Comments on: Stuart Broad says England’s all-out attack will involve a fair bit of defence

By: Bert

Bert — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 11:00:50 +0000

In reply to Tim. Yes, outrageous. How could you confuse me for someone who might make that sort of mistake?

By: Sam

Sam — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:04:14 +0000

In reply to Tim. Outrageous. How many times do we have to point out, it’s ‘fewer’!

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 21:43:41 +0000

Seconded all. Except to say that, in the seething cauldron (?) of the BBC Sport comments section, I have seen the occasional person say “if England had played more ‘sensibly’, they would have got out just as quickly, just for less runs”. Maybe that was you Bert!

By: Ged Ladd

Ged Ladd — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 19:40:27 +0000

In reply to Bert.

KP’s chuntering on that topic was especially dim. “What is he trying to say?” asked Daisy. “I haven’t the faintest idea”, I replied.

I agree wholeheartedly with Bert. England’s best chance is to play the way they have been playing. That chance is reduced by the narrow loss today, but certainly not extinguished.

What a test match. And the mouthwatering possibility of several more like that.

By: Sam

Sam — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:41:36 +0000

In reply to Bert. Well said. Let them chunter. We’re all having a lovely time.

By: Bert

Bert — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 16:07:17 +0000

In all the discussions around Bazball, whether or not it is the “right” way to play test cricket, nobody seems to have suggested that for this England team, it is the ONLY way to play test cricket. That is, if they were to try to play Australia at normal test cricket, they would be more, not less, likely to lose.

In this test, we have given ourselves a chance to win. If we lose, that will be entirely forgotten in all the chuntering about the first innings declaration. It would have been worth at least 50 runs, apparently. The median and mode first innings score for England’s last two wickets in the last three years are actually 28. That might be the difference, but a) we’ll never know because Australia can only win by wickets, and b) England might not have got those 28 runs anyway. What they did was roll the dice, gave themselves a chance.

I suspect (hope) that while there might be chuntering in the shires, the response in the dressing room to a defeat here will be a resounding meh. That might just be McCullum’s greatest gift to English cricket.