https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/44281297

Interesting article. For what it’s worth I’d sack Bayliss regardless of what happens at Headingley or at least remove him from test duties. Last 10 games LDLLDLLLWL (barely competing in any) plus the wider picture of 3 years of steady decline. Revolving door of players. Too many woeful test performances now.

I’d also play more test matches and bin off the vast majority of nonsense cricket. After this match on Friday we don’t play test cricket again until August 1st. So basically the entire months of June and July we’re only playing white ball cricket. 5 ODIs vs Australia, 3 ODIs vs India 1 t20 vs Australia and 3 t20s vs India. No doubt we’ll trot out the underprepared excuse as find ourselves 100/5 come August. 

Quite right Beefy botham. Hit the nail on the head there. 

When we tour the excuse is we don’t prepare well enough. Now we’re at home we are still the underprepared team with Pakistan playing the Irish at malahide and Leicestershire. So where our lads are either faffing about in IPL for their bank balance or being rested. As beefy said about finding time, there is time to play county championship if you make time. Plus normal people have harder jobs.

14 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

I wouldnt miss t20 cricket at all. Like watching it but much prefer watching 5 days of cricket. 

Dont see t20 going anywhere tho. 

I think England problems are down to more than t20 but its a factor..another factor is the quality of county cricket and players  

No t20 isn’t going anywhere. 

Doesn’t help the county championship when potential test quality players like Deirdre and Hales officially withdraw from red ball cricket. Then other players like Roy, Buttler, etc effectively withdraw from it through their actions of pimping themselves out to the highest bidder all over the world.

I do fear for the future of real cricket. 

5 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

Do we prefer test cricket or one day cricket or twenty20 cricket?

Myself I prefer Test Cricket. always have. 

 

I personally like all forms (excluding this city team 100 ball thing which I’m not prepared to give a chance) but massively prefer test cricket and county championship over t20/50 overs. For me it’s the difference between fine dining and a Big Mac meal. Although with weekend scheduling I’m far more likely to attended white ball cricket. 

In importance I view the formats as the difference between football 11 a-side and 5 a-side. Nice to win owt but know what I’d prefer to win. But suspect in the minority as sadly t20 taking over and watching the impatience of England’s first innings in this game it’s probably infected test cricket beyond repair.

I must admit though don’t tgink I’d shed a tear if t20 was to vanish from the game. 

Sri Lanka cricket are profiteering again for the test series in November. Locals will be charged £1.50 and England fans £50 per day providing purchase all 5 days with seemingly no refunds for days lost to weather or even an early finish. 

In Galle in 2012 locals then paid £1 and we were charged £25 when only a few months earlier the Australians were charged £5. Travelling watching cricket abroad you get used to an “English tax” and being viewed as cash cows but must admit this one rankles. 

Suppose someone has to pay for the Sri Lankan players 30% pay rise. But I suspect there’ll be more people watching for free from the fort in Galle than in the ground this time round. Too late for those of us who have already booked flights/accommodation but I wonder if its a bit shortsighted by putting off folk from going. 

Good start by lancs. 

I do like this opening partnership. One tall one tiny. One lefty one righty. One aggressive one more considered. Can make it torrid for the bowler if constantly changing line and length  

Lancs chucked that away other day. Have to win games from good positions.

The question I asked is about the make up of the team. We had at least one too many bowlers. Why did we need 3 specialist spinners plus livi and Croft. Theoretically 50 overs of spin possible. Between them Parry and Lilley bowled 6 overs for 0 wickets and got 16 runs between them. The former coming in at 10 the latter 7. 

An extra batsman like brown could have taken either ones place. Or even 2 batsmen might have got lancs over the line with no real loss to the bowling attack  

No idea why but annually in this tournament it’s as though we’ve been given a few hours notice that there’s a game on and frantically assemble a side of players who we can locate.

5 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

Hameed's form has fallen off a cliff, so it looks as if he'll be learning his trade at county level for the forseeable (if he can even get into the Lancs team!).

 

I’d be astonished if he’s not in the lancs 2nd xi for the next cc game vs Essex let alone England. Think lancs will bring in Jones for a top 3 of Jennings, Davies and jones. Even Karl brown notched 150 ish for the 2nds.

Hameed hasn’t been the same since he broke his finger. But I reckon it could be a mental thing. Sadly being to tough out dips in form is what makes average players good players and good players great ones. For now at least he doesn’t seem to have that in his locker and has been awful for over a year now. 

Before I start I’ll add the caveat England are capable of losing to anyone (eg Iceland).

But I would like to think England will beat both Tunisia and Panama. In which case in my opinion the game vs Belgium becomes a dead rubber because we will face either Columbia or Poland (or worse) in the next round much of amuchness. Won’t be putting my house on it but would like to think we beat either of those. But after that it’s Germany or Brazil and goodnight. If even get that far.

Let’s hope better get out of the group this time. 

Livermore!! Jesus wept hope that’s wrong. How deep is this barrel we’re scraping. He could be a sizeable nail in the coffin of my interest in this World Cup. 

I appreciate Leach broke his thumb yesterday but this Bess has only taken 1 wicket this season. Ed Smith is scraping a deep barrel here.

I’m not a fan of England taking Lancashire’s players before they’re ready but if the logic is he bats a bit Livi has taken 7 or so wickets and he’s a very part time spinner.

As for Buttler he’s clearly a talent but can you go from exclusively playing t20 cricket to test cricket with no red ball game time. We shall see...

1 hour ago, gumboots said:

Why doesn't this come with a health warning? I'm scrolling down reading and nearly choked on my cuppa at that picture

I know that porcine face enough to put anyone off their breakfast.

I know the lad who wrote it. As he’s leaving  for pastures new his boss let him write a purely rovers article even though it’s a London pape aimed at Londoners. He said his opinions were edited down to avoid potentially being sued by Jerome Anderson. And think they removed mrs d reference of “the bitch is back”. 

Perhaps understandably he was getting digs from colleagues that no one would read it. The nos aren’t huge obviously but he said it was 4th on the most read list and definitely winding a few up. They were struggling to comprehend why their business stories hasn’t done as well as a Lancastrian football team in a paper centred on London business. 

Very good win for Lancs and out of the relegation zone. Big win psychologically as wont play again in the cc until mid June.

Until today the last division one away win was April 2014 and first away win in either division for 3 years. 

I’d go much the same with 23 of:

Pickford, butland, pope

Stones, maguire, Jones, tarkowski, Gomez

Bertrand, Rose, trippier, Walker

Ox, alli, llalana, Henderson, dier, lingard, wilshire,

Sterling, rashford, Kane, Vardy.

Few of those wouldn’t be disappointed to see miss out to be fair.

In general I’ve never known such an apathy towards a World Cup. Might change as gets closer but seems as though your average fan would much rather watch premier league drudgery over international drudgery. 

Not sure why the prem is all conquering considering once got through the small elite the teams on regular display are the likes of Burnley, Bournemouth, palace, wba, Huddersfield, Southampton, Stoke, Brighton, Leicester, Swansea, West Ham. Yawn. 

http://www.cityam.com/285601/their-way-back-blackburn-rovers-championship-bound-but-have

Probably gone grey watching us batting vs Notts and Essex. 

94CB428D-C44C-42C0-B0EA-2272F989D04B.MP4

This might be beyond my limited internet skills but saw this video of Sol Campbell, he comes across unhinged these days. 

Predicatably that didn’t work. He basically gives a speech about the fa cup. Reminded me of full metal jacket and private Pyles final scene.  

Well it’s been a pretty awful start to the county championship for Lancs. 

After our efforts in the first game vs Notts we somehow managed to walk away with less point than Yorkshire and Essex who didn’t bowl a ball.

Today chasing 320. But so far this season we’ve scored a total of 375 runs for 30 wickets so chances are slim to none. Could be a long old season...

I think generally aj’s very managed and media savvy. But I do really like him after a fight because adrenaline is pumping and he’s quite terse and not as careful with his comments.

Are you interested in conquering America? NO. Brits have always had to go out there I’m the unified champion they can come here. ??

Ref killed that as a spectacle for me. 

Must be a unanimous points win for aj. 

Fairly even fight this. 

As a pretty unknowledgeable fan of boxing how is Joshua going to get on tonight? 

The bookies and pundits seem to have it as a relatively routine win through 7-9 rounds so is this Parker fella to be written off so easily. He is a world champion, wbo I recall but there’s so many, so is he worthy of the belt or another bum that’s blagged one like that Browne from last week.

I noticed from the press conference he reckons he’s got the best chin in the business but has he ever been hit by the likes of a Joshua or a wilder. He’s also confident (but then again all boxers are).

1 hour ago, AllRoverAsia said:

Lillee obstructing and then kicking Miandad and then blaming Miandad

Not forgetting he also came out with a metal bat when England had them on the ropes.

This Australian demise has been 50+ years in the making. I hope people enjoy it for the next 50+ years.