[Jaspersharpe]

Yes Finn had bowled really well without any luck so I was also really happy to see him get two very important wickets. Interesting listening to Athers etc on Sky deliberating about who to give the MOM to because the whole team played so well. One of the best England victories I've seen overall. Also thought Cook's captaincy was excellent and basically agree with the sentiments in this....

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/1043871.html

[GraemeA]

Time to resurrect this thread.

Saffers 40/3 at lunch 'chasing 380'. It should be a walk in the park.

Was there on Saturday, nice to see the fun police weren't in evidence, beer snakes were all over the place. 13 wickets and Bairstow going fairly ballistic - an excellent day of Test cricket.

[andy_e]

Seems like a good time to resurrect this thread.

Anyone else's productivity for the day been zero?

[tomtom]

I’ve been looking after the toddler today. Normally we go out somewhere but today I’ve been rarely far from the radio.

Daring to dream now but England.....

[fatneck]

Past the 20 overs now and Root looking settled! Roy tanking Smith for three consecutive 6s was something else!!

[bigironhorse]

Seems like a good time to resurrect this thread.

Anyone else's productivity for the day been zero?

Glad it's not just me. Less than three months until my PhD submission deadline and I managed about one sentence today.

England team must be feeling confident after today's performance.

I love listening to cricket on the radio, I don't think many sports would be that entertaining without the visual. TMS commentary always pretty funny too.

[Wood FT]

Seems like a good time to resurrect this thread.

Anyone else's productivity for the day been zero?

Glad it's not just me. Less than three months until my PhD submission deadline and I managed about one sentence today.

England team must be feeling confident after today's performance.

I love listening to cricket on the radio, I don't think many sports would be that entertaining without the visual. TMS commentary always pretty funny too.

Agreed, by the end of today Tuffnell had given up talking and was just soaking up the ambience. Fair enough.

[spidermonkey09]

Seems like a good time to resurrect this thread.

Anyone else's productivity for the day been zero?

I did absolutely fuck all and watched most of the match via a tiny screen on the Betfair app. So good.

[macca7]

It was epic!

Managed to get a ticket off the ICC website on Wednesday night and left sunny Cornwall at 5:30 a.m. to get there!

So relieved I was there for the start seeing those 3 early wickets just set the tone, it was such an incredible performance and Jofra is quick! The ball that hit Carey was lightening!

When Roy and Bairstow got going the atmosphere was off the scale and that final 6 on to the top tier just blew the lid off it!

Already nervous about Sunday but can't wait to watch it!

[bigironhorse]

Well that was the most tense drive home from Wales I've ever had. Excited that England have won but feel sorry for new zealand, they would surely have won if it wasnt for the weird stokes runs.

 

[Duma]

Bloody hell that was a bit mental!

Obviously great for us but I'd be absolutely gutted if I was a kiwi, we rode a tidal wave of luck today.

[spidermonkey09]

What A Day. One of the best days of my sporting life. We had all the luck but we earned it, we've been the best side in the world for 4 years and have won it with no help from the groundsmen. Another sticky dog of a deck that brought NZ into the game. Really pleased for Stokes after the heartbreak in the last final and the court case farrago. Big balls on Jofra Archer too; 24 years old!

[tommytwotone]

I've had to watch / listen to it a few times to make sure it actually happened.


So many times in that last hour I thought they'd blown it - Stokes getting caught on the rope, the insane ricochet off his bat diving for the rope, Archer's wide first up and then a six into the stands...


I can't work out if that was as nervy, or worse than Edgbaston 2005!

[GraemeA]

If you'd have offered me England 267-4 after the Aussies winning the toss and batting first and being all out for 284, and our leading wicket taker being sidelined, at the end of day 2 I'd have bitten you hand off.

C'mon England.

[DaveC]

OK,  I stopped watching cricket a long time ago now but I just have to ask... WTF? 

[SA Chris]

I stopped looking before lunch, came back now and asked the same question.

[bigironhorse]

From hearing snippets of TMS it sounds like the batting from both sides has been pretty appalling!

[butters]

It is the case that this is two very good bowling line-ups taking aim at two indifferent batting line-ups. I am excluding Steve Smith here btw as he was the difference in the first test, was looking to be in the Second and probably would be in this one had he not been out concussed.

Where to start on how England got to this state of affairs?

We have been seduced by the all out attempt to win the One Day World Cup and by the obsession of the 20\Twenty game. This has been at the cost of taking the entire county Championship and shoving it to the start and the back ends of the English cricket season. Now anyone who thinks that you are going to develop fine test batsmen when you make them play in the colder, cloudier months of the year when a medium pace dobber can seam\swing the ball at will and take a hatful of wickets is a fool. It also has the knock on effect of making spinners completely redundant into the bargain. Why pick one when you can have another dobber who will take wickets and the spinner is best employed bringing on extra jumpers etc instead of actually trying to do his job during the summer months. The end result is batsmen who play against a moving ball and then spend two months sitting about doing nothing during the County Championship break and only ever see a spinner when they go to Ciderabad (Taunton) where they have no idea most of the time. 

Also the primacy of the shorter games encourages a different mindset. Trying to smash a ball that doesn't really move on a very good batting wicket over the boundary repeatedly may keep the masses entertained but, to use Roy as the obvious example here, it doesn't actually make you any good in the longer format. It certainly doesn't as an opener which is a position that we have ben trying to sort out since Strauss retired. Actually I think Roy has become my new source of ultimate frustration having surpassed James 'make a beautiful 20 and them nick off to the slip\gully region driving at a wide one' Vince. 

There was a really interesting interview on TMS with Mark Ramprakash last Sunday where he lamented the lack of ability in a player to actually want to play themselves in and try to stick around. A bit damning as well as he has been involved with the England squad since 2014 from memory. Another coach, Graham Thorpe, was the lucky chap wheeled out tonight to speak to the press - no one playing was sent out - and again he talked a good game but it doesn't seem to be translating to the players very well.

Other than that I have very little belief that Root is in any way, shape or form an England Captain. He has no real ability to captain a spinner and his use of the default option, fast bowlers, is awful and I can see Jofra Archer being broken by being hugely overloaded shortly. Used wisely he is a potential star for a decade but he won't last 10 months under Roots captaincy at his current workload. The problem though is who can do it instead? Morgan could be an option but is out injured and is hinting at giving up the One Day captaincy so unlikely and anyone else would be another square peg in a round hole.   

Lastly we really haven't had a decent top order for ages and what is there are all playing out of position. We have two players in Stokes and Root (excluding present form) who could walk into most Test line ups in the world and Buttler on his day maybe but the rest would probably not get a look in. Who else is there though...

Still not to worry - next year this will all be replaced by The Hundred and all will be better in the world. Oh and we won the World Cup so that's alright...

[tomtom]

Interesting stuff Butters.

With Anderson fit and in the squad the pressure on Archer would drop (and how he’d learn a thing or two as well..).

Vaughn was chatting about how there was a need to specialise for the different formats throughout the England set up. Coaching, management, recruitment etc etc and that there was too much overlap/people assuming the different formats were the same. We won the World Cup because we were lucky - but also good enough to be in that final and have a shout (we made our luck of you like) which was because the whole one day set up was in a WC 4 year Olympic training style cycle with the sole aim of winning the WC.

Also paying players to be test specialists rather than 20/20 100 players.

[butters]

Interesting stuff Butters.

With Anderson fit and in the squad the pressure on Archer would drop (and how he’d learn a thing or two as well..).

Vaughn was chatting about how there was a need to specialise for the different formats throughout the England set up. Coaching, management, recruitment etc etc and that there was too much overlap/people assuming the different formats were the same. We won the World Cup because we were lucky - but also good enough to be in that final and have a shout (we made our luck of you like) which was because the whole one day set up was in a WC 4 year Olympic training style cycle with the sole aim of winning the WC.

Also paying players to be test specialists rather than 20/20 100 players.

I heard Vaughan on TMS and while he made a good point you still have to have the players with the ability to play the game you are coaching of which we have a real shortage currently. There are very few players worldwide really with the ability to play just Test match cricket - Pujara from India is the most pure version of a Test player I can think of as that is all he does. He just grinds away all day and loves it and has no time for the shorter format as it just doesn't suit his mentality or his style. Hameed (released today from Lancs) looked for a short while to be cut from the same cloth but he has struggled terribly for two or three years now. He got some rave reviews when he played in India and I think the pros about the game recognise he has the talent but has lost something somewhere so hopefully he will move to another county will allow him to re-establish himself as he is still in his early twenties I think     

There has been a lot of talk on and off about splitting the coaching role due to the workload and also due to the differing styles required. Bayliss was brought in specifically because he was a good white ball coach, he has never done much in the red ball game to the best of my knowledge and I think that would have been a good time to do it then but it never happened. Obviously we won the World Cup so that part paid off but at what price elsewhere?

With regard to paying to play as test specialists only - we already have that in place and have done so for years with the central contracts. The idea was that England would pay the players home counties a portion of the wages due so they could manage the workloads better and release them back to the counties if they needed a bit of time to discover form or to keep their rhythm. However if you are good enough (and more importantly IMO have the classic technique to underpin it) then you can often turn your hand to most formats without too much of a struggle. Central contracts were also introduced during the pre 20\Twenty era and the amount of money available there dwarfs any central contract money - Stokes went for something like £1m over three years IIRC. Also that is just the one league - they are an almost constant thing now so you can work the circuit - Australia over Christmas\New Year, India in April\May and the West Indies in the late summer if you are good enough.

May come back to the subject later - there's more to write on it - the money split between test nations, cricket being taken off the free to air channels and Kolpak players are a few things that spring to mind but there's likely to be more once I get going. 

[tomtom]

Joe Simpson (touching the void etc..) is on TMS’s lunchtime feature/fill.

[bigironhorse]

Well that was a pretty gripping afternoon! I went in to airport security just as we lost our penultimate batsman, and when I finally got through we needed two to win! Amazing batting by stokes. A shame the first innings wasn't as solid. Or maybe not, it made for an exciting game!

[Wood FT]

Very lucky the Aussies used up their last review before that LBW

[monkey boy]

Good effort Leach staying around for that long too. Yeah we were lucky with the LBW review and the fumble by Lyons but that innings from Stokes was sublime.

[SA Chris]

Like a Phoenix rising from the Ashes..