England's Winter

First topic message reminder :

As per LT's original post:
New Zealand

T20 Internationals

Friday November 1st - Christchurch
Sunday November 3rd - Wellington
Tuesday November 5th - Nelson
Friday November 8th - Napier
Sunday November 10th - Auckland

Squad
Eoin Morgan (Middlesex) captain
Jonny Bairstow (Yorkshire)
Tom Banton (Somerset)
Sam Billings (Kent)
Pat Brown (Worcestershire)
Sam Curran (Surrey)
Tom Curran (Surrey)
Joe Denly (Kent)
Lewis Gregory (Somerset)
Chris Jordan (Sussex)
Saqib Mahmood (Lancashire)
Dawid Malan (Middlesex)
Matt Parkinson (Lancashire)
Adil Rashid (Yorkshire)
James Vince (Hampshire)


Tests

Wednesday November 20th - Tauranga
Thursday November 28th - Hamilton

Squad
Joe Root (Yorkshire) captain
Jofra Archer (Sussex)
Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire)
Rory Burns (Surrey)
Jos Buttler (Lancashire)
Zak Crawley (Kent)
Sam Curran (Surrey)
Joe Denly (Kent)
Jack Leach (Somerset)
Saqib Mahmood (Lancashire)
Matthew Parkinson (Lancashire)
Ollie Pope (Surrey)
Dominic Sibley (Warwickshire)
Ben Stokes (Durham)
Chris Woakes (Warwickshire)



South Africa

Tests

Thursday 26th December - Centurion
Friday January 3rd - Cape Town
Thursday January 16th - Port Elizabeth
Friday January 24th - Johannesburg

Squad
Ill


ODI
Tuesday 4th February - Cape Town
Friday 7th February - Durban
Sunday 9th February - Johannesburg

Squad
Ill

T20 Internationals

Wednesday 12th February - East London
Friday 14th February - Durban
Sunday 16th February - Centurion


Sri Lanka

March 7th - Warm up 1, Katunayake (3 day)
March 12th - Warm up 2, Colombo (3 day)
March 19th - 1st Test, Galle
March 27th - 2nd Test, Colombo

No, Olly lad, cricket in fifteen minutes apparently. Covers off and on all day.

Fingers crossed for a restart ?

I'd give Wood a burst straight away. Two more wickets and you're into the rabbits... If there is more weather about you need to keep things moving .

Ha. Pleased to see Root is following my instructions

Yep they seem to have learnt a lesson in regard to using the quick. Yet to see the rewards but another close chance

...and nearly got one ! Pope couldn't hold onto that...don't blame him , they either stick or they don't.
But a lively start from Wood...

alfie wrote:Actually quite liked what I saw of Bess back against Pakistan in 2018. But then he got injured and later rather overshadowed by Leach at Somerset.....

Hes developed his game a lot since then. Nassar quoted Leach as having told him that Bess watched that test back and realised that he wasnt landing the ball on the seam which meant he got less spin. Apparently the somerset pitches are such that he'd never had to worry about that, but a flat test pitch is much harder to extract turn from. Theres also been a fair bit of talk about him developing arm and crease positions to give him much more variety whereas 18 months ago he was relying on one stock ball, and now hes been beating both sides of the bat without being a chucker. I forget the name they said hed been working with but it did prompt the question who's coaching county spinners ( answer at most counties is noone), and the impact of their not being overseas spinners signed ( right before noting that Ashwin was going to yorkshire) to bring their experience and expertise into the mentoring pool.
( theyve just mentioned Herath teaching him in an ecb spin camp this autumn but there was someone else prior to that)

Well he certainly seems to have developed more of a cutting edge. Though getting through this pair is proving difficult.

De Kock not going to sit around just defending...some nice strokes and a few boundaries are flowing...

Nortje still doing a great job for his team. Love his attitude

Mark Wood has bowled exclusively pies in this spell

Just a little surprised we've not seen Stokes at the bowling crease...he does tend to make things happen.
Guess Curran can also bring the golden arm thing into it . But at the moment de Kock and Nortje are playing fairly comfortably and you rather wonder where the next wicket is coming from...

Fair enough Root trying his luck and giving Bess a bit of a breather. Might be time for a bit of Denly too ? He might think de Kock is his bunny

Ouch ! Stokes drops de Kock at slip ! Tough chance ; but Ben takes those....

Still no joy...

Watching Nortje , you wonder how the first five got out on this pitch.

Aha...here is Stokes at last. Maybe he can do something ? Hope so as it is getting rather late here and a bit of sleep is starting to seem attractive...

Ben can even get Nortje out!

Stokes does it again... Good catch Root

Nortje's long vigil ends at last. England needed that !

You feel if they can get past big Vern now this might be wrapped up soon...

Had to be Stokes didnt it. Looks like the tail isnt rolling over too tamely though

Pointless stat of the day ...Brendan Mccullum scored 195 in two less balls than Nortjes 18 in a test.

Boycotts no doubt complaining he gave his wicket away.

Ben Stokes forgetting how to catch has come at a very bad time

One of those innings from De Kock where people will wax lyrical about it despite the fact he should have been out three times now.

Soul Requiem wrote:One of those innings from De Kock where people will wax lyrical about it despite the fact he should have been out three times now.

Sky pundits talked about stokes dropping three then straight on to de kock batting as well as him.

Hmmm.

So just four wickets on a shortened day...

I did fear taking twenty on this sluggish pitch might prove difficult. New ball first up so you'd think the follow on is still likely...but the bowlers are going to be called upon to do a lot of work over two innings. A bit more time lost to rain and we are probably looking at a draw - which would be disappointing for England after the dominance of the first two days. And also likely to leave the bowlers pretty weary for backing up in a few days for the decider...

As noted above those dropped catches may prove costly. I guess after they caught everything at Cape Town we were sure to have a few go down here on the law of averages.

At least the rain is holding off this morning

Super start for Broad ! Movement off the seam ...full and cleaned up the very competent Philander...

Just what England needed.

Wow ! Sam Curran demolishes De Kocks middle stump

Two for none in just eleven balls this morning ...good start for England , you might say

Amazing. Wild swipe from Maharaj and his stumps are flattened ...

Three for none in fifteen balls ...

If this were Pakistan the cops would be circling

Well : that didn't take long

3/0 for Broad in 2.4 overs so he will be fresh enough to continue against the openers in a few minutes...for once no one is even going to think about not enforcing the follow on.

Prospects of a result improved a lot in twenty-five minutes...

That’s a hell of a way to get things going again!

crikey indeed! follow on

Far better start than anyone could have hoped for. With the time left in the game, the follow on is a no brainer. They probably would have batted again though if there'd not been so much time lost to rain

You have to wonder about the SA mindset this morning. After all the dedication of Nortje and de Kock yesterday they just seemed devoid of application today - although the England bowling was excellent and the ball did move. Did they sub-consciously want to follow on ? Think a few frisky runs and then they could bat second time round for a day and a half and tire out the bowlers ?
I guess that is still theoretically possible ; but with the England bowlers hardly past their warm ups and 290 ahead they're going to have to bat out of their skins to get out of this one now.

Wonder what Nortje thinks about that "batting" exhibition this morning ?

Anyway I shouldn't think Elgar and Malan are going to roll over so easily...the opening pair is big for SA as I just don't rate Hamza - or du Plessis at present. They really need to draw the England pace men's fangs so Bess is left to do a lot of work again.
Wonder if he will find it easier or harder now that he has established himself as a credible threat at this level ? Some spinners find it difficult to get results when conventional wisdom suggests the situation and conditions favor them to close out a game...

alfie wrote:You have to wonder about the SA mindset this morning. After all the dedication of Nortje and de Kock yesterday they just seemed devoid of application today - although the England bowling was excellent and the ball did move. Did they sub-consciously want  to follow on ? Think a few frisky runs and then they could bat second time round for a day and a half and tire out the bowlers ?
I guess that is still theoretically possible ; but with the England bowlers hardly past their warm ups and 290 ahead they're going to have to bat out of their skins to get out of this one now.

Wonder what Nortje thinks about that "batting" exhibition this morning ?

The most senior bat in the side lasted six balls after trying to hit his way into form. When they sort that out you can start worrying about the tail.

Its been an odd game for wickets coming in flurries, and mostly in the mornings. Having a dry ball seems to be the key, and suggests Englan top order did well to stick around.

More rain, not good for england for time and damp on the outfield

Rain was expected. Nice of it to wait until after the first innings were finished
Comms are saying it won't last too long. England will hope to get enough time today to knock over the first three or four wickets at least and leave themselves time tomorrow to finish the job...but I guess we are somewhat at the mercy of the unsettled weather.

On the plus side this delay affords Broad & co another nice rest. Would really like to see the new ball take a couple before handing over to Bess the Wrecker...

Utterly useless start from South Africa, but it’s still going to be very tough for England from here. Would be a cruel blow if rain denied England as they have properly dominated this test.

Don’t think we’re too far from a restart...some rain expected tomorrow, unfortunately, so England might have to take ten wickets inside 80 or so overs.

Really ? Getting back on...was beginning to fear we were done for the day.

Now : fresh bowlers : need a couple early to get this back on track I think. As Duty says , ten wickets in one day a tough task on a basically flat wicket.
Hopefully it will swing for a while...

Brilliant pace from Wood. There’s one of them and Elgar’s a big wicket to take early.

Oh that's a BIG wicket ...

Elgar's off peg uprooted and Wood is on the board

Wood strikes again and a good take behind the stumps. South Africa desperate for a contribution from Faf to save the game.

Hamza lasted about as long as you'd expect...two for Wood now and du Plessis in really needing a score...
Massive pressure on him given his form and his team's position.

Suppose it would be unwise to discount Faf...but I feel the main roadblocks are likely to be Malan and van der Dussen.
And Nortje , of course

Bess on . OK : think I'd have given Broad a couple more but we shall see ...

Impressive burst from Wood ...over now. Fair enough - keep him fresh. Stokes on. I like this move. Keeps the pace threat on these two while Bess works away at the other end. And nobody getting overworked.
Feel if they can grab another one now they could really make a mess of this innings this afternoon/evening.

These two digging in quite well...but not scoring , so the innings is going nowhere at the moment and they still trail by 250.
This solid defence is all very well but if a wicket does fall you are still under a huge weight of runs.
Becomes a real test of patience for bats and bowlers. And of course Root need have no concerns about setting very attacking fields...

Root breaks the stand just in time for tea...Malan lbw and burned a review as he went.
Some fuss by comms about an apparent murmur on snicko but it looked pretty clear the ball was nowhere near the bat - which was coming from behind the pad anyway.
Good time for a wicket and Malan is one of the patient ones.

Might stay a while and see what happens after tea...

Well there’s the key wicket. Malan playing with complete negativity and eventually getting one that does for him.

Could be done tonight, actually, with England two wickets away from a very weak South African lower order.

Duty281 wrote:Well there’s the key wicket. Malan playing with complete negativity and eventually getting one that does for him.

Could be done tonight, actually, with England two wickets away from a very weak South African lower order.

Don't forget Nortje , though , Duty

But yes things could happen in the late session.

In other news , Zimbabwe are racking up the runs against Sri Lanka in a Test in Harare...144/1.

What a team performance this is turning into. Stokes and Pope with the bat, but benefitted from the grafting of the top three. Root didn't really get going with the bat but has some inspired moments of captaincy and yet another golden arm wicket.

First innings it was looking like Bess on his own, but then Stokes, Broad and Curran make some key strikes. Wood arguably had some assists for Bess and now has some actual wickets. Curran and Wood also threw the bat to good effect.

So that only leaves Buttler not really contributing. Though he's keeping wicket and not shelled any chances, so has hardly done nothing

And just as I praise the captaincy, Root burns both reviews in a manner that would embarrass Stuart Broad

Oh dear England are on top but have willfully wasted both their reviews within minutes...that review from the Bess appeal was just stupid.
Could be costly as we are seeing a lot of lbw shouts.

England were good at reviews in the Ashes but have become very poor on this tour for some reason.

Root looked to have v d Dussen stone dead then...but no , it has gone on to be missing off and a review saves him...

Going to be a lot more close calls if they keep poking at the spinners like this.

Another excellent catch from Pope at short leg.

South Africa’s limited batting order being exposed again. No reason why England can’t take this series 3-1.

Root the wrecking machine ! Gets rid of van der Dussen with the aid of another outstanding catch by young Pope at short leg...

Pope having a wonderful match but I guess he's booked himself in for duties under the lid for the foreseeable future

SA deep in the mud now...

It should be 3-1 from here. This is a pretty terrible SA lineup, some poor players in there and everyone a place too high at least from Philander downwards. This is England though, who are more than capable of a rank bad performance at any point!

Duty281 wrote:Another excellent catch from Pope at short leg.

South Africa’s limited batting order being exposed again. No reason why England can’t take this series 3-1.

Don't start counting chickens yet please...be just like England to get bowled out for 100 on a lively Wanderers track...

Anyway this one ain't done yet. Though it's looking pretty promising right now - weather permitting.