England's Summer of Cricket 2022 as Joe Root Steps Down

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Must be assuming Southee can't be as ineffective again.

alfie wrote:I fear we won't see Wood back in time for the WC. Notions of Archer/Wood in Australia just seem to be pipe dreams...

Topley , Gleeson , someone else + spinners  and Stokes , I reckon.

If Woakes can get back fit I'd still take him over Topley and Gleeson myself.

Mills struggling since his latest injuries is a big concern if Jof is still out though.

Jof is the double whammy of losing a gun PP and death bowler. The PP part we can sort of cover though to a far lower standard. I rate several England seamers as decent PP bowlers - Woakes, Topley, Surran, Willey. Death bowling is a massive issue without Jof and Mills falling away.

For all they've been fairly criticised for some average performances Jordan and Turran might need to be options compared to the others.

The pitch today looks far easier to bat on then when Eng were batting first in the 3 games vs India
Is it a more benign pitch
or was Indian bowling better
or is Eng's bowling more benign then the Indian

the classic you can judge a pitch only when both teams have batted applies though

On the pitch.

I get the feeling England have been trying to play white ball on tougher batting pitches as we know how good they are on roads.

Following the recent series losses alongside Morgan and Stokes retiring, this pitch has a feeling of, "let's do what we're good at and get some confidence back". It's not quite the batting depth of when Dilly was at 11 but Livingstone listed at 7, Surran 8, Dilly 9 is still a lot of depth. This pitch and XI feels like 2015-2019 England home tactics of, "you might get a few but whatever you get we'll get more".

Whether we quite have the bowling for that currently without Woakes up top (he's a truly fantastic ODI PP bowler) and Plunkett through the middle I'm honestly unsure. Only one way to find out though.

I don't think it's a day to judge the conditions vs the India series. Hottest day ever in the UK, with bowling first meaning that is during the peak temperatures. Must be horrible to bowl and field in that

VTR wrote:I don't think it's a day to judge the conditions vs the India series. Hottest day ever in the UK, with bowling first meaning that is during the peak temperatures. Must be horrible to bowl and field in that

Yes unfortunately too much for Potts, who hasn't been on the field after his initial spell due to heatstroke

Didn't realise that, knew he was off the field but assumed a pulled muscle. Says it all then, you can't read anything into this performance

I am surprised they're playing due to the heat. Wow, a whole five minutes extra on the break.

333 for South Africa. Joint second highest ODI score without a six.

Not sure if England will get this with the batting being a bit out of form.

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

VTR wrote:I don't think it's a day to judge the conditions vs the India series. Hottest day ever in the UK, with bowling first meaning that is during the peak temperatures. Must be horrible to bowl and field in that

Yes unfortunately too much for Potts, who hasn't been on the field after his initial spell due to heatstroke

Absolute pathetic how soft modern players are. Back in my day if it got warm we'd just take one of our jumpers off and have an extra pint of bitter during lunch.

king_carlos wrote:

alfie wrote:I fear we won't see Wood back in time for the WC. Notions of Archer/Wood in Australia just seem to be pipe dreams...

Topley , Gleeson , someone else + spinners  and Stokes , I reckon.

If Woakes can get back fit I'd still take him over Topley and Gleeson myself.

Mills struggling since his latest injuries is a big concern if Jof is still out though.

Jof is the double whammy of losing a gun PP and death bowler. The PP part we can sort of cover though to a far lower standard. I rate several England seamers as decent PP bowlers - Woakes, Topley, Surran, Willey. Death bowling is a massive issue without Jof and Mills falling away.

For all they've been fairly criticised for some average performances Jordan and Turran might need to be options compared to the others.

Oh I'd have Woakes if he's fit...said "someone else" because I've not heard whether he is going to be ! Like too many England bowlers at the moment... Can't say I am much of a fan of Mills though , even if he were fit. I suspect the death bowling is going to be prefect dodgy whoever they end up with.

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

VTR wrote:I don't think it's a day to judge the conditions vs the India series. Hottest day ever in the UK, with bowling first meaning that is during the peak temperatures. Must be horrible to bowl and field in that

Yes unfortunately too much for Potts, who hasn't been on the field after his initial spell due to heatstroke

Rough start to his white ball career. Picked a rotten day to debut , especially when you've lost the toss ! Hopefully he will be fine after a rest.

Just how hot was it at the ground ? Might have hoped being Up North they'd have been spared the worst of the heat wave but sounds as if it was roasting ...

alfie wrote:

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

VTR wrote:I don't think it's a day to judge the conditions vs the India series. Hottest day ever in the UK, with bowling first meaning that is during the peak temperatures. Must be horrible to bowl and field in that

Yes unfortunately too much for Potts, who hasn't been on the field after his initial spell due to heatstroke

Rough start to his white ball career. Picked a rotten day to debut , especially when you've lost the toss ! Hopefully he will be fine after a rest.

Just how hot was it at the ground ?  Might have hoped being Up North they'd have been spared the worst of the heat wave but sounds as if it was roasting ...

I'm in Yorkshire (God's own country etc.) and it got as high as 38c today, so around that. Only the Westcountry avoided the worst of the heat.

Hmm . 38 is about as warm as you'd want it to be playing cricket. Rules about playing in extreme temperatures have started to apply even here in recent years : was actually a round of matches in our club competition called off a year or two back.

Remember playing on Australia Day many years back at something over forty...bowled a rather solid spell and subsequently sat under a cold shower in the rooms for ten minutes in the tea break ! But still ended up seriously affected that night (temperature was still high but mine was higher !) Was not a pleasant experience at all. Lucky I was a younger man then...

alfie wrote:Hmm . 38 is about as warm as you'd want it to be playing cricket.  Rules about playing in extreme temperatures have started to apply even here in recent years : was actually a round of matches in our club competition called off a year or two back.

Remember playing on Australia Day many years back at something over forty...bowled a rather solid spell and subsequently sat under a cold shower in the rooms for ten minutes in the tea break ! But still ended up seriously affected that night (temperature was still high but mine was higher !)  Was not a pleasant experience at all. Lucky I was a younger man then...

Ridiculous. Guildford played through the 1946 county season in a duffel coat after his missus donated his whites to the French war effort.

47 off the first ten. Reasonable ; though they've had some close shaves and scoring has looked anything but easy. England need a solid sort of start if they're to launch an assault on this target later on : but they've certainly got the kind of players who could take advantage of a tiring attack if they are given a decent platform.

Presume it is still quite warm even though the extreme stuff might have passed by.

Plenty of spin already as Shamsi has joined the attack.

66/0 after 13. Seems pretty comfortable for England, the RRR well below 8, setting up a great platform for the many hitters lower down.

Not sure I'd call it comfortable. Haven't really been able to find the boundary as often as they'd like ; can't get Shamsi away at all ...and they've taken quite a few very risky singles just to keep the board ticking.

Action stepped up now though : fielders colliding ; Bairstow to fifty ; couple of boundaries and the hundred stand...but Roy then holes out to long off and it's 102/1 after 19.

Root will be keen to improve his ODI record for the season

Ngidi manages to spill what ought to have been a simple catch when Bairstow gets a top edge to an attempted hook...they may come to regret that one.

Timing seems to be tricky for the batsmen though as the ball is coming off this pitch at varying speeds. Not sure this chase is going to be easy at all unless someone plays a blinder.
Though SA are currently one bowler down with Phehlukwayo off the field after that unfortunate collision.

112/1 off 22.

Ah...bad call by Bairstow to waste a review on that lbw ...looked and was dead. Gone for 63 ; and England are in a bit of trouble I think at 125/2.

Stokes in for his last ODI knock...

No fairytale end for Stokes in his ODI career, if it is indeed his last ODI.

Getting a bit steep for England now. Root will need to bat long and tick over at one end and allow the T20 hitters of Buttler/Livingstone/Ali to do their thing at the other.

Concussion sub Pretorius activated so SA have a full roster of bowlers...anyway Markram got them the breakthrough then so all worked well

Don't think he's going to bowl many though as Root lofts him for six...but oh no ! He's trapped Stokes lbw !

Gone for just 5 . What an anti climax. Not what the home crowd wanted at all.

142/3 and Root + Buttler and the all rounders have a bit of a task now...

SA had pace that Eng didn't
SA had spin and most importantly got better of the conditions to exploit for their spinners I felt
Ball had started gripping more it seemed when Eng batted.

Another way of looking at it ...Eng's openers played 22 overs between them scoring at a shade over 4RPO when chasing 6.7
( and got out without either of them compensating for that slow first 22 over by converting into a 120% SR century)

It was a win the toss win the game sort of day thanks to the freak weather conditions. Nothing really can be read into it in particular. Was still quite a decent match, certainly the best of the limited overs games so far this summer, though that's not saying much

England aren't in a good place in the ODI circuit. They're unsettled, unorganised and not in the right head space. Winning is a habit. They're not winning.

They should have won today. Top three set a strong platform, but the fire hitters of Stokes-Buttler-Livingstone-Ali-Curran didn't succeed. Not good enough. There's too many of these defeats being thrown in - lost the ODI series to India, lost the one two years ago to Australia, lost a game v Ireland at one point, now lost one to South Africa, who are struggling to even qualify automatically.

It won't do. The next World Cup format is the same as the last, it rewards consistency and chucking in results like this could jeopardise England's chances of making the top four.

I was going to say this is a good win for South Africa in terms of the Super League, but it transpires this series isn't even part of it.

To be fair, South Africa are 8-1 in non-Super League ODIs since the World Cup, so I'm not surprised we've won. It's any time we've got a Super League fixture (4-7 with 2 washouts) that we Poopie the bed.

Didn't watch it through as I was pretty sure SA had a stranglehold on the game by the time Stokes departed. They had been bowling quite cleverly on a pitch on which stroke making appeared to be getting a bit trickier as the day went on and it would have taken something astonishing from the later bats to get back to the required rate. And England's bats just aren't playing at that level at the moment.

Well done by SA : was a good toss to win ; but they made the most of it in a very professional manner and won convincingly.

Again no need for England to panic ; but they will want to get back to a winning habit sooner rather than later. Just a feeling that the changeover from Morgan - and I guess also now Stokes bowing out - has left them a bit unsettled mentally (although I'm not suggesting that mattered today as they were just outplayed). The congested programme , t20 s and ODIs so close to Tests that multi-format players must be getting dizzy when they aren't replaced for particular mini-series... None of this helping. And I guess the main focus is on the upcoming t20 WC...

I would honestly have preferred the Test players to have given this series a miss but I doubt that would be popular with spectators. Stokes has taken things into - or out of - his own hands . Good for him : but in the short term it doesn't make things any easier for Jos as he tries to make this team his own.

msp83 wrote:The first thing I thought when reading about Stokes' announcement was, will they force him out of T-20Is too? Thankfully, England are not in the Flower Dictatorship, and clowns like Paul Downton aren't around to take those calls. Stokes can thank Kevin Pietersen for that. He had seen this scenario coming, well ahead of the times when this is treated as rather normal.

Yup KP too hasn't forgotten

"I once said the schedule was horrendous and I couldn't cope, so I retired from ODI cricket & the ECB banned me from T20s too............" Pietersen wrote in a tweet.

England have a white ball training session today in Manchester - and Rehan Ahmed is there to have a session with them. JDizzle, we are willing this into existence well so far

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:England have a white ball training session today in Manchester - and Rehan Ahmed is there to have a session with them. JDizzle, we are willing this into existence well so far

Says a lot about Sky’s Blast coverage (or lack there of) that Northants have a 20yo left arm wrist spinner and I’ve not seen him bowl yet - it’s Freddie Heldreich’s time!

Olly Stone just cannot catch a break - injured his finger fielding during a 2nd XI game, and may now miss a large portion of the remaining of the 2022 summer (including The Hundred). A blow to my campaign to get him in for the World T20!

Since the start of 2019, Moeen averages 21 with the bat and 80 with the ball. He is one of a number of problems.

The biggest one being the opening partnership not being the all conquering machine it was once - that is just from though, certainly for YJB.

Another bad day for England then.

Good point about Moeen. It's been nearly five years since he last made an ODI fifty!

We aren't ever going to get far with Root and Buttler out of form. Others have always tended to blow hot and cold, but those two tended to provide the performances that others could bat around

Not getting much better for the England white ball mob...

Fair to say this has looked a bit of a tricky pitch for strokes although that may be down to some smart SA bowling as well. But some of the dismissals have been rather disappointing .

Think Rashid will be hard to play on this later ...but SA probably won't need too many in this glorified t20.

Curran playing well since he's come in . And seems to have got Livingstone going...

Topley bats exactly how you’d think a man with a highest score of 19 in 101 professional innings would bat. Very relatable.

It was inevitable that Willey would get de Kock out.

Some rather premature posting on here it seems - comfortable win for England in the end. Only seen the highlights but looks like another fairly stodgy wicket, a lot of mistimed dismissals for both sides.

Topley is having quite the white ball summer - really playing himself into consideration even when the frontline (I mean I guess “if”) bowlers return.

Do continue to wonder if Sam Curran might end up at 6 or 7 in this side in India for the World Cup. Noted issues for Moeen above, Sam is a very handy player and hitter of spin and could offer some cutters and skiddy bowling too. You could try to combine Livingstone at 6, with Curran at 7 (and they combine to be your 5th bowler, with a sprinkling of Root) if Moeen doesn’t refind some form. Still think they need to almost hope Mo does find it, and give him as much opportunity as possible…because having that second spinner who turns it the opposite way to Dilly would be so valuable, if he was in form (not so worried about his bowling actually, I think that’s generally fine for a 2nd spinner in ODIs, more his batting form)

Turned out comfortable for England in the end , eh ? Did think once Livingstone Curran and Willey had got England up to 200 they had a decent chance - pitch wasn't easy for bats in the prevailing conditions - but hadn't expected SA to fall to 6/4 in the first few overs !

Still some concerns that they've been bowled out inside the overs again ; but I think given the result one might say the policy of continuing to go hard throughout (especially given this was more akin to t20 than the normal ODI) was justified.

Bowling by the three left arm pace men has to be commended. Spinners were never likely to let SA off the hook after the start - but I'm sure Rashid will be happy to be back in the wickets after a rather uninspiring first match.

Think you may have a point , Olly , re the Sam Curran chances for the WC - though that is a way off yet. With Stokes out of the picture , the need for someone to cover middle order batting and "extra" bowling offers him a path into the XI ; as long as he keeps taking his opportunities ...

Decider for the series set up : hopefully no weather issues next time !

Galted wrote:It was inevitable that Willey would get de Kock out.

Almost makes up for County Cricket fans being denied Hammond b Organ a couple of days earlier

What do we think of the future of ODI cricket as a whole, because its demise is once again being discussed?

Wasim Akram thinks ODI cricket should be put out of its misery; Mark Ramprakash says that Stokes' ODI retirement could be the beginning of the end for ODI cricket; but Ravi Shastri says there should be fewer T20Is.

My view is that ODI cricket should stay, and it's T20i cricket that should be abolished. T20 should remain franchise/domestic only. No need for a T20 World Cup when the IPL and such exists. If T20i cricket does stay, I think there should be no three format players, only two formats maximum. I'd be very disappointed if 50-over cricket died on an international basis.

Pretty much agree with you there , Duty - certainly on the only two formats for a player plan. But I can't see them abolishing the t20 WC so if one is to go from the programme it is going to be the 50 over version.

Of course , the best solution would be to keep the cups but limit the random International matches : the players are all getting plenty of practice in franchise leagues so don't need to be playing a bunch of England v SA , Australia V Pakistan , etc , etc all the time . Snag being how they sort out qualification for cups...

Whatever happens , sheer weight of fixtures surely means something has to give.

50 over is my least favourite of the established formats but I find bilateral T20i futile as outside of World T20 years sides are so far from full strength that it's a lower level than much franchise T20. I just don't see the point.

I'm happy enough with 3 formats but want far less bilateral one day games. whether that be ODI or T20i, as they are largely boring.

I thought it was interesting earlier in the summer to hear Peter Moores argue we don't need 50 over cricket in the county season. His reasoning being that all cricketers growing up play a lot of 40-50 over cricket anyway and that the England side that won the CWC in 2019 hadn't exactly been honing their skills in domestic 50 over stuff. In fact Morgan's focus was very much on getting guys out of that grind and into the IPL to experience the standards there.

One thing to note though is that when we say there's too much cricket we actually mean there's too much cricket for a very small number of countries international players. Increasingly England and India as Australia's schedule hasn't even been that jammed in recent years. Many 'Test nations' could do with more cricket against established cricketing nations. Associates are largely screaming out for more chances as well of course.

That's the legacy of the big three carve up though.

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