Cricket Thread - England win T20 World Cup

[Gabe]

22 minutes ago, milko said:

Rough on Afridi that. What a win though! First men's team to hold ODI and T20 world cup trophies at the same time! And somehow that was Ben Stokes first IT20 50!?

 

My VPN was rubbish, the sound was about a delivery ahead of the picture throughout, but so worth it all the same.

Did you not have access to Channel 4?

 

14 minutes ago, feltmonkey said:

I don't think there's any athlete in any team sport in the world who is as good when it really matters as Ben Stokes.

His mental fortitude is unbelievable. He really does seem to thrive on the biggest stage and his composure when the run-rate was climbing around the 14th/15th overs is just incredible.

 

And what a performance from Jordan in the last 2 matches, too, to step in after Wood's injury (who was having a good tournament himself).

Just wonderful to see.

[earlymodernsteve]

The England team is full of calm heads who turn up in the big matches. The batting depth is insane (Livingstone in at 7 with Curran to follow) and the bowlers know their roles. Whilst it wasn't a swashbuckling classic of a final (ground was too big for high score) it was a good close match that hinged on a couple of key moments. Stokes is a machine though.

[milko]

27 minutes ago, Gabe said:

Did you not have access to Channel 4?

 

I'm in Germany so I did but only via All4 and the same VPN, it was locked otherwise. I dunno, there's something kinda nice about huddling around a laptop with a dodgy stream when you're trying to watch a big game overseas.

[gospvg]

Great batting by England. Pakistan needed 20 more runs and injured Shaheen did not help the bowling attack.

[Sirloin]

I mean that was great and all, but if Afridi hadn’t got injured could you see Stokes hitting those boundaries against him? And he’s great when it counts apart from when he got twatted all over the shop the last time we were in a T20 final. Glad Curran got player of the tournament, he was outstanding right throughout.

[Timmo]

18 minutes ago, Sirloin said:

And he’s great when it counts apart from when he got twatted all over the shop the last time we were in a T20 final. Glad Curran got player of the tournament, he was outstanding right throughout.

Ah come on, his good in high pressure situations far, far outweighs his bad. 

[Sirloin]

It was a pressure situation because the run rate had gone from 6 an over when he came in to almost 10 as he was 10 off 30 or whatever. Dealing with the pressure well for me would have been killing the game without relying on Afridi getting a freak injury. He’s like MS Dhoni, creates the drama and then gets praised for the times he gets out of it and doesn’t get criticised for when he doesn’t.

[gospvg]

Glad the final went ahead and did not get ruined by the weather. England played well and were the better team on the day.

[Sirloin]

Good innings from Malan but we’re going to lose this heavily.

[feltmonkey]

Why are these ODIs against Australia even happening? The T20 final was less than a week ago. There was always going to be an "after the lord mayor's show" feeling about these matches, and it's hardly surprising that only one of the teams involved have been able to get themselves up for the matches. I'm surprised by how many of the WC final team are involved for England.

[Gabe]

I think they have a long white-ball break after these until about March or something, don't they?

 

But yeah, it's a silly time to stage some games and I imagine none of the England players are really a le to get that energy back from last week and all just want to go home. Except for those in the test side who have a couple of weeks before those matches start. 

[Stopharage]

Wakes up.
Turns cricket on. 
Sees score. 
Turns cricket off. 

[Sirloin]

England know this isn’t a T20? Some crazy hitting.

[Sirloin]

Fastest century by an England opener after being wrongly given out on 99. All very exciting.

[milko]

Apparently England had more runs after 14 overs than Pakistan had in the T20 final. Considering how dodgy our openers have been for ages, how's this happening?! Amazing start. 

[Stopharage]

This truly is the end times. 
 

When was the last time both openers got centuries? 

[feltmonkey]

Some real Bazballing going on this morning.

[Timmo]

The highest scoring first innings first day ever if what I’ve read is correct. And Stokes in demonic form. This is crazy. 

[feltmonkey]

2 minutes ago, Timmo said:

The highest scoring first innings first day ever if what I’ve read is correct. And Stokes in demonic form. This is crazy. 

 

It is, and they were three short of the record for the most runs scored by a team in one day. 

 

What you have to bear in mind as we boggle at these records is that fifteen overs were lost due to bad light. 

 

What could they have done if they'd had the full 90 overs? If they had continued at the same run-rate they would have scored 607.

[Gotters]

BBC say it's England record first session score in a test, and now is the highest first day total for anybody and fastest ever to 500 for any team.

 

Insane.

[Sirloin]

Good solid base for Livingstone and Jacks to come in and really hit out as well.

[feltmonkey]

Yeah, they were starting to accelerate towards the end of the day. 

 

We should give some credit to Ben Duckett for the sensible, restrained anchor role he played earlier in the day. He provided the platform by batting relatively conservatively, only scoring 107 off 110 deliveries.

[Gabe]

What's the point of even playing on a pitch like this? 1,000 runs inside 5 sessions is just ridiculous.

[Sirloin]

Bet Pakistan chase this.

[footle]

23 hours ago, Gabe said:

What's the point of even playing on a pitch like this? 1,000 runs inside 5 sessions is just ridiculous.

to be fair, Pakistan have only batted at standard test match speed.

and, sirloin, the whole point is that Pakistan can chase it (and presumably will)

[Sirloin]

Then that’s a fucking stupid declaration. 50 more runs and 6 more overs of whatever and it becomes much less likely but still gettable. Only need three and a half here.

[footle]

22 minutes ago, Sirloin said:

Then that’s a fucking stupid declaration. 50 more runs and 6 more overs of whatever and it becomes much less likely but still gettable. Only need three and a half here.

we know nothing.

[feltmonkey]

I love England's utter commitment to this Bazball thing.  They seem to play cricket as if their main intent is to troll everyone who disagrees with their philosophy. The more people say, "well it's entertaining but they should dial it back and be a bit more sensible" the more extreme they get.

 

This is a brilliant declaration. On this pitch, there's no point batting the other side out of the game because if you're only batting for a draw, that's not going to be difficult to do. They might lose, but they've ensured that there's going to be a result, and they're right in there with a chance of being on the right side of it.

[footle]

4 minutes ago, feltmonkey said:

I love England's utter commitment to this Bazball thing.  They seem to play cricket as if their main intent is to troll everyone who disagrees with their philosophy. The more people say, "well it's entertaining but they should dial it back and be a bit more sensible" the more extreme they get.

 

This is a brilliant declaration. On this pitch, there's no point batting the other side out of the game because if you're only batting for a draw, that's not going to be difficult to do. They might lose, but they've ensured that there's going to be a result, and they're right in there with a chance of being on the right side of it.

if you were there watching it then you’d rather see Pakistan chasing the game and not just blocking for 80 overs.
In the long run the only people this result really impacts is the other teams in the WTC wanting to beat Pakistan to the final: England are already well out of it.

[feltmonkey]

Now we've got Jimmy Anderson bowling a maiden of all bouncers. Embrace the silliness!