Cricket
- Thread starter summerisle
- Start date
Chris O'Connor
Player Valuation: £35m
Slightly too short and wide from the England bowlers but only fractionally so, they didn't have too much luck. The openers should be commended for having batted with application and sense, surviving a difficult examination. They haven't got away but they will be glad to still be there, a great start.
The pitch did ease throughout the day, even if it's still by no means an easy or straightforward one. There's still plenty in it for the bowlers and one wicket could bring a clatter.
I do find it far too easy to blame the batting today and then group it together with the Barbados failure and say nothing's changed, they should have found a way. This for me misses the major differences and just how completely different it was, up and down movement, unpredictable bounce, shooting from a good length or keeping low, good sideways movement, all done at pace on a green and unevenly grassed pitch, adds up to a minefield for me. It's nothing like comparable and mitigating reasons are a plenty.
This was far from a normal tricky first morning test match wicket, but something altogether much worse, substandard would be an undeserved compliment. David Lloyd compared it to a park wicket with great clumps of grass taken out. It still has the ridges but the effect of early morning rain and a strong green tinge are going or gone.
180 for me was par for batting first, going by how the wicket played this morning, and would have been very competitive if the wicket had played that way throughout. It did ease as the day wore on and starting this evening was absolutely far more preferable.
Batting second, it isn't easy but nothing like as difficult, so perhaps 300 is a par score batting second.
Many will blame the toss perhaps because it obviously was a major factor, the mitigating circumstances were there for everyone to see. It just seems senseless to underplay it.
The pitch did ease throughout the day, even if it's still by no means an easy or straightforward one. There's still plenty in it for the bowlers and one wicket could bring a clatter.
I do find it far too easy to blame the batting today and then group it together with the Barbados failure and say nothing's changed, they should have found a way. This for me misses the major differences and just how completely different it was, up and down movement, unpredictable bounce, shooting from a good length or keeping low, good sideways movement, all done at pace on a green and unevenly grassed pitch, adds up to a minefield for me. It's nothing like comparable and mitigating reasons are a plenty.
This was far from a normal tricky first morning test match wicket, but something altogether much worse, substandard would be an undeserved compliment. David Lloyd compared it to a park wicket with great clumps of grass taken out. It still has the ridges but the effect of early morning rain and a strong green tinge are going or gone.
180 for me was par for batting first, going by how the wicket played this morning, and would have been very competitive if the wicket had played that way throughout. It did ease as the day wore on and starting this evening was absolutely far more preferable.
Batting second, it isn't easy but nothing like as difficult, so perhaps 300 is a par score batting second.
Many will blame the toss perhaps because it obviously was a major factor, the mitigating circumstances were there for everyone to see. It just seems senseless to underplay it.
Chris O'Connor
Player Valuation: £35m
It was the Sir Vivian Richards stadium in Antigua in 2009 that staged the shortest of all the Test matches, as it lasted 10 balls before it had to be abandoned because the ground was unfit. A decade on, it looked as though the second Test of this series would have to go the same way - either to the Recreation Ground down the road, where Tests used to be staged, or else to oblivion.
For the rest of the opening day the odd ball misbehaved when delivered from the Sir Curtly Ambrose, though fortunately never by the eponymous hero himself. Had Ambrose been steaming in on home soil - which, after some strange process of scarification, is interspersed with blotches of grass - West Indies might have won by now, instead of being 157 runs behind with 10 wickets left.
The morning session was that brutal, testing hardly tells the tale, calling it simply tricky analogous to described a ploughed field as not great for football.
Even surviving such a brutal onslaught on this most testing of Antigua tracks to keep any hopes of a series-levelling victory alive was some achievement.
The toss was just that important.
For the rest of the opening day the odd ball misbehaved when delivered from the Sir Curtly Ambrose, though fortunately never by the eponymous hero himself. Had Ambrose been steaming in on home soil - which, after some strange process of scarification, is interspersed with blotches of grass - West Indies might have won by now, instead of being 157 runs behind with 10 wickets left.
The morning session was that brutal, testing hardly tells the tale, calling it simply tricky analogous to described a ploughed field as not great for football.
Even surviving such a brutal onslaught on this most testing of Antigua tracks to keep any hopes of a series-levelling victory alive was some achievement.
The toss was just that important.
Last edited:
summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
West Indies 45-0, another Buttler drop ; for a wicket keeper he's not very good in the outfield.
summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
Buttler takes a catch 
off Stokes, 70-1.
off Stokes, 70-1.
summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
Broad two wickets in three balls, 155-4.
England need to restrict the lead to under three figures. Score 250 odd in the third innings. Then defend 160/170 odd.
Not likely at all but they have to give themselves a chance.
Not likely at all but they have to give themselves a chance.
summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
West Indies 187-5, Moeen's second wicket.
The bowling is consistently too short. You want to be driven. It's not to be feared.
Windies have been very lucky in their innings.
A little bit from the bits I've seen. But you're more likely to play and miss when the ball is shorter. The Windies have bowled and batted better. They pitched the ball up. England bowl too short. Consistently in all conditions.
summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
229-5, Buttler drops another one.
summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
243-6, Broad with a snorter that doesn't bode well as it's now also keeping low - lead by 56 runs.
summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
Close of play, 272-5, lead by 86. Dropped catches (3) again will prove crucial.