• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Well done to this man …

Indeed,
Unlikely to happen but wouldn’t it be great to see them pile on enough runs tomorrow and bowl ‘em out on the 5th day.
 
Yip, good effort. Bit of a road at present, may crack up, but to be honest looks like a draw. Root is no. 5 now in total Test runs scored.
 
Brook has proved to be quite handy too. I doubt I have scored 317 runs in my entire life.

And the other Pakistan seem to have turned up today to bat (and one of the Pakistanis - Abrar I think - is in hospital just now) . We shall see…
 
I once played in a match which went 500, 700, 200-1........the most boring game of my life (Essex V Leicester, Chelmsford). This test isn't following that pattern.
 
TrimTheKing said:
Bet the groundsman was popular with you and the bowlers in that one eh!
Click to expand...
We had two "draw"-pitches in a row, at home, at the end of the season, and only finished second in the championship as a result. He was taken on one side by the powers-that-be......
 
Can I refer the learned folks here to a respose I gave earlier
AndyP said:
Indeed,
Unlikely to happen but wouldn’t it be great to see them pile on enough runs tomorrow and bowl ‘em out on the 5th day.
Click to expand...
Us pessimists are rarely disappointed.

I nearly fell off my chair when Woakes took that wicket.
 
Mike G said:
I once played in a match which went 500, 700, 200-1........the most boring game of my life (Essex V Leicester, Chelmsford). This test isn't following that pattern.
Click to expand...
Were you keeping wicket then? I can see that could be a bit trying. Good workout for the glutes though.

Still there are worse experiences on a cricket field. You’ve not seen some of my bowling spells. Boring? No. Depressing? Yes. I believe I have bowled twice against a certain MAA. Once against MGS (schools match) and once at college. The results were predictable.

Oh, and Blackswanwood, they did comment on the radio that the odds were in the '81 Headingley region.
 
Tiresias said:
Were you keeping wicket then? I can see that could be a bit trying
Click to expand...
Yes, and yes. When everyone playing knew by the end of the second day that it would be a draw, it was probably a bit trying for everyone other than the batsmen. I think Jon Agnew sat in a deck chair on the field, momentarily, and kept having to be put back in position as he kept trying to stand in the shade at fine leg.
 
Mike G said:
Yes, and yes. When everyone playing knew by the end of the second day that it would be a draw, it was probably a bit trying for everyone other than the batsmen. I think Jon Agnew sat in a deck chair on the field, momentarily, and kept having to be put back in position as he kept trying to stand in the shade at fine leg.
Click to expand...
That reminds me of going with a friend to watch his dad play on a Sunday afternoon. He fielded on the boundary and we had to stay nearby to hold his beer if he needed to do anything. It was Grappenhall Cricket Club which is probably known to Mark - hopefully it's still going strong. Neil Fairbrother started out there.
 
Blackswanwood said:
That reminds me of going with a friend to watch his dad play on a Sunday afternoon. He fielded on the boundary and we had to stay nearby to hold his beer if he needed to do anything. It was Grappenhall Cricket Club which is probably known to Mark - hopefully it's still going strong. Neil Fairbrother started out there.
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Yep, literally 300 yards from my house and very much still going strong.

Neil is, well was, a regular visitor as his dad Les was a big part of the club until his passing in 2019. I went down to the club to raise a pint to him and was more than taken aback to see, alongside Neil, there was Root, Broad, Stokes, Collingwood and Buttler all up at the pavilion paying their respects.

Because of Neil's association to the club Sky actually televised a charity match there a few years back, putting up a temporary stand among other things. https://grappers.co.uk/legends-day-2013.html

I've played one match for the over 40's, turning out after someone dropped out last minute. I only fielded, took two catches, dropped three, then ran out the oppo's top batsmen from one of the dropped catches! I retired after that appearance!

For a small village club there have been a few players turned out for Lancs, as well as a few Aussies who've come over in their youth to find themselves, notably a 17 year old Steve Smith, who never hit a ball after being take to the local and got so blind drunk he got the plane home a week after landing...! :ROFLMAO:

https://www.warringtonguardian.co.u...ralia-batsman-steve-smiths-grappenhall-spell/

grappers.co.uk

History

The Early Years Grappenhall Cricket Club played its first game in 1881 on a ground in Bellhouse Lane. The club moved to its current home of Broad Lane in 1892 with a new clubhouse. There have been...
grappers.co.uk grappers.co.uk
 
TrimTheKing said:
Yep, literally 300 yards from my house and very much still going strong.

Neil is, well was, a regular visitor as his dad Les was a big part of the club until his passing in 2019. I went down to the club to raise a pint to him and was more than taken aback to see, alongside Neil, there was Root, Broad, Stokes, Collingwood and Buttler all up at the pavilion paying their respects.

Because of Neil's association to the club Sky actually televised a charity match there a few years back, putting up a temporary stand among other things. https://grappers.co.uk/legends-day-2013.html

I've played one match for the over 40's, turning out after someone dropped out last minute. I only fielded, took two catches, dropped three, then ran out the oppo's top batsmen from one of the dropped catches! I retired after that appearance!

For a small village club there have been a few players turned out for Lancs, as well as a few Aussies who've come over in their youth to find themselves, notably a 17 year old Steve Smith, who never hit a ball after being take to the local and got so blind drunk he got the plane home a week after landing...! :ROFLMAO:

https://www.warringtonguardian.co.u...ralia-batsman-steve-smiths-grappenhall-spell/

grappers.co.uk

History

The Early Years Grappenhall Cricket Club played its first game in 1881 on a ground in Bellhouse Lane. The club moved to its current home of Broad Lane in 1892 with a new clubhouse. There have been...
grappers.co.uk grappers.co.uk
Click to expand...
I’d forgotten about Duncan Martindale (he’s from Thelwall not Grappenhall IIRC though) and I met my wife in the Mulberry Tree!
 
Well that was a turnip for the books. As Zaltz said, ‘that is a record number of records’. And most commentators were still saying the pitch was a flat deck.

I dunno. I almost preferred watching England in the late 80s and 90s, when you were sure they would extract defeat from the jaws of victory. Stoicism and a sort of gallows humour. Now you just don’t know. False hopes dashed are always more poignant. And I know I am Scottish, and shouldn’t support England. But I do.

Bet the next pitch is a bit greener.
 
Tiresias said:
Bet the next pitch is a bit greener.
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I might be wrong, but I think the next pitch is in the same stadium, so it's unlikely to be terribly different. Pakistan doesn't really do "green", but I wouldn't be surprised if it were to turn a lot more....or at leasty, a lot earlier.
 
Yeah, same venue in a few days’ time. 15th I think. It was reported that the next strip was being watered a lot. Hence… But I see what you are saying, it is most unlikely to be a true green top.. It’s only a three test series. Interesting to see if they change their team.
 
Mike G said:
I might be wrong, but I think the next pitch is in the same stadium, so it's unlikely to be terribly different. Pakistan doesn't really do "green", but I wouldn't be surprised if it were to turn a lot more....or at leasty, a lot earlier.
Click to expand...

Cricinfo:

‘Pakistan are set to use the same pitch twice in a row in Multan as they look to respond to their innings defeat against England. Industrial-sized fans were set up at either end of the pitch as both teams held optional training sessions on Sunday after it was heavily watered by groundstaff in the aftermath of the first Test’.

So the reports were right about the heavy watering, but not to make it greener. With the fans, I’m assuming they are hoping the used strip will deteriorate. Seems a bit cheeky, but, hey.

And Scotland vs England (WT20WC) in a few minutes. I’m not sure I’m feeling particularly confident.
 
Watering in Pakistan isn't going to make it any greener or livlier. In fact, watering in hot countries can deaden the pitch, if such a thing were possible with this one. Clearly if they are going to use a used pitch (I didn't think that was allowed in Test cricket. It isn't in County cricket), they will be hoping/ expecting it to turn. Expect Pakistan to include another spinner in their squad.......and expect the boundaries to be put back to where they should be, on the edge of the field.
 
Mike G said:
Watering in Pakistan isn't going to make it any greener or livlier. In fact, watering in hot countries can deaden the pitch, if such a thing were possible with this one. Clearly if they are going to use a used pitch (I didn't think that was allowed in Test cricket. It isn't in County cricket), they will be hoping/ expecting it to turn. Expect Pakistan to include another spinner in their squad.......and expect the boundaries to be put back to where they should be, on the edge of the field.
Click to expand...

The greener comment was the opinion of the Telegraph I think. Nick Hoult. Never having played in Pakistan, I will, of course, defer to your knowledge.

Re the strip

Cricinfo again:

‘ICC's pitch regulations only require the "best possible pitch and outfield conditions" with no stipulations that the surface must be fresh or unused’.

As usual a bit open to interpretation.
 
I'm ignorant and confused. Surely the pitch is the same for both sides as they both have to bat and bowl on it? I can see that it might be a bit different between innings, but surely they can't alter it much in a day or so. The bit between the wickets always looks near dead anyway.
 
The pitch IS the same for both sides, but the sides are brought up in very different conditions. Dead flat and lifeless is not something we see often in England, so our bowlers aren't so well equipped to deal with those conditions. We also don't have too many slow-low-turners, but Pakistani cricketers are brought up on them. So their batsmen have tended to be better players of spin than ours, and their spinners have tended to be better than ours. A lifeless pitch neutralises our main bowling strength: fast bowlers who extract a bit of movement through swing and seam.

Cricket is all about subtleties.......and the subtlety of trying have a surface which suits the home team's strengths but yet which falls within the stipulations of the ICC is only one of them. These are fine margins. Rafa Nadal was the king of clay, but this amounted to being only a tiny percent better than Djokovic or Federer on that surface. If Spain hosted a Davis cup match during Nadal's era, it would only ever be on clay........whereas if Switzerland hosted such a match during Federer's era, it would have been on a faster hard court, or on grass. Each match would be played by two players facing the same surface, but the slight advantage given by one surface or another would be exploited by the home team.
 
OK. Thank you. I'm wondering how the groundsman at your club created a "draw" pitch. This suggests he somehow usually created conditions for bowlers that were very predictable for the home team but hard to understand for the visitors. There must be a black art to this.
 
It’s a tricky one for the England team.

Stokes obviously comes back in but who does he replace as Carse seemed to justify being selected.
 
I think England will leave out Chris Woakes for Ben Stokes. I assume much of the bowling in the next test will be done by spinners, so Woakes wouldn't do much work anyway, and Stokes could do some of that.
 
One can only hope that injury does not affect Stokes who I think could be a risk if England have to spend 2 or 3 days in the field.
 
I think there is also an argument to give
AndyP said:
One can only hope that injury does not affect Stokes who I think could be a risk if England have to spend 2 or 3 days in the field.
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I agree.

It feels like winning the toss on this one could give quite an advantage also.
 
Stokes, Potts replace Woakes, Atkinson in England XI.

I did see some people have reservations on how much bowling Stokes might do.
 
Lure them into a very real sense of security?

But try IND vs NZ. Well did you evah ?
 
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