Big 9 days for Lancs at the bottom of the cc with Worcestershire then Hampshire. Livingstone/Parkinson in the Lions side so Croft/Parry in the 13-man squad. Personally I’d leave out Hameed and Lester and go with: Jennings, Davies, Jones, Vilas, Chanderpaul, Croft, Clark, Bailey, Mennie, Parry, Onions. But I suspect they’ll give Hameed yet another go.

I enjoyed that result more than most after the shit I was getting for England not winning between 35 mins and 90+1 yesterday. I did fear a late equaliser. Can’t even beat Senegal.

481. 500 was most definitely on until last 4 overs.

Lucky. But need luck. Especially when ref is wildly inconsistent for what constitutes a penalty.

Very lacklustre now.

Going of their pen that’s 2 stone wall pens against Kane and a possible 3rd when trippier was blocked off.

Very soft.

I’d lean towards cheating but if he’s acted within the rules it’s most definitely against the spirit/etiquette and as such leaves his reputation in tatters even if the rules cover him. Hits a putt that’s heading off the green, decides it’ll take him more than 2 shots to get back so hares after it to whack it back and suck up the punishment because it was preferable to ending up where he started.

Far from it. At the time I assumed it was frustration in the heat of the moment but nope he knew there was a 2 shot penalty and made a calculated decision that where the ball was heading it would cost him more than 2 shots. “Took advantage of the rules as best I could”. https://www.foxsports.com/golf/usga/video/1257451075972?amp=true

Since 1986 won 2. (1986 L 1-0 vs Portugal, 1990 D 1-1 vs Ireland, 1998 W 2-1 vs Tunisia, 2002 D 1-1 vs Sweden, 2006 W 1-0 vs Paraguay, 2010 D 1-1 vs USA, 2014 L 2-1 vs Italy) Considering every game other than Italy was very winnable that’s a pretty poor record.

https://youtu.be/k9REb8MIL8s Bizarre scenes from forest gump yesterday. For a game that pretty much prizes etiquette over all else odd to watch a professional in a major championship do something I’d do in frustration on a crazy golf course.

I’d settle for beating Tunisia and Panama.

I’m fairly sure Jennings isn’t in the ODI squad and as such available for Lancs. Either way someone has to step up. I’m guessing Jones maybe Croft will come in for livi but the former is another one with more question marks over him. If weren’t so threadbare I wouldn’t play Hameed for the foreseeable future but the issue is he gets demoted to the 2nd xi scores 100 then can’t get into double figures for 1st xi. Good news is Moeen is definitely unavailable as is Joe Leach who will be a big loss for them. In a 9 day period relegation will become clearer as play Worcestershire 20th-23rd and then Hampshire 25th-28th.

I really dislike Ronaldo.

I fear the only way lancs can stay up is at the expense of those two. Quite the bum fight down there. Lancs play Worcestershire next week but will be without livi and Parkinson as they’re with the bloody Lions. Lancs have serious batting issues. Some pretty rank averages: Jennings 37, Davies 19, Hameed 5, Livi 18, chiv 20 Just can’t have so many of the top order averaging under 20 and expect to stay up. Vilas has a credible average of 48 but that’s largely due to a 235* and he hasn’t scored a 50 in other innings. Once again consistency comes from the lower order with Clark and mennie 38 and 37 respectively.

Not excusing some dozy running, dreadful bowling and shots from England but in whatever sport you care to think of Scotland will raise their game 1000% vs England. That lad McLeod can’t even get a game in a poor Durham side 140* today. If England could raise their game to anything like the same levels as they do vs us we’d win every game in every sport.

That’s arguably the lowest point in cricket.

Quite bizarre. Was expecting nonsense and antics with it being fury and suppose that’s how it was. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a referee stop a fight to bollock one of the fighters for talking to the crowd before. Then towel going in came as a surprise not that he’d have lasted much longer. I get when a boxer is coming back he needs to fight a pudding to get match fit but surely a higher calibre pudding would have been more useful. It did make me chuckle him coming out to Afroman-because I got high.

Hope the darts is the last World Cup Belgium knock England out in 2018

Good win. Shame it’s not a 4 or 5 match test series this. But it’s not so on to two full months of nonsense cricket with a random “ashes” ODI series thrown in.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2018/05/28/england-should-consider-dropping-james-anderson-stuart-broad/ The gist of his logic seemed to be drop best performing bowlers to shake up the squad. Before today in his last 15 tests jimmy had taken 68 wickets at an average of 19.36. Regardless of his ramblings finally a decent day of test cricket.

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.

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.

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.