England Summe 2022

[lancsdes]

Did anyone else think that Root’s batting today was frenetic and uncontrolled? Admittedly I only saw the highlights and I don’t expect anybody to get a century every innings. I thought he had a fair bit of luck in the New Zealand Tests with slices over the slips and Chinese cuts despite Vaughan’s idolisation of him and think like Stokes in the last match, maybe getting a bit carried away by hubris.

Also, don’t cricketers ever learn? Rubbish over by Broad to Bumrah. We got carted all round the ground by Bumrah and another tail ender last year; I think it was at Lord’s bowling short stuff.

[Admin]

Jul 2, 2022 22:13:09 GMT lancsdes said:

Did anyone else think that Root’s batting today was frenetic and uncontrolled? Admittedly I only saw the highlights and I don’t expect anybody to get a century every innings. I thought he had a fair bit of luck in the New Zealand Tests with slices over the slips and Chinese cuts despite Vaughan’s idolisation of him and think like Stokes in the last match, maybe getting a bit carried away by hubris.

Also, don’t cricketers ever learn? Rubbish over by Broad to Bumrah. We got carted all round the ground by Bumrah and another tail ender last year; I think it was at Lord’s bowling short stuff.

You rarely succeed if you bowl half track dross

[Admin]

Another iffy day for Baz ball

ESPN VIEW

India had the best of a stop-start day, adding 78 with their last three standing wickets and then taking four England wickets by the time they scored 78. On a day that only 39 overs were possible because of rain, India placed one hand firmly on the Pataudi Trophy, to secure which they needed merely a draw.

After Ravindra Jadeja completed his third Test century, India's first out-and-out fast-bowler captain (Kapil Dev was an allrounder), Jasprit Bumrah broke a record held by Brian Lara, along with George Bailey and Keshav Maharaj, even before he came on to bowl, scoring 29 in a 35-run over from Stuart Broad, both a world record for most runs by a batter in an over and the most expensive over in Test cricket.

After adding 41 for the last wicket with Mohammed Siraj, Bumrah went on to take three wickets in his first spell, broken by rain breaks that helped him bowl seven overs on the trot. With India leading by 332 runs and only five England wickets standing at the end of two days, this Test was fast headed towards a territory from where only one team can win.

Jadeja began the day 17 short of a century, but showed no hurry to get there as he kept farming the strike with Mohammed Shami for company. He got to the landmark just before the second new ball became available with England trying short balls against Shami. It looked like a ploy used when waiting for the new ball, but it brought Shami 16 runs before he ramped Stuart Broad straight to fine third man in the last over of the old ball. Against the new ball, Jadeja tried to attack James Anderson but was bowled.

What followed is hard to decipher. At 375 for 9, with three-over-old ball, Broad began bowling short at Bumrah with a strong field square and behind on the leg side and no slip in place on the off side. It was almost like England had erased Lord's from their minds where Bumrah and Shami made them pay for their short lengths. To make matters worse, Broad bowled five wides and also a no-ball that flew off the top edge for a six. Also Bumrah drove a full toss through the vacant mid-on region, top-edged another four and smacked clean another hook for a six. With one four through midwicket, Bumrah himself landed on his back but middled the shot. The only consolation for England was that Anderson ended the India innings with his 32nd five-wicket haul in Tests.

An absolutely torrid examination followed for England's batters. Under overcast skies, Bumrah found just enough movement and never faltered in his length. To make it worse, he got two rain breaks in his first spell, much like Anderson got one to prolong his afternoon spell on day one.

Two of Bumrah's three wickets came off the seventh and eighth balls of the over at a time when batters might have had reason to be thankful they had played an over out. No, said the third umpire, calling no-balls just in time. Alex Lees failed to cover the angle on a delivery from around the wicket, getting beaten so comprehensively he got both lbw and bowled to it. Of course, bowled takes precedence in such cases.

Both Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope played forgettable shots to get out, driving away from the body to balls that were not nearly full enough. Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer caught them in the slips.


In the final one hour, Shami turned up the heat, constantly troubling Root, which probably drew some loose shots from him. Root tried many tricks to steer Shami off his length, but Shami was persistent. He drove away from the body, he walked at Shami, he shuffled outside the line, and just about survived that Bumrah-Shami interrogation when Mohammed Siraj came on half an hour before stumps.

For that whole over, Root kept trying to late-cut Siraj, but the movement off the pitch kept cramping him up. It was the wobble-seam ball that tends to go like an offcutter for Siraj that kept denying Root, and eventually the last ball of the over seamed in appreciably to take the edge through to Rishabh Pant.

Shami was rewarded for his persistence with the wicket of nightwatchman Jack Leach. Jonny Bairstow, who scored 394 runs at a strike rate of 120.12 against New Zealand, didn't find anything to hit here and ended the day unbeaten on 12 off 47. That should tell you that a batter's intent can't regularly work independent of the quality of bowling and conditions.

[lancsdes]

Looks like Guardian’s reporter agreed with me

“You could even see it in some of the skittish and frankly abysmal strokes Joe Root played before eventually getting out: not so much Root as Root trying to play the character of Root, one of the world’s most nuanced and adaptable batters playing a brainless game of hit-and-thrash”

[Admin]

Best of luck to themm trying to slog their way toa win in this one

ESPN
ndia 416 and 125 for 3 (Pujara 50*, Pant 30*) lead England 284 (Bairstow 106, Billings 36, Siraj 4-66, Bumrah 3-68) by 257 runs

Jonny Bairstow added a new chapter to a glorious summer with a belligerent 106 off 140 balls, but it was India who took control of the Edgbaston Test over the course of an enthralling third day. Their quicks, led by Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami, bowled England out for 284 to secure a first-innings lead of 132, and by stumps, this lead had grown to 257, with seven wickets still in hand, as Cheteshwar Pujara marked his comeback with a rock-solid, unbeaten third-innings half-century.

After both first innings flew along at more than four-and-a-half runs per over, India's second innings followed a far more traditional Test-match pattern as they went to stumps at 125 for 3 after 45 overs. This was down in large part to Pujara's presence at the crease, of course, but every minute he spent out there was precious to India's push to bat England out of the game. Barring a couple of nervy moments, he looked utterly secure - more secure in his defence, possibly, than at any point since the Covid-19 pandemic began.

In this Test match, it has been apparent that Pujara has changed his set-up at the crease to get more side-on, with his front shoulder pointing to the bowler rather than towards mid-on as was the case during the first four Tests of this series in 2021. On Sunday, this seemed to allow him to adjust more easily to late away movement than he has done in recent times. Where he would occasionally get squared up by these deliveries while playing the initial angle - a common pattern in a lot of his dismissals in Australia and England last year - he seemed to be able to play the ball later here, and adjust the angle of his bat face to defend in the direction of the movement.

His leaving was full of certainty too, even against incoming balls in the channel outside off stump, against Stuart Broad in particular. The only time he got into a tangle while leaving was when Ben Stokes bent one into him, late, to strike him on the front pad. A loud shout was turned down, and England's review returned an umpire's call verdict, with ball-tracking suggesting the ball would have gone on to clip the outside edge of off stump.

This moment came soon after Stokes had produced the ball of the innings, which lifted unplayably to kiss Virat Kohli's glove, to end a 32-run third-wicket partnership. Getting Pujara out then could have put India - who at that point led by 218 - under quite a bit of pressure. As it turned out, Pujara and the impish Rishabh Pant saw out the rest of the evening's play, putting on an unbroken 50-run stand for the fourth wicket.


Bumrah and Shami bowled through an engrossing first half hour, and had, by the end of that period, sent down 30 of the innings' 33 overs, thanks to rain and the overnight break giving them frequent periods of rest. Bairstow and Stokes had shown the bowling plenty of respect during this half-hour, and even so had been lucky to survive with the ball moving both ways at pace and beating their edges frequently.

Then came a frenetic period where both batters switched gears. Bairstow did so successfully, hitting six pristinely timed fours in the space of 16 balls to go from 16 off 65 to 50 off 81. Stokes, however, kept offering India chances, only for Shardul Thakur to put him down on 18, off the luckless Shami, and then for Bumrah to put him down on 25, Thakur the bowler on this occasion. Both were straightforward chances. Remarkably, though, Stokes hit Thakur's next ball in the air as well, in the direction once again of Bumrah at mid-off, and this time he plucked out a far more difficult chance, diving to his left, to leave England 149 for 6.

Bairstow kept playing one breathtaking shot after another - highlights included a drive over mid-off off Mohammed Siraj and a pick-up whip off Thakur that bisected long leg and deep square leg - either side of successfully reviewing an lbw given by Aleem Dar off Thakur's bowling. Just as he entered the 90s, though, rain sprinkled down to take the players off the field. Apart from the 40 minutes of the lunch break, which was taken 15 minutes early, a further 35 minutes were lost before play resumed.

When it did, Bairstow rushed to his century, clipping Thakur pristinely between midwicket and a deepish mid-on, and then stabbing him to the point boundary to bring up the landmark. It took him only 119 balls to get there, but it was still the slowest of his three centuries this summer.


Bumrah returned to the attack for a fiery spell during which he beat Sam Billings' bat twice and found his edge once - only for it to fall short of the cordon - in an over before having a loud lbw shout turned down - rightly so, it emerged after he went for the review - when he bent a low full-toss sharply inwards at Bairstow. He gave way to Shami after four overs, and the change brought a wicket instantly, as Bairstow drove away from his body at an outswinger to nick to first slip.

With England six down and still 175 behind, India scented a quick finish to the innings, and they largely achieved this, as Siraj bounced out Broad, bowled Billings off the inside edge, and then had Matthew Potts caught at second slip to complete an odd sort of four-wicket haul.

Siraj was expensive, conceding 66 in 11.3 overs, and threatened the batters far less consistently than Bumrah or Shami, but every bowler enjoys the occasional day when they are far from their best but end up with a big haul. The final wicket came in debatable circumstances too, with Shreyas Iyer grabbing the low chance on the second grab, having first scooped it up from very close to the turf - close enough that the decision may have gone the batter's way had the soft signal been not out rather than out.

[Admin]

Might be me being cynical England’s 4th Test in 5 weeks little recovery period in that time, playing on a regular basis whereas India one warm up game, bowlers look well under cooked
If you play regularly you play better don’t need to rest

[Admin]

No doubt have blsted off the remaining runs before lunch

England 284 and 259 for 3 (Root 76*, Bairstow 72*) need another 119 runs to beat India 416 and 245 (Pujara 66, Pant 57, Stokes 4-33)

England's dream run in fourth-innings chases this summer continued as they got to 259 for 3 in pursuit of 378, a record chase for them if it comes off. Alex Lees and Zak Crawley put together their quickest hundred-run opening stand in Test cricket before Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow repaired a collapse of three wickets for two runs. However, to have that half chance at the target England needed the bowlers to do their job, which they did by taking India's seven standing wickets for an addition of 120 runs to the overnight lead of 257 runs.

When England bowled in the first half of the way, they extracted uneven bounce from the pitch, and Jack Leach found enough assistance to have an analysis of 12-1-28-1, the wicket being the dangerous Rishabh Pant, who became the first India wicketkeeper to score a hundred and a fifty in an overseas Test. The ball didn't do much for India at the start; when they got the ball changed in the 21st over, it brought them three wickets. Root and Bairstow had to be watchful against the reversing ball for a bit, but they still managed to add 150 unbeaten runs at 4.56 an over.

England began the day with James Anderson and Root, perhaps because the latter had got Pant in the first innings, but it looked like the start of a flat spell for England. The first seven overs brought India 27 runs without playing a shot in anger, but Stuart Broad brought them the luck they badly needed. Cheteshwar Pujara, on 50 overnight, cut a short and wide ball straight to backward point to be dismissed for 66.

This opening paved the way for a hostile spell from Matthew Potts, who peppered Shreyas Iyer with the short ball before having him caught at square midwicket. Immediately Ben Stokes brought on Jack Leach, who has been cannon fodder for Pant in Test cricket. Pant swept him for four first ball. When Leach began his next over, he had conceded 151 runs to Pant in 97 balls in Test cricket. Off the second ball of the over, Pant tried a revere-sweep to counter his wide defensive lines, but ended up tickling it to slip to be out for 57.

India led by 330 at this moment with four wickets in hand. All through the series, India's lower order has been the thorn in England's side, but on this one final occasion they let England shut the game down.

Ravindra Jadeja kept farming the strike without taking any risks on the first three balls of the over, which India possibly did to give the pitch the best chance to wear down. This also gave England the chance to have attacking fields for the other batters whenever they got strike. Potts had Shardul Thakur caught at long leg with a top edge on the hook, and Stokes continued the short-ball barrage. It was a brave call because the short ball had worked to their detriment at Lord's and in the second innings here. And, for once, it worked as Stokes ended the innings with a reversing length ball to get Jadeja to play on before taking Bumrah out with another bouncer.

Alex Lees got to his half-century off just 44 balls, England vs India, 5th Test, Birmingham, 4th day, July 4, 2022
Alex Lees and Zak Crawley put on 100 runs in only 19.5 overs•Getty Images
England have scored 279 for 5, 299 for 5 and 296 for 3 to win their last three Tests batting last, but this was 378, on an uneven pitch, against a team that had its full first-choice attack. England also had openers who, at least on the outside, looked not certain of their position. What a day they chose to come good.

The positive intent was on show right away. Lees charged at Mohammed Shami the second ball he bowled and got four through midwicket. When India tried Jadeja early, he drilled the first ball of his first over for four through mid-off, reverse-swept for four the last ball of that over, and slog-swept for four the first ball of the next over. Crawley showed much better judgement outside off, making the bowlers bowl at the stumps, and showed how good he is off the pads or down the ground when they did.

They were not batting like batters with Test averages of 25 and 27 nor would it have looked like they were chasing 378 if you had just walked in without knowing the score. The field spread, and the funky shots stopped. Lees kept rotating the strike, and Crawley began improving his strike-rate as he started to get drive balls. India's coach Rahul Dravid was seen chatting to the match referee David Boon, possibly seeking clarification on why the ball was not getting changed for them. As he chatted, he must have seen Crawley drive Thakur through extra cover for four to take England to 80 in just the 17th over.

India finally got the ball changed in the 21st over by which time Lees had brought up his fifty, the first at more than a run a ball for a regular England opener since 2011, and the two had added 106. With the replaced ball, Bumrah brought himself back and produced immediate results. Crawley left outside off as he had been doing, but this ball moved back in late to knock the off bail over.

Ollie Pope fell to the first ball after tea, poking at a shortish one outside off, which held its line. The first ball of the next over brought Lees' wicket, who was caught ball-watching when an inside edge from him had gone behind square. Losing three wickets in the space of three runs, against a ball that was now talking, England needed to stem the tide.

Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow put on an unbroken 150-run stand, England vs India, 5th Test, Birmingham, 4th day, July 4, 2022
Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow put on an unbroken 150-run stand•Getty Images
Root and Bairstow did that and more, but batted positively while doing so. The first bit was difficult for Bairstow with the ball now reversing. He kept fumbling for the ball, aware of his traditional weakness against the one that comes in, but it was when the bowlers switched the shine that he got in trouble. He was 14 when he drove hard at what turned out to be an outswinger, but Hanuma Vihari, for some reason fielding at second slip in place of Shubman Gill or Iyer, dropped him. He was 39 when Pant dived full length to his left but couldn't collect a tickle down the leg side.


Apart from those two chances, Root and Bairstow batted without much bother. Root tried a couple of reverse-sweeps off Jadeja, who bowled over the wicket for the majority of the day, but remained fairly classic in his brisk run-scoring for the rest of the innings. Bairstow, who had scored many of his boundaries by going over the infield in the first innings, appreciated the in-and-out fields and the only shot he played in the air was the pull off Siraj for a flat six.

The innings so far could be divided in three neat phases: the first 20.5 overs for 106 runs and no wicket, the next 15.1 overs when the ball moved and brought India three wickets for 35 runs, and 118 runs in the next 21 overs when the ball went soft. In all India conceded 134 runs in boundaries, the second-most they have given away in the first 57 overs of a fourth innings.

The day began with high probability of souring a memorable summer of chases for England, but it ended as a reminder that this could be India's third straight away defeat despite setting decent targets.

[Admin]

Duly won

England 284 (Bairstow 106, Siraj 4-66, Bumrah 3-68) and 378 for 3 (Root 142*, Bairstow 114*, Lees 56, Crawley 46) beat India 416 (Pant 146, Jadeja 104, Anderson 5-60) and 245 (Pujara 66, Pant 57, Stokes 4-33) by seven wickets

England came to Edgbaston having gunned down targets of 277, 299 and 296 in their last three Test matches. On Tuesday they made it four in a row, pulling off their highest successful chase in Test cricket as Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow completed sparkling unbeaten hundreds, making India's celebrated bowling attack look utterly bereft of ideas in near-perfect batting conditions.




Root sealed victory with a reverse-sweep, a symbolic moment if there ever was one. He played the shot or variants thereof - including a reverse-lap off Shardul Thakur for a six over the slips - four times in the closing overs of the game, as England picked off the last 46 runs of their target in just 34 balls. Pure Bazball.

This has been an unusual summer of relatively flat pitches and an exceedingly flat batch of Dukes balls, but this sequence of audacious chases has come against two of the best fast-bowling attacks in the world - attacks that came to England last year and went away with a 1-0 series win and a 2-1 series lead respectively. A remarkable achievement for Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, the new captain and coach, even if the long-term viability of their all-out-attacking philosophy will be put to test more rigorously in due course, when England play in more bowling-friendly conditons.

England began the last day needing 119, and India needing seven wickets. England had never successfully chased a target of this magnitude, and India had never lost while defending one of this magnitude. Now, venomous early bursts from Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami were India's only way back into the game.


ESPNcricinfo Ltd
A ball-change in the second over of the morning - two balls had gone out of shape in the first 59 overs of England's innings, and the third would also be replaced by the time the match was done - brought India a brief window when the replacement Dukes moved around appreciably, but it didn't translate into a wicket. Bumrah and Shami beat the edges of both batters, and on one occasion Root inside-edged the ball narrowly past his stumps, but the two fast bowlers were also erratic, drifting too wide or too straight, with Shami conceding eight byes in the space of two overs.

These errors were ruthlessly punished, and often even reasonably good balls. Bairstow met an off-stump ball from Bumrah with a full face to punch it between mid-on and midwicket, and Root opened his bat-face late to routinely steer good-length balls in the corridor either side of gully.


One such back-cut brought up Root's 28th hundred in Test cricket, and England were rushing along by this stage, with Root hitting five fours in the space of just four overs. At one stage, it appeared as if Root could dash to the target all by himself; Bairstow had beaten Root to 90, but he was still in the 90s when Root had moved to 135.

Bairstow wouldn't be denied his second hundred of the match, of course, and his fourth in his last five Test innings, getting there with a scampered single after pushing Ravindra Jadeja into the leg side. He celebrated with three back-to-back boundaries in the next over - slapped through point, drilled down the ground, pulled through midwicket - with Mohammed Siraj at the receiving end.

That over, the penultimate over of the match, left Siraj nursing figures of 15-0-98-0. He went for nearly six an over in the first innings too, though there were four wickets to go with it. Thakur, meanwhile, conceded 113 in 18 overs across the two innings while taking just the one wicket. These two were part of an India attack that created sustained pressure on England last summer. On this visit, the two of them and Ravindra Jadeja, who extracted very little from the pitch while bowling a negative line from left-arm over, left Bumrah and Shami carrying too much of a burden to manage by themselves.

[lancsdes]

I believe all our alleged players got ducks in the 2020 international . Lucky Salt not playing!

[Admin]

They lost the first of the mini slog games

[Admin]

Lost the 20/20 series 2-1

[Admin]

India win Day/Night ODI by 5 pm

[Admin]

Lost ODI Series 2-1

[Admin]

50 overs series with SA ended in a draw

[Admin]

Just about to lose the 20/20 series with Livingstone contribution reducing game by game