Test Cricket is Back

[AndyinLiverpool]

Humiliating really.

The decision to give Bess the ball after tea yesterday when the pressure was on India was about as poor a decision I've seen by Root in all his tests as captain (and that's saying something). Completely backfired. The game was lost there and then.

[rynny]

Secret footage of England's latest training session. 

 

 

[rynny]

What a surprise ?

 

[Anag Ram]

Surely in the thousands of hours of net practice he’s had Dom Sibley must have practised a scoring shot other than straight to mid wicket? The other fielders are redundant and he’s awful to watch.

[Gerry Daly]

They haven't shown the slightest intention of trying to get these runs. Rubbish

[AndyinLiverpool]

2 hours ago, Gerry Daly said:

They haven't shown the slightest intention of trying to get these runs. Rubbish

There was no way they were ever going to try to score the runs

[Comrade 86]

3 hours ago, Gerry Daly said:

They haven't shown the slightest intention of trying to get these runs. Rubbish

Test cricket buddy. It's a marathon not a sprint. They've held their own after a rocky start and that's good enough for now. 

On a general note, thought Ollie Robinson had a great game. Saw the media did their best to derail him with their Twitter-Gate nonsense, but he just got his head down and was impressive, I thought. Not too shabby with bat in hand too.

As for the tweets, I'm not terribly tolerant of that kind of silliness but he was a kid when he posted that stuff so not a big deal IMO. Answered his critics in the best possible way.

[Anag Ram]

29 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

Test cricket buddy. It's a marathon not a sprint. They've held their own after a rocky start and that's good enough for now. 

On a general note, thought Ollie Robinson had a great game. Saw the media did their best to derail him with their Twitter-Gate nonsense, but he just got his head down and was impressive, I thought. Not too shabby with bat in hand too.

As for the tweets, I'm not terribly tolerant of that kind of silliness but he was a kid when he posted that stuff so not a big deal IMO. Answered his critics in the best possible way.

Still going to drop him though.

[Comrade 86]

14 minutes ago, Anag Ram said:

Still going to drop him though.

Really? For whom? Not as clued up as the cricket buffs on here but I don't really understand some of the selections. In most other sports, it'd be his place to lose now.

[Mostyn6]

1 hour ago, AndyinLiverpool said:

There was no way they were ever going to try to score the runs

you think all the international England teams in all sports got together and decided to NOT "go for it"?

[Anag Ram]

10 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

Really? For whom? Not as clued up as the cricket buffs on here but I don't really understand some of the selections. In most other sports, it'd be his place to lose now.

Disciplinary 

[Comrade 86]

1 hour ago, Anag Ram said:

Disciplinary 

Yeah, just saw it on the Beeb. Thought you meant it was selectors call.

I guess it's a zero tolerance policy, but I'd also wager there's any number of folk scrubbing down their 10 year old tweets and FB / Insta posts. Good thing we're not all held accountable for every mistake we made as young 'uns. It'd be a long line. Just read the tweets again and they seem immature and ignorant, but not hateful. 

Edited June 6, 2021 by 86 Hair Islands

[maxjam]

Saw this on Sky Sports News last night, who were pushing their zero tolerance approach as usual.  They also mentioned another member of the squad is under investigation for a tweet he made when he was 15 ?

I guess the ECB have to be seen to be doing something but assuming there has been nothing else during the approx 10 years since he posted those tweets, missing the next game is imho punishment enough. 

There was talk of being banned from cricket forever and re-education (re-educating what if he has done nothing during the years since those tweets were made?) which is quite frankly ridiculous and offers no route back - something that even most murderers and rapists are allowed to do in the fullness of time.

 

[JoetheRam]

If one thing's for sure on this, Oliver Dowden and Boris Johnson should keep their noses out and their mouths shut. Let the game deal with it however it sees fit, and we can debate the rights and wrongs all day, but keep the politicians' culture wars out of the sport (and all sport for that matter).

Personally, can't believe the ECB didn't know of these tweets beforehand (given he was sacked by his county for unprofessional behaviour when he was 19 - presume that related to this).  Do some due diligence ECB! Secondly, can't believe some hack has sat on this for 10 years just to make the story as big as it could be when it comes to light - trash journalists/media strike again.

[Anag Ram]

1 hour ago, maxjam said:

Saw this on Sky Sports News last night, who were pushing their zero tolerance approach as usual.  They also mentioned another member of the squad is under investigation for a tweet he made when he was 15 ?

I guess the ECB have to be seen to be doing something but assuming there has been nothing else during the approx 10 years since he posted those tweets, missing the next game is imho punishment enough. 

There was talk of being banned from cricket forever and re-education (re-educating what if he has done nothing during the years since those tweets were made?) which is quite frankly ridiculous and offers no route back - something that even most murderers and rapists are allowed to do in the fullness of time.

 

Whilst I abhor racism and bigotry of any kind, I remember back to being part of a rural village school many years ago which had never seen cultural diversity and I remember the horrid jokes I shared at that time.

I would ask what is the point of BLM if we (majority white) cannot acknowledge our mistakes and move forward to a better, more enlightened future?

If everyone who has ever made a mistake is thrown out of their profession, surely we risk a horrible backlash?

The ECB needs to believe Robinson and any others who come out of the woodwork, are truly apologetic and better educated but he may be a different man now, as I am.

 

[Comrade 86]

14 hours ago, Anag Ram said:

Whilst I abhor racism and bigotry of any kind, I remember back to being part of a rural village school many years ago which had never seen cultural diversity and I remember the horrid jokes I shared at that time.

I would ask what is the point of BLM if we (majority white) cannot acknowledge our mistakes and move forward to a better, more enlightened future?

If everyone who has ever made a mistake is thrown out of their profession, surely we risk a horrible backlash?

The ECB needs to believe Robinson and any others who come out of the woodwork, are truly apologetic and better educated but he may be a different man now, as I am.

 

I think this post states the case very well. I'm mixed race myself hand have next to no tolerance at all for racism but I do think that throwing players under the bus to illustrate their wrongdoing when the body doing so has itself done so little historically seems incredibly hypocritical.

I also think the Robinson tweets, which are the only ones I've seen, are certainly at the bottom end of the scale in any case. Childish and insensitive but surely not much more.

I now understand that Eoin Morgan, James Anderson and Jos Buttler are also being investigated so it seems this will rumble on and on. It does rather seem the names are being drip-fed by the press, which it so typical of the profession these days. One can only wonder what the coming days will bring.

[AndyinLiverpool]

On 08/06/2021 at 09:34, JoetheRam said:

If one thing's for sure on this, Oliver Dowden and Boris Johnson should keep their noses out and their mouths shut. Let the game deal with it however it sees fit, and we can debate the rights and wrongs all day, but keep the politicians' culture wars out of the sport (and all sport for that matter).

Personally, can't believe the ECB didn't know of these tweets beforehand (given he was sacked by his county for unprofessional behaviour when he was 19 - presume that related to this).  Do some due diligence ECB! Secondly, can't believe some hack has sat on this for 10 years just to make the story as big as it could be when it comes to light - trash journalists/media strike again.

Given Johnson's previous on the topic of race, I wonder if his intervention might have the opposite effect from the one he intended.

[sage]

I think he will just miss one Test, which would be appropriate IMO. Learn and improve.   

[Comrade 86]

Woeful from England yet again. I had such high hopes for Crawley after his maiden double century against Pakistan as his technique looked so sound. I'm not sure what's gone wrong since but he seems to need time away from Test Cricket to rediscover some form. I'm still of the opinion that we've played far too much cricket in the last 18 months and that the entire team needs freshening up, not that that can happen. 

[Jimbo Ram]

36 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

Woeful from England yet again. I had such high hopes for Crawley after his maiden double century against Pakistan as his technique looked so sound. I'm not sure what's gone wrong since but he seems to need time away from Test Cricket to rediscover some form. I'm still of the opinion that we've played far too much cricket in the last 18 months and that the entire team needs freshening up, not that that can happen. 

Obviously we are missing some key players but the current batting line up is reminiscent of Derbyshire in the championship….