And then they have ONE Pandya whose job is to try and blast 20 to 40 quick runs at the end. Aus have a similar template...look and (Warner and Smith & Khawaja and only one maxwell) and raising their level as tournament goes along...

--Eng on the contrary has only 2 proper build inning batsmen i.e Rohit template. Those being Stokes&  Root.
And has about 5 to 6 Pandya(s) or maxwell types 


The problem with Pandya-s is that against good oppositions, big games, with something in the pitch they can do 15s and 20s only on a consistent basis....sooner they fall.

Morgan himself is a Flat-track, low grade opponent basher & that's the type of players/ approach he has brought into Eng side.

-Eng need to ask Bairstow to bat like he does in tests and bring in some organized batsmen like Foakes in the ODIs ( they can still seek a replacement I believe)

More importantly, in their own good they have to get away from this Morgan-Pinch hitting template....watch videos of Rohit & Williamson chasing SA to learn some lessons.

When your strength is playing on flat, docile pitches - and ultimately demoralising the opponents by piling up 350/400 you can often get away with a couple of passengers.

We’ve been exposed by the conditions not being dead cement pitches and the lack of ability to adapt.

Moeen Ali averages 25 with the bat and 49 with the ball. I keep seeing this nonsense that Moeen has a great economy rate. That’s based on us regularly beating the opponents by weight of runs.

In competitive conditions we can’t afford to carry someone so mediocre as Moeen, he’s also batting behind Woakes now.

Rashid has been exposed as not being remotely world class, again he’s as his best when the opponents are slogging wildly against an escalating run rate. Rashid isn’t fit to lace the boots of the likes of Chahal or Tahir.

Vince isn’t international class, but it’s not his fault that he’s been selected. That falls entirely on the village idiot Hales. Hales’ meltdown left us with an unbalanced squad.

Hindsight is great but Willey is a big miss on these types of pitches. Also Plunkett was a big part of us getting up to number 1, he has that invaluable ability to get wickets in the middle overs. Yet he’s been jettisoned.

You only have to look at the career bowling averages to see we don’t have any genuine great bowlers. Woakes, Wood and Rashid average over 30. Stokes and Moeen average over 40. Archer is the only one averaging in the 20s but he’s only a rookie at this stage.

If Roy isn’t fit, can’t believe he would be in such a short turn around, we really screwed regarding the batting order

Re: Moeen's averages, I've had a look at the players in other sides filling his role and he does look to have the second worst individual batting average AND the single worst bowling average

Nabi - bat 28, bowl 32
Stoinis - 36 & 42
Hardik - 30 & 40
de Grandhomme - 30 & 42
Mosaddek - 32 & 47
Phehlukwayo - 32 & 30
Imad - 40 & 45
de Silva - 25 (lower than Moeen) & 35
Holder - 26 & 35

I went looking for these to show that Moeen's figures weren't that bad in context of his role but it turns out they actually are

England had definitely set the template of being ultimate flat track bullies, but to be fair, it's worked well for four years. You can't just bin off bilateral ODIs as irrelevant, CTs and World Cups are rare events. They've played in a way that has won matches and builds confidence, they were rightly one of the favourites coming into this but are now faced with pitches that are doing quite a bit.

If we'd have known these would have been the conditions two years ago (and it has a lot to do with appalling weather this summer) we would have been better building a side around Cook and Jimmy Anderson. I think we knew from results in that four year period, they are poor on difficult tracks, having some of their all time worst performances alongside all the records.

Still a chance to go through anyway, and the knockouts will be a lottery with group stage results counting for nothing

Let’s also not pretend they’ve just been playing exclusively on flat tracks in England for four years - they’ve won series and ODIs all over the globe in a range of different conditions and regions and regularly done well. Sure they are better on the pitches they play on most, but what side isn’t!

They’ve just not played anywhere near their best in recent games. A few individuals have been fine, but the collective performance it hasn’t clicked properly yet

Yes, agree with that. I don't really know what KP Fan is getting at to be honest. England were utterly appalling in all ODIs for years, because it was not prioritised and we were playing a dated brand of cricket. So they assemble a team and philosophy that came together quickly and produced results that were previously I heard of. I don't think you can prepare for a World Cup any better than that. If it results in failure then that can happen in sport, but I don't see what else they could/should have done for the last four years.

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:To be honest I think they need a rocket up em

And sharp

Well they just had 2 rockets fired up them; Behrendorff and Starc... and that certainly didn't work, did it?

If you now start issuing threats to certain players 'to perform or else', that could also backfire.

Hence the suggestion above to perhaps try a different approach. Not saying it's an easy thing to do though.

Pal Joey wrote:

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:To be honest I think they need a rocket up em

And sharp

Well they just had 2 rockets fired up them; Behrendorff and Starc... and that certainly didn't work, did it?

If you now start issuing threats to certain players 'to perform or else', that could also backfire.

Hence the suggestion above to perhaps try a different approach. Not saying it's an easy thing to do though.

Burning effigies of players works for India and Pakistan.

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The England captain stepping to square leg when Starc bowled his first delivery to him made me think England could have a little problem over the next week or so.
I hope not, but I’ve not seen a captain show such a weakness for a while..

That's what I have been carefully observing & concluded too....that Morgan is a FTB & low-grade bowling  basher.

Look at his efforts in the material games

-9(18) vs Pak when team needed 8RPO
-21( 35) vs Lanka with a tame, poke back to bowler
-4(7) vs Aus.....like a tailender stepping away line of pace & bounce & making an uncontrolled hoik-hook to be caught

And today's award for selective use of stats goes to.....

Nathaniel Jacobs wrote:When your strength is playing on flat, docile pitches - and ultimately demoralising the opponents by piling up 350/400 you can often get away with a couple of passengers.

We’ve been exposed by the conditions not being dead cement pitches and the lack of ability to adapt.

Moeen Ali averages 25 with the bat and 49 with the ball. I keep seeing this nonsense that Moeen has a great economy rate. That’s based on us regularly beating the opponents by weight of runs.

In competitive conditions we can’t afford to carry someone so mediocre as Moeen, he’s also batting behind Woakes now.

Rashid has been exposed as not being remotely world class, again he’s as his best when the opponents are slogging wildly against an escalating run rate. Rashid isn’t fit to lace the boots of the likes of Chahal or Tahir.

Vince isn’t international class, but it’s not his fault that he’s been selected. That falls entirely on the village idiot Hales. Hales’ meltdown left us with an unbalanced squad.

Hindsight is great but Willey is a big miss on these types of pitches. Also Plunkett was a big part of us getting up to number 1, he has that invaluable ability to get wickets in the middle overs. Yet he’s been jettisoned.

You only have to look at the career bowling averages to see we don’t have any genuine great bowlers. Woakes, Wood and Rashid average over 30. Stokes and Moeen average over 40. Archer is the only one averaging in the 20s but he’s only a rookie at this stage.

If Roy isn’t fit, can’t believe he would be in such a short turn around, we really screwed regarding the batting order

Unsure who reported this post, as it's by and large fair. I'll expand on some of the themes though.

Do we have flat, docile pitches? And if we do, wouldn't that have something to do with the career bowling averages? I'll start by looking at bowling averages to gauge where England bowlers are against their contemporaries. I'll then look at batting stats to see if that can offer any opinion on the pitches we're playing on. Then I'll try and conclude.

Looking at the period between World Cups era and filtering for players with 50 wickets or more:

Plunkett - 28.31
Woakes - 29.74
Rashid - 30.83
Willey - 36.32
Wood - 39.00
Ali - 51.65

Moeen is let down by his strike rate (57.3 - where a strike rate of 60 would see you take an average of 1 wicket every time you bowled your allocation). His economy is 5.39 and is the best of the England players on the list above (who are all under 6, it has to be said).

Plunkett, with the best bowling average, is 17th on the list of bowlers in the time period who meet the criteria, which would suggest we wouldn't have any bowlers in the World 1st XI, 2nd XI or 3rd XI.

However, if we look at the same period and filter for players who have scored 1000 runs, we have Root in 4th placed on the batting averages. Buttler is next in at 19th, but then we have Stokes at 20th, Bairstow at 21st and Morgan at 23rd. Hales and Roy are also lower down in the top 50 and both average over 40.

So that's 1 batsman who averages near enough 60 and then 6 other batsman who average over 40.

For comparison, India and Australia have 5 batsmen in this range; Pakistan and Bangladesh have 4; NZ, WI and SA have 3 and Sri Lanka, Ireland Scotland and Zimbabwe have 1. Which suggests that England are playing more games on batsman friendly tracks than the other teams.

This can also be seen when you look at strike rate. There are 15 players on this list striking at better than a run a ball and 5 of them are English. West Indies are the only other country to feature more than 1 player in this list of 15 and they have 2. Just below this group, England have 3 more batsman striking at better than 90 (these 8 players total scoring at this rate include the 7 batters above and Moeen). No-one playing for England over the last 4 years and scoring 1000 runs in that time has scored slower than Joe Root's 91/100.

So while England's bowlers are conceding higher averages than their contemporaries, they are apparently playing on some of the hardest tracks to bowl on, as the England batters are scoring more runs at quicker rates than other batsman, and more of them are consistently getting scores.

Is this because England are preparing flat pitches? Looking at the bowlers from earlier on, this is their overall bowling average / their home bowling average / their away (inc. neutral) bowling average across the period in question:

Plunkett - 28.31 / 28.07 / 28.92
Woakes - 29.74 / 30.02 / 29.50
Rashid - 30.83 / 31.49 / 29.91
Willey - 36.32 / 31.90 / 51.08
Wood - 39.00 / 36.48 / 45.86
Ali - 51.65 / 47.71 / 56.57

This doesn't suggest that England are preparing flatter pitches, as 3 of our bowlers show very little differentiation in average whether it's home or away and the other 3 are actually bowling better in English conditions. However if we look at batting averages, earlier we saw we had 7 bats who average over 40. In home matches, only Hales of that group has an average below 40. Roy still averages between 40 and 50 while Buttler, Bairstow, Morgan and Stokes have averages that climb above 50 and Root climbs above 60. However, away from home Morgan, Bairstow and Roy all drop to high 30s, with the other 4 remaining on 40+. Even Root falls from 59 to 55 away from home.

So:

Home pitches for England have been easier to bat on in the last 4 years. England have been very good at batting on them and learned to bowl well on them as well, especially either with the weight of runs behind them or with the expectation that we could chase a large total. They have been pretty untouchable at home. They beat New Zealand 3-2 and lost a home series to Australia 3-2 in 2015. Since then they haven't lost a home ODI series and have only lost 3 ODIs outside the Champions Trophy and never more than once in a series.

Having played more games in England than anyone else, batting averages are inflated by playing on these pitches, while bowling averages would be worse too.

Away from home, England have been batting slightly worse and bowling slightly worse (with some exceptions) and therefore are often competitive without being all conquering. However they have only lost 2 bilateral series away from home (and never by more than 1 match) and drawn 1. They also lost a 1 off game to Scotland in Scotland. They have series wins in Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Australia, West Indies, Bangladesh, South Africa and UAE (Pakistan), although not with the same level of dominance.

The pitches we are seeing in England this summer aren't as good to bat on as we've seen in England over the last two or three summers. The weather has not been great and the ICC are preparing them. We are therefore competitive without being untouchable. However, we can play, bat and win on pitches that we do not prepare - as shown by the fact that we have series wins away to the 3 countries who have beaten us this World Cup. But this being an English summer we may have expected to be untouchable, and that this has coincided with the World Cup the pressure created may also be impacting the players.

NZ win the toss and bat first.....and already that puts Pak 40-60 behind.

NZ only needs to score 260 and I think they would have batted Pak out of the game

VTR wrote:And today's award for selective use of stats goes to.....

Kohli only scored 5 in the Champions Trophy, and as such, is only a FTB and low grade bowler smasher because I've decided that's the only game that matters to me

India team should watch this carefully....this is the ground and similar if not same pitch awaits us on Sunday

Well yeah, I could probably make Ravi Bopara look like an actual cricketer if I picked the stats I wanted.

As for today's game, I'd say conditions will be more to NZ liking than Pakistan, and winning the toss is another advantage. So I will agree with KP Fan on that one that NZ are already edging ahead, even with that early wicket

In the light of current performances, the current Pakistan vs NZ match situation, I would like to declare...

England WILL win the cricket world cup.

Dying on that hill with Duty.

Like Aus,,,,,,,,,, Pak on ascendancy...their bowling has so much quality and variety....and they are looking a top side.

NZ floundering on their first game against half a top side...and the 260 to shut the game for Pak looking so far away even with Williamson still there.....A 240 would give them something to fight with.

And I am not too displeased with the pitch here in anticipation of the Sunday game...although we have WI before that

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:In the light of current performances, the current Pakistan vs NZ match situation, I would like to declare...

England WILL win the cricket world cup.

Dying on that hill with Duty.

I still think England will win the World Cup. They haven't become a bad team overnight. They've had the aberration we all feared against Sri Lanka, and came unstuck against some good bowling from Pakistan and Australia. It happens. Australia had a one-in-four chance of defending their total yesterday and they pulled it off. It happens. Finch had three lives yesterday before he even got into the 30s, and went on to make 100. It happens. Glad it's happening in the group phase, not the knockout phase.

Amusingly enough, going into the tournament people were mainly worried about England's limited bowling capabilities, but it's been the batting that's been the main problem. The loss of Roy and the insertion of England's fourth-best opener has really upset the balance of the side.

Beat India on Sunday and the hype machine will be back in full swing from the nauseating pundits that infest the UK sporting media. Dead one minute, champions the next.

Duty281 wrote:

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:In the light of current performances, the current Pakistan vs NZ match situation, I would like to declare...

England WILL win the cricket world cup.

Dying on that hill with Duty.

I still think England will win the World Cup. They haven't become a bad team overnight. They've had the aberration we all feared against Sri Lanka, and came unstuck against some good bowling from Pakistan and Australia. It happens. Australia had a one-in-four chance of defending their total yesterday and they pulled it off. It happens. Finch had three lives yesterday before he even got into the 30s, and went on to make 100. It happens. Glad it's happening in the group phase, not the knockout phase.

Amusingly enough, going into the tournament people were mainly worried about England's limited bowling capabilities, but it's been the batting that's been the main problem. The loss of Roy and the insertion of England's fourth-best opener has really upset the balance of the side.

Beat India on Sunday and the hype machine will be back in full swing from the nauseating pundits that infest the UK sporting media. Dead one minute, champions the next.

God I heard Vaughan for a bit yesterday...never again. Bleating on about how England shouldn't have been playing the style they have for the past four years...after spending the past four years bleating on about how great the style England were playing. He really is the pits of the "analysts", he's so bad he's tarring the 2005 Ashes for me

Kohli before the start of worldcup and so prophetic  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGg7pSOwi6k

robbo277 wrote:

Nathaniel Jacobs wrote:When your strength is playing on flat, docile pitches - and ultimately demoralising the opponents by piling up 350/400 you can often get away with a couple of passengers.

We’ve been exposed by the conditions not being dead cement pitches and the lack of ability to adapt.

Moeen Ali averages 25 with the bat and 49 with the ball. I keep seeing this nonsense that Moeen has a great economy rate. That’s based on us regularly beating the opponents by weight of runs.

In competitive conditions we can’t afford to carry someone so mediocre as Moeen, he’s also batting behind Woakes now.

Rashid has been exposed as not being remotely world class, again he’s as his best when the opponents are slogging wildly against an escalating run rate. Rashid isn’t fit to lace the boots of the likes of Chahal or Tahir.

Vince isn’t international class, but it’s not his fault that he’s been selected. That falls entirely on the village idiot Hales. Hales’ meltdown left us with an unbalanced squad.

Hindsight is great but Willey is a big miss on these types of pitches. Also Plunkett was a big part of us getting up to number 1, he has that invaluable ability to get wickets in the middle overs. Yet he’s been jettisoned.

You only have to look at the career bowling averages to see we don’t have any genuine great bowlers. Woakes, Wood and Rashid average over 30. Stokes and Moeen average over 40. Archer is the only one averaging in the 20s but he’s only a rookie at this stage.

If Roy isn’t fit, can’t believe he would be in such a short turn around, we really screwed regarding the batting order

Unsure who reported this post, as it's by and large fair. I'll expand on some of the themes though.

Do we have flat, docile pitches? And if we do, wouldn't that have something to do with the career bowling averages? I'll start by looking at bowling averages to gauge where England bowlers are against their contemporaries. I'll then look at batting stats to see if that can offer any opinion on the pitches we're playing on. Then I'll try and conclude.

Looking at the period between World Cups era and filtering for players with 50 wickets or more:

Plunkett - 28.31
Woakes - 29.74
Rashid - 30.83
Willey - 36.32
Wood - 39.00
Ali - 51.65

Moeen is let down by his strike rate (57.3 - where a strike rate of 60 would see you take an average of 1 wicket every time you bowled your allocation). His economy is 5.39 and is the best of the England players on the list above (who are all under 6, it has to be said).

Plunkett, with the best bowling average, is 17th on the list of bowlers in the time period who meet the criteria, which would suggest we wouldn't have any bowlers in the World 1st XI, 2nd XI or 3rd XI.

However, if we look at the same period and filter for players who have scored 1000 runs, we have Root in 4th placed on the batting averages. Buttler is next in at 19th, but then we have Stokes at 20th, Bairstow at 21st and Morgan at 23rd. Hales and Roy are also lower down in the top 50 and both average over 40.

So that's 1 batsman who averages near enough 60 and then 6 other batsman who average over 40.

For comparison, India and Australia have 5 batsmen in this range; Pakistan and Bangladesh have 4; NZ, WI and SA have 3 and Sri Lanka, Ireland Scotland and Zimbabwe have 1. Which suggests that England are playing more games on batsman friendly tracks than the other teams.

This can also be seen when you look at strike rate. There are 15 players on this list striking at better than a run a ball and 5 of them are English. West Indies are the only other country to feature more than 1 player in this list of 15 and they have 2. Just below this group, England have 3 more batsman striking at better than 90 (these 8 players total scoring at this rate include the 7 batters above and Moeen). No-one playing for England over the last 4 years and scoring 1000 runs in that time has scored slower than Joe Root's 91/100.

So while England's bowlers are conceding higher averages than their contemporaries, they are apparently playing on some of the hardest tracks to bowl on, as the England batters are scoring more runs at quicker rates than other batsman, and more of them are consistently getting scores.

Is this because England are preparing flat pitches? Looking at the bowlers from earlier on, this is their overall bowling average / their home bowling average / their away (inc. neutral) bowling average across the period in question:

Plunkett - 28.31 / 28.07 / 28.92
Woakes - 29.74 / 30.02 / 29.50
Rashid - 30.83 / 31.49 / 29.91
Willey - 36.32 / 31.90 / 51.08
Wood - 39.00 / 36.48 / 45.86
Ali - 51.65 / 47.71 / 56.57

This doesn't suggest that England are preparing flatter pitches, as 3 of our bowlers show very little differentiation in average whether it's home or away and the other 3 are actually bowling better in English conditions. However if we look at batting averages, earlier we saw we had 7 bats who average over 40. In home matches, only Hales of that group has an average below 40. Roy still averages between 40 and 50 while Buttler, Bairstow, Morgan and Stokes have averages that climb above 50 and Root climbs above 60. However, away from home Morgan, Bairstow and Roy all drop to high 30s, with the other 4 remaining on 40+. Even Root falls from 59 to 55 away from home.

So:

Home pitches for England have been easier to bat on in the last 4 years. England have been very good at batting on them and learned to bowl well on them as well, especially either with the weight of runs behind them or with the expectation that we could chase a large total. They have been pretty untouchable at home. They beat New Zealand 3-2 and lost a home series to Australia 3-2 in 2015. Since then they haven't lost a home ODI series and have only lost 3 ODIs outside the Champions Trophy and never more than once in a series.

Having played more games in England than anyone else, batting averages are inflated by playing on these pitches, while bowling averages would be worse too.

Away from home, England have been batting slightly worse and bowling slightly worse (with some exceptions) and therefore are often competitive without being all conquering. However they have only lost 2 bilateral series away from home (and never by more than 1 match) and drawn 1. They also lost a 1 off game to Scotland in Scotland. They have series wins in Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Australia, West Indies, Bangladesh, South Africa and UAE (Pakistan), although not with the same level of dominance.

The pitches we are seeing in England this summer aren't as good to bat on as we've seen in England over the last two or three summers. The weather has not been great and the ICC are preparing them. We are therefore competitive without being untouchable. However, we can play, bat and win on pitches that we do not prepare - as shown by the fact that we have series wins away to the 3 countries who have beaten us this World Cup. But this being an English summer we may have expected to be untouchable, and that this has coincided with the World Cup the pressure created may also be impacting the players.

WIth regards to flat pitches and bowling averages, naturally one would assume the averages would be effected, but it's mentioning that as we frequently score 350+ in favorable conditions, the opponents are already under pressure and we invariably get lots of 'cheap wickets' when the opponents are try to go gung-ho to stay in the match.

Regardless of bowling averages, the likes of Bumrah, Starc, Cummins and Boult are many leagues above the likes of Woakes and Plunkett. Rashid has never been a top spinner but becomes effective when opponents have to slog against him.

Hmm. NZ 87/5.  Not looking good for them.  If Pakistan take this match England are even closer to the abyss.
No reason they can't win their last two games ...except they are playing to one formula and refusing to adapt while other teams seem to be adjusting their game to suit conditions and situations. This is fine if things go their way from the start . But it just hasn't helped them in - now three - tight matches. Three out of seven...
Seems ridiculous to think the team that has carried all before it recently could lose three - or even four - matches in a row .  Shouldn't happen. But if they end up needing to win the last two to qualify the pressure is going to be enormous.

They will need to handle it a lot better than they've done so far. I wish I could share your optimism , Olly and Duty...

NZ have had a good partnership and if the partnership doubles itself at a run a ball..they will still barely get to 220

A retro game being played in 1987 world cup it appears

England are 10/3 with SkyBet to win the World Cup, although there is a price boost so you can get that at 4/1. Not sure what the pre-tournament odds were, but we're hardly dead and buried. We're third favourites in any event.

Say what you like about the teams we're playing, it's in our hands. Win those 2 games and we're in the semi-finals, regardless of what anyone else does. We're playing good teams, but we're also playing teams that will have already qualified for the semi-finals and may lose a touch of intensity.

I don't think we've gone too gung-ho in the last couple of games, if anything it's the other way. The fact that we haven't gone anywhere has put us under pressure to increase the scoring. There was a comment on the BBC text for one of the games about making your own luck. A batsman had basically raced to 15/20 and then edged right through were the second slip had been taken out of. We haven't been doing that, even when chasing modest scores.

When we won all those games we made the bowling team uncomfortable and asking some serious questions. It's harder with Vince at the top of the order, but Bairstow hasn't been firing either and if he could get in he can take on opening bowlers and make life easier for the rest of the batsmen.

Even some games this World Cup, we didn't go too hard at the first 5, we had a look, and then went on the attack and caught up. But we're losing wickets and not being proactive with the bat.

The lower-order have been slogging out, but they have been coming in under pressure with us behind the rate and probably don't have the technique to survive a long time anyway. The top order have been getting us into these messes by going nowhere then getting out.