Come on Jimmy, you missed that c&b, now inswinger top of off and wicket cartwheel
Bah.
?
:,0(
No Sunday cricket then
For the final time,
The Burnley express departs.
That's over, Jimmy.
Go well!
Lords gave him a decent send off - pretty much a full house - didn't see him necking a pint on the balcony though - looks as if he might have done that a couple of times before.
Greatest fast bowler I’ve seen, his mastery of swing bowling is unprecedented.
loved watching him set batsmen up like a spinner.
Just a shy lad from the Lancashire league. Class act.
Graham Thorpe has died aged 55. Proper gutsy battler at a time when England were playing against some fearsome attacks.
Very sad news
A very sad day indeed. The word great is over used but he was a great player, tough opponent and a great player for Surrey and England.
RIP
A class act, whose average was better in Australia than his overall one. Against McGrath, Warne etc shows his quality.
Aye, a real shame. Great player.
It gets worse 🙁
I tried in my early 20s, and seriously contemplated again 6 or so years ago before getting help.
Please FFS talk to someone, anyone. 🙁
Yes, today's revelations are so sad. Poor guy. And his family. I'm assuming it was a well kept secret amongst those that knew him professionally. His public persona was of such a together, strong dependable person - I guess the typical person who carries this stuff without seeking help or others having concerns.....until it's too late.
His public persona was of such a together, strong dependable person
TBH he came across as very (maybe a bit too) intense to me. Don't know if that is my bias having heard/read things that his contemporaries said. It's not intended as a criticism, just an observation.
Poor bloke. It doesn't sound like anything was missed so much as he just couldn't recover enough. This is why mental illness needs the same recognition as physical illness. People shake their heads when strong, athletic people get cancer - "but he kept himself fit, didn't smoke" etc. It is the same with mental illness "she always seemed so 'together' and 'normal'". It can strike any one of us at any time. All of a sudden perspective and fortitude can disappear.
RIP.
So sad. RIP Thorpey.
The world felt a better place when he was at the crease. RIP.
“We are not ashamed of talking about it,” said Thorpe’s daughter Kitty. “There is nothing to hide and it is not a stigma. We were trying to help him get better before and trying to protect him, which is why we said nothing. This is the time now to share the news, however horrible it is. We’ve wanted to be able to talk and share and we’d now like to raise awareness, too.
“He had loved life and he loved us but he just couldn’t see a way out. It was heartbreaking to see how withdrawn he had become. He was not the same person. It was strange to see this person trapped in the body of Dad. That’s why we’ve been so happy that the many reflections have been about his life before this illness took over. I’m glad that’s how everyone does remember him, rightly so, as the complete character he was.”
RIP
A terrible loss, top player, top bloke.
A happier cricket story - it's old but cropped up on my SM feed earlier
**
MARK NICHOLAS for "The Cricket Monthly"
In Swansea in 1993, Viv was on strike to Marshall in a county match between Glamorgan and Hampshire. These were contests to savour, us hackers briefly living in a parallel universe with the greatest players of the day.
Malcolm sprinted in, but at the split second of his delivery stride Viv pulled away, clearly furious. There was silence. We looked at each other, then at him: no one dared say a word.
He marched forward, a smouldering warrior, and screamed, "HEY!" He was most of the way down the pitch now, marching faster with each step, thankfully past Marshall and past the umpire. "YOU!" Nothing, bar the horrified look on the spectators either side of and above the sightscreen. "THAT'S YOU! " He was halfway to the boundary now and pointing to a spot just above the sightscreen, pointing to a man who was sitting alone, lost in the newspaper that hid his face. "YOU! " Alerted by those around him, the man looked up from his broadsheet and, startled, pointed at himself like, "WHAT, ME?". "YES, YOU!!!
"YOU'VE GOT DAVID GOWER AND ROBIN SMITH AT SLIP; YOU'VE GOT MALCOLM MARSHALL, THE GREATEST FAST BOWLER IN THE WORLD, BOWLING TO VIVIAN RICHARDS. AND YOU READING THE F***ING NEWSPAPER!?!
I felt very privileged to see the Hampshire team of the late 80's & early 90's. It didn't do my A-level results much good as we used to bunk off and get a train into Southampton to watch them play!
First first class game I saw was at Southampton in the mid 80's, while Gower was still at Leics. It was a one day cup game, B&H IIRC and my folks allowed me to get the train down there to watch my batting hero.
I had a seat at midwicket / cover so you couldn't see the ball out of the hand very easily; my memory was of Macho bustling in, his fast arm, a languid curly haired waft of a drive, and someone at cover turning to jog after the ball as it raced to the boundary. Marshall looked like he was trying his arse off; Gower like he couldn't care less, this was just a way to pass time before he had a social event to be at later. Two of the Gods of the game, at the peak of their powers, as the article above says descended to play among mortals for a young lad's entertainment.
He made 20-odd if I recall, each run glorious and then a waft too many. Ah well, there was always tomorrow, or the day after. Sadly Marshall did not have anywhere near enough tomorrows. Robin Smith made 80 in the chase; now he did take things seriously.
Lovely story - the cynic in me says check for corroboration if it was told by Oily Nicholas...
I only saw Macco bowling live once - Oval 91. He was quick and skiddy but overshadowed on that occasion by Patterson and particularly Ambrose who went after the batters like fury. Huw Morris in particular stood up to them admirably, but it did no good. Simply surviving at the crease wasn't enough even back then - he was dropped and forgotten soon after. The thing about Marshall is to look at the numbers and also his numbers on the subcontinent. Back in the day before reverse swing was mainstream that speaks of an incredibly skilful athlete. Batters always said they never felt 'in' against Marshall and the numbers bear that out.
Three West Indian cricketers have scored 10000 first class runs and taken 1000 first class wickets…..
And I have heard that story from other sources too
Over by lunch at this rate ......
I love test cricket, but if they can't do something to make these series more competitive it's hard to see it flourishing. Same when England go to India or Australia and get thrashed. The only "good" series these days seem to be when a stronger nation tours to a weaker one.
I have tickets for Saturday and even with the 3 day results we’re seeing more regularly I thought the weather might guarantee some viewing but maybe not!
RM.
Sri Lanka showing some fight, good to see.
Yes, good to see, but to be honest mopping up the tail has been a bit of an issue for England for a while now. Not sure if they just get too cute. You'd think having the option of Mark Wood steaming in at the number 10 would be simple enough.
A good game brewing, with some big hitting and Aussie wickets falling. Livingstone hit Starc for 28 from the final over - most ever in an international oner at Lords.
Sounds like some needle in the commentary box between Geoff Lemon and Sir Alistair.
2-2, series set up nicely.
yep - shame the weather's not better for Sunday. I'd have settled in with a cuppa and some cake to watch it
Also worth bearing in mind Aus had won 7 or 8 in a row or something, so good to break the run, and even better put them on a losing streak
7 or 8 in a row or something
I think the run was 15 wins in 50 over ODIs
Marsh wicket from Jofra was a beaut.
Was just typing how Salt was peppering the boundary.......as he was caught on it. Good start.
Damp squib ending to the international home game cricketing summer
let's be fair, the 'season' ended about 3 or 4 weeks ago. Why we're still playing international games with a potential for clubs to spend loads in prepping grounds on the last weekend of September is daft.
What on earth is the point of this game being played on this wicket? How mind-numbingly dull.
Hot hot hot. Some stint by root.
Draw?
If they just keep going, Root could be in second place by the end of this test!!
Yet another England collapse. When will they learn?
Getting interesting now
41/3
Edit***
41/4
I don't get the negative talk about a collapse - they made 823 and declared, one batter scored over 300 and another over 250, it's a non-issue for me. Once root was gone the best thing to do was be aggressive, add as many runs to the total as possible, declare and put ****stan straight in to bat when they were tired and conditions would hopefully be favourable for bowling later in the day.
****stan now 41-4 with their opener dismissed with the first ball of the innings - looks like it worked...
Agreed - finishing on 823 dec can hardly ever be called a collapse – in the run-up to the declaration the pitch had started to turn a bit so I assume Pope decided it was time to make the best of the conditions and, as stated above, it was clearly the right decision.
Regulation catch, flew through some hands. 🙂
RM.
^^^^^^
You do realise the “collapse” comment was a joke don’t you?
Personally I’d like to have seen them written the game off as a draw and go for 1000 runs. But from a winning point of view then declaring looks like it was a smart move.
I hadn't spotted that, no - my bad! I'd just read/heard a similar serious comment elsewhere so perhaps wrongly assumed Simon was serious too.
59 for 5!
You do realise the “collapse” comment was a joke don’t you?
DOH!
There's a collapse coming alright.
I'm not sure Multan is high up the list of places that budding young seam bowlers would like to visit. But, then again, they aren't playing in Faisalabad this tour...
I notice the 2nd Test is also being played in Multan.
It is now very apparent why a par score in the PSL is often 200+.
Nice to see the Aussies under the pump. Some turnaround by India!
Well it looks like both sides decided they wanted a one innings game instead. From what I could tell, the Aussies bowled both sides of the wicket too much and the green zip seems to have gone out of the pitch.
Jaiswal is a lovely batter, though.
Well this is rather exciting!
I'm struggling with the tension here...I bloody love test match cricket.
oh poop 😫
Who said cricket was always boring!
I had to turn on TMS just for the last few overs. Madness!
Great series and 2-2 probably a reflection. England too casual I think - somehow drew after being 2-1 up and having India 0 for 2, 300 odd behind in the fourth test.
yeah, I was listening to Agnew interview the players afterwards, he kept basically saying, "you needed 70 to win, with 7 wickets in hand. Should probably have managed that?"
And all the players were like, "er, yeah, ahem".
Can't help but wonder if Gill deliberately set his field to leave the single available in the last ball of the last 2 overs so they didn't have to bowl at Woakes.
I was thinking the same. No one wants to win hitting a one armed man with a cricket ball and 85mph. Kind of honour his bravery by not taking advantage.
2-2 feels like the right result.
It's a nice thought but once you cross the white line you're in the game proper. It's not sunday social. He scampered a bye to the keeper and a two, in clear pain, he was up for it.
I'd have instructed the bowler to bowl flat out but aiming for yorkers and a bowled or lbw. Not aiming to hit a guy who can't evade or get hands up as easily, but that would be my only concession. If he'd then started connecting with bottom hand swishes, I might rethink that too!
theotherjonv has it.
If Woakes crosses the white line he's there to do a job for his team. In competitive sport it means he's there to thwart the other team. India didn't have many runs to play with, so from my POV it would have been bowl flat out at the stumps to him unless it gets down to less than 10 to win. Then, I'm afraid, the bowler can bomb Woakes if needs be.
It was a dramatic end to a great series. Brook didn't lose it by doing what he did. Ultimately he had got England to that point by doing the same. England lost it shelling SIX catches. All the commentators were talking about bowling workloads, flat pitches (mostly) this summer etc. But the main thing that adds to bowlers workloads is, effectively, needing to take 13, 14, 15, 16 wickets to bowl a team out.
theotherjonv has it.
In which case you need an explanation for Gill's actions.
Gill, and the rest of the Indian team have been brought up in the IPL and it's influence is instinctual in their actions even at test level. Controlling who is facing in the next over is bread and butter in the IPL at the death and control much of what you do with the field and balls bowled definitely on the 6th ball and possibly the 5th ball too. So why did Gill leave a field setting with nearly everyone on the boundary and a single so easily on, allowing Atkinson to get Woakes back to the non-facing end? It felt like his non-action, was an action.
England lost it shelling SIX catches. All the commentators were talking about bowling workloads, flat pitches (mostly) this summer etc. But the main thing that adds to bowlers workloads is, effectively, needing to take 13, 14, 15, 16 wickets to bowl a team out.
Yep. While India took 19 to win the game.
I get the chase everything, every run is vital attitude but your main bowler diving headlong to save 1 run has to also be questioned in a risk vs reward way.
In which case you need an explanation for Gill's actions.
Gill would have to do that, and I'd love it to be 'the spirit of cricket' given past comments about England's delaying tactics, some of the naughty mental stuff that India has employed recently, etc. But i don't see it.
In my mind it was a thought process like:
Atkinson has to get these and with field out he can't really take singles. He can't really even hit 4s with a slowish outfield and field out, it has to be 6's. We have two clutch yorker bowlers, if we bowl full and straight he'll struggle to hit 6's first and foremost, and he'll miss one sooner or later.
So on the last ball if we bring field in then we'll expose ourselves to a 4 or 6 and then we're one bad ball / lucky inside edge away from losing.
I'm not saying it's how my thought process would have gone but it's more likely in my mind than being gentlemanly.
And yes, IPL and managing the strike is vital but this wasn't a time limited shot-a-ball game. They can bowl as many overs to Atkinson as necessary on the basis of above knowing only big shots will win it and eventually he'll miss one, at the cost of maybe one run per over (even then they were hiding the ball and resorting to running a bye to the keeper, they weren't 'giving' him a single). If half a dozen overs had gone by with a single somehow got off each then they may have changed again, but Woakes was actually only on the field for 13 balls, in which Atkinson connected once and was very nearly caught then and had umpteen near misses.
I think Gill got caught up in the notion that the ball was doing all sorts and simply bowling as many balls as possible at England would do the job. As above, if the field is up for the last ball of that over, it gives Atkinson the freedom that may result in a six being hit. Then all it takes is Woakes to inside edge one past the stumps and England win. But that is merely my speculation. I would have brought the field in!
I was talking more about India's (untested) attitude to bowling flat-out at Woakes, TBH.
You've got admire Siraj for having the skill and the fitness to execute that skill with 25 overs already bowled in the innings. Akash Deep is a lucky lad because he bowled and fielded like a drain.
Oh, and Akash Deep also needs a hefty fine for physically touching Duckett when he'd dismissed him. If he'd tried that with most of the lads I played with he would have at least been threatened with having a bat shoved down his throat. A handful of them wouldn't have bothered with the threat bit.
Rabada was done for celebrating in the face of dismissed batsmen, but it seems the authorities have gone a bit soft on this again. IMO this is overspill from the various T20 leagues where team loyalty and identity is totally transient, so manufactured needle is tolerated and encouraged.
