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*Official* 1st Test at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai, 05 - 09 Feb 2021

BSM

U19 Cricketer
The combination for third test will be interesting, it's a day-night game, and both sides might be tempted to go with 3 seamers.
Assuming you mean that England would add an extra seamer making it four with Stokes, I'm not sure if that would necessarily be the right route. The pink ball hasn't been used yet in India has it? Bit of an unknown quantity and though it will more than likely seam/swing a bit more through the air and offer a bit less for the spinners, you might find yourself bowling on a dust bowl on day 4/5 and wishing that you had more spinning options. I think Stokes as the third seamer and both Broad and Anderson together would be ideal. I imagine India will add Shami in place of the 2nd spinner (whoever that will be in the 2nd test), if back from injury, and/or potentially Pandya in the all rounder position. In their case, it would probably a lot safer to have Ashwin as the only mainline spinner, than England going with just Leach.
 

sunilz

International Regular
He himself explained it in an earlier post - Sachin fans, MSD fans, Rohit fans. Sunilz ticks at least 2 of these boxes, he does not like MSD much either, from what I have seen. Maybe he is just a Mumbai fanboi.

Starting to think @sunilz is actually Sunil Gavaskar. :ph34r: ?
All I know is that unless Kohli quits captaincy , India won't win any important trophy because his attitude and temperament won't allow him to take a correct decision and keep the team calm and composed in crucial moments
 

Arachnodouche

International Captain
All I know is that unless Kohli quits captaincy , India won't win any important trophy because his attitude and temperament won't allow him to take a correct decision and keep the team calm and composed in crucial moments
But buddy you've made your point ad nauseam. Why blow a haemorrhoid over something that's not happening?
 

karan_fromthestands

State Captain
Assuming you mean that England would add an extra seamer making it four with Stokes, I'm not sure if that would necessarily be the right route. The pink ball hasn't been used yet in India has it? Bit of an unknown quantity and though it will more than likely seam/swing a bit more through the air and offer a bit less for the spinners, you might find yourself bowling on a dust bowl on day 4/5 and wishing that you had more spinning options. I think Stokes as the third seamer and both Broad and Anderson together would be ideal. I imagine India will add Shami in place of the 2nd spinner (whoever that will be in the 2nd test), if back from injury, and/or potentially Pandya in the all rounder position. In their case, it would probably a lot safer to have Ashwin as the only mainline spinner, than England going with just Leach.
Isn't there a certain period in day-night games where the visibility of the ball is an issue and fast bowlers are able to just run through the oppositions, I am not sure if the case will be the same in India. Plus, dew will also be a factor, so this is going to be tricky for both the teams.
 

Groundking

International Debutant
Assuming you mean that England would add an extra seamer making it four with Stokes, I'm not sure if that would necessarily be the right route. The pink ball hasn't been used yet in India has it? Bit of an unknown quantity and though it will more than likely seam/swing a bit more through the air and offer a bit less for the spinners, you might find yourself bowling on a dust bowl on day 4/5 and wishing that you had more spinning options. I think Stokes as the third seamer and both Broad and Anderson together would be ideal. I imagine India will add Shami in place of the 2nd spinner (whoever that will be in the 2nd test), if back from injury, and/or potentially Pandya in the all rounder position. In their case, it would probably a lot safer to have Ashwin as the only mainline spinner, than England going with just Leach.
Plus Leach and Bess are both handy with the bat, certainly better than both Anderson and Archer and whilst Broad has Meme potential more often than not he's a rabbit in headlights too.
 
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Father Time

School Boy/Girl Cricketer
Feeling rather pleased with that. The selection mostly as expected. The toss vital. Big first innings runs, thanks again to Captain Joe. So pleased to see him finally coming good again. For us I think Lawrence is a problem, Burns a concern, but we have Crawley & Bairstow to come back, strengthening our batting. I was never worried about the spinners. We have a very tight unit who fight really hard for each other. Silverwood has applied a dose of Test match reality to a poorly led side & deserves much credit. I felt comfortable with Joe's declaration as I personally respect the huge ability in that Indian side. They will come at us hard next time & if they win the next toss it will be game on for real. A joy to watch it here in lockdown UK.
 

Howe_zat

Audio File
A batman caught on the boundary to a fingerspinner is pretty nice.

I don't think India had any realistic chance of chasing this down. What happened at the Gabba, and then at Chattogram, were freak incidents. Kohli and Gill batted well but, as @Howe_zat used to say, there is always one big partnership in the 4th innings that makes you think they might win the game. Once that's broken sides collapse.

Being able to bat for 2 days is what won England the game. Yes it's a flat pitch but India has won games bowling first on surfaces like this before. Nadeem and Sundar didn't bowl well, England (mainly Root) batted well, and India's only solution was to bowl dry. They could have bowled England out sooner if they took all their chances offered and bowled a bit tighter, but it is what it is.
Who the hell are you
 

Howe_zat

Audio File
Proper thoughts:

1. Seems obvious to me that England won on first innings, as evidenced by the fact that the second innings was done under no pressure at all. England were bowled out for 178 and it helped. That's why you don't enforce the follow on unless you absolutely have to - you can basically do no wrong. I'm sure if I look back in this thread there'll be a bunch of genuis takes on 'mindset' and other gibberish that doesn't hold up to reality at all, and the sooner Michael Vaughan is stoned in the street the better.

2. Root's runs are the obvious difference between the sides and it's hard to see us doing what we did if he'd copped a good one from Bumrah like Lawrence did. But I'll throw in a mention for Dom Sibley because without that partnership the innings would have been a hell of a lot shorter if not necessarily hugely bereft of runs and that was crucial to the advantage the toss gave us. A few people were comparing the test in Chennai last time out, but a more apt comparison is the test in Rajkot where we got plenty first up but shared the best two days to bat with India, who put up a good score in reply and then easily had enough left in the tank to draw the game. We gave ourselves the best of the conditions and it paid off.

3. Our spinners are still highly inconsisent, Dom Bess has taken 17 wickets this year and I think he's celebrated about 5 of them. This was a fantastic performance and I won't take it away from them but we will have some very bad days on this tour.

4. Regardless of what happens from here on it's a massive improvement on the last tour.

5. I love Mo, I really do, but his absence does make for a surprisingly normal looking England team. Top six batsmen with an allrounder, keeper at seven, two spinners two seamers. That said, Weird Stuff happens when you stay in India. By the end of the series I still half expect Stokes to open the bowling with Wood, Root to bowl first change, Adil Rashid to be a specialist no.10 batsman and Moeen to bat at three.
 
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grecian

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I mainly only liked the post for the vision of Vaughan being stoned in the street, but still welcome back.

Yet the entire we need to declare earlier, enforce follow-ons, blahblahblah, mindset, intent thing is so unutterably tedious, just dominating the cricket convo. Apparently Shane Warne was laughing at us yesterday, what great shame that was for us as a cricketing nation, just slightly salved by us thrashing a team that just mullered Warne's Oz in their backyard.
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
I mainly only liked the post for the vision of Vaughan being stoned in the street, but still welcome back.
There is a line of thought that Vaughan must be stoned whenever he broadcasts some of his sillier opinions; there can be no other logical reason.
 

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