WDB
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Post by WDB on Jun 19, 2019 20:30:23 GMT
Well, that was more like it. Reading the scores on the Eurostar this afternoon, it looked like another routine win for a top-four team. But then South Africa’s bowlers (if not quite enough of their fielders) woke up and made a game of it.
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Post by dixinormus on Jun 27, 2019 14:05:57 GMT
England unlikely to make the semi-finals now? Maybe the women footballers will tonight though...!
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jun 27, 2019 20:28:52 GMT
Women’s football is still football — in other words there’ll be fourteen more matches just like it before teatime. Can’t be arsed.
Always dangerous to predict, especially given the way India’s bowlers shredded the West Indies this afternoon, but I reckon England have a good chance against a New Zealand team who’ve also played their easier games first, and an even-money shot against India. Much will depend on the pitches, and whether a batsman other than Stokes and Root is willing to work hard for his runs. This CWC has generally not been a sixfest, and is all the better for it.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2019 18:52:57 GMT
I was listening to the England India match today. Proper cricket with pave and spin. Great.
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Post by dixinormus on Jun 30, 2019 20:36:32 GMT
And England should fancy their chances against a brittle Nz side in a couple days’ time now!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2019 18:05:51 GMT
And another exciting game today. Thought Windies might just do it. I love TMS, so much better than TV.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2019 8:50:40 GMT
Well that was one hell of a final!
Makes any football final look boring..even with ManCity playing....
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 16, 2019 5:40:54 GMT
The close finish was our fault. We watched the last hour on an iPad Mini in our seventies-tastic stopover apartment high above the Mosel. (Fortunately the fibre broadband was thoroughly modern.) The door to the balcony was open behind us and a breeze got up and wafted the curtains into the room. Boy1 got up to restrain them, breaking the cricketer’s cardinal rule that you don’t leave your seat while your team has a significant partnership in progress — and before he could sit down, Buttler had miscued to Southee and the match was back in the balance. Sorry about that.
And yes, Simon Taufel is right that the deflected ‘six’ off Stokes’s sliding bar should have been worth only five, because the ‘wilful act of a fielder’ from which it resulted — Guptill’s throw from the deep — occurred before the batsmen had crossed in the second run, so only the first run and the boundary should have counted. That would have put Rashid on strike, facing his first ball with four required off two, and who knows what might have happened? But none of the four umpires realized this at the time and it can’t be unwound now.
On that incident, I’ve not heard anyone suggest that Guptill contributed to New Zealand’s bad luck by going for an unlikely run-out rather than carefully returning the ball and allowing the second run. A fierce throw always carries the risk of sending the ball out of control, whereas just tossing the ball back in would have left England still requiring seven off two — or six to tie. That would have forced Stokes to take the much bigger risk of hitting to or over the boundary and NZ would probably have won. Small margins indeed!
I’m delighted that so many people watched the match and are talking about cricket again. Whether it eases the recruitment crisis at cricket clubs like mine remains to be seen.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 18, 2019 15:12:22 GMT
The World Cup-shaped hole in my WAH day is now filled by the Women’s Test against Australia. It requires an adjustment to get used to cricketers in white again but the first day has been an absorbing, if hardly frantic, contest.
But what’s made my day is discovering that England’s excellent left-arm spinner Sophie Ecclestone is nicknamed ‘Cakes’. Eccles...cakes...geddit?
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Post by tyrednexited on Jul 18, 2019 15:29:43 GMT
...is there one who's nickname is Buns.......
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 19, 2019 7:10:42 GMT
On that incident, I’ve not heard anyone suggest that Guptill contributed to New Zealand’s bad luck by going for an unlikely run-out rather than carefully returning the ball and allowing the second run. I have now. I listened this week to the Guardian’s The Spin podcast, and they did suggest Guptill made an error of judgement.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2019 9:41:20 GMT
Watched the highlights of the womens Ashes last night. Like with women's World Cup, the game is very similar (and why shouldn't it be), but technically there are woeful errors that would not occur in the men's games. In football it is mainly not keeping hold of the ball and giving the ball away too easily**. In cricket it is poor fielding which gave away too many boundaries.
** Mind you I can make that comment about most teams other than ManCity or Liverpool these days.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 20, 2019 6:51:28 GMT
The fielding errors are hard to understand when the players are all full-time professionals who have ample time and coaching support to practise the basics. Knight’s drop of Lanning on the first day, and especially Ecclestone’s of Haynes on the second, were catches any weekend cricketer would have expected to hold. Knight made amends with a sharp one to remove Perry, but I felt yesterday she let the game drift in the field, hoping a wicket might come along rather than looking for what would make the batters uncomfortable. The rain, and Australia’s slow scoring, will make it mostly irrelevant, as there won’t be time to force a result, but England haven’t played this like the must-win game it is.
It’s still a Test match, though, and Perry’s determination to bat England out of the game was hugely impressive. Sarah Taylor is a fantastically skilful keeper, and Brunt and Shrubsole both have real fast bowlers’ skills and attitude — making it strange that Knight has used them so little. I’m looking forward to seeing Australia in the field.
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