FLEM'S VERDICT: 'What was Root doing? How mediocre, mismatched England blew Jimmy's heroics'

The win In 2019 went to boundaries England victory better team ????

I agree with some of your points and disagree with some of your points. If you have a relook of the game India vs England 2019 WC, India were the clear front runners. India lost Rahul early but Rohit and Kohli as well as Pant & Pandya brought India right into the game. Issue was with MS Dhoni, the moment Pant was gone he came in only to slow down the run rate and also advise Hardik Pandya to slow down. Pandya was at 22(12) at one point of time and only for Dhoni to take it slow. Dhoni and his apprentice Kedar Jadhav came and played out singles until the match is out of control. Point to note is that Required Run Rate was at 9 when Pant got out but by the time Dhoni and Jadhav started hitting boundaries RRR went upto 25. I am not blaming Dhoni here but if you look at his last 2 years record against any international teams or in IPL, he scored at less than 100 SR. In fact the game against NZ in Semi final was lost because of Dhoni. Ravi Jadeja played a serious knock only for MSD to slow down at other end and apply the pressure on him. This to say all Indians wanted Pakistan to be out of the tournament is total bullshit. We want good teams to play at the end but I always wonder what made India to select players like Kedar Jadhav and Vijay Shankar to WC 2019. India has lot more potential match winners than them.

Is this for me? Whatever. The facts were Santner didn't play a shot on literally the last ball of the innings: completely unforgivable! But it's flown under the radar because of the Stokes incident. NZ should've never selected Santner again!

:laughing:

According to Cricinfo, he ducked(expecting it to be short down the leg side) not shouldered arms for the final ball. "Archer to Santner, no run Ha. Kind of sums up the latter half of New Zealand's innings, this ball. Santner ducks under a slower bouncer over leg stump. Then he thinks of stealing a bye and decides against it. Archer is just so deceptive, you can't blame Santner for it" Please don't mislead. Yo can verify in cricbuzz as well.

Oh the irony when Harris criticised Hotspot as something not fit for purpose

There have been some genuinely close finals, such as 1975, 1987 and 1992 with 1983 and 1996 also not being walk overs. There have been dominant teams in tournaments such as 1979 and 2003, but even then the vanquished actually tried in the final. 1999 was different. Pakistan were an outstanding team in the tournament and thrashed NZ in semi-final by 9 wickets chasing nearly 250, and nobody is saying they definitely would have won the final had they tried. However, a 50 over a side game being over in less than 60 of the 100 overs, that is not a world cup final between two evenly matched teams, in terms of class, neither of whom are known chokers. That is more like a Sunday Brisbane Warehouse game. A team of the class of Pakistan does not get blown away for 133 and then the opposition chase them down in 20 overs. Australia bowled well, but better than the semi-final when a lesser Saffie batting line-up got past 200? Pakistan scrapping and scraping their way to 194 and then bowling tightly so we take 45 overs to get them losing 5 or 6 wickets – that would be a proper world cup final. Pakistan were clearly disinterested with both bat and ball. Who is this insulting to? The Australian team? I don’t think so – nobody is saying they were in on it. All they could do, completely unaware, is turn up and play and they did that. All Pakistan did was turn up. Nobody gets offended when people credibly suggest Pakistan threw the Sydney test of January 2010, and Pakistan were known to be deeply involved in match fixing during the 1990s and beyond, so there is no basis to assume that a world cup final would be automatically off limits. India also threw their 2019 world cup match against England, though they were not motivated by money from bookies, but rather the small minded political goal of keeping Pakistan out of the semi-finals. Unfortunately, this was even more criminal as it was the only thing that kept England in the tournament.

"The only negative for the day was we wanted Marcus Harris to get a hundred to sew up his spot." I would rather Harris have scored a really convincing half century than a century full of false shots, questionable footwork, etc. Other than his determination, I didn't see a lot to like about his innings.

He missed a stumping today too. His confidence must be completely shot.

I have backed Root but the call to start with Leach after lunch beggars belief. Who thinks that was the right call?

It was a superb spell. People here slagging him off as past it will hopefully acknowledge it. He is a brilliant fielder. Hard to believe just how crap a batter he is, given his obvious physical talents.

These are world class bowlers with a head of steam up on a friendly pitch. I defy anybody to do anything but their best and hope. Cummins was unlucky to get nothing out of a great spell. Brilliant call to choose himself to rest for Boland. In the first innings, Starc got 3 overs, here he bowled through

He lRobinson looked / looks unfit and being generous it could be a travel thing bug etc. Carry a few kg around the midriff myself. On a happy note for the Ashes I heard some English person lamenting Joffra Archers absence but saying how good he was for 3 forms of the game i.e the same overuse that led to him nor being here. Professional sport eh?

This was a pleasure to watch… Anderson was the epitome of swing bowling yesterday. Astonishing longevity for any player, never mind a fast bowler. Cherish him while you still can Spot on. His work in the field over the years is also often undervalued. Exceptional athlete in the cricket arena.

Does the BBL still exist ? The most Excruciating sporting event I ever had the misfortune of attending . The blaring music and the blaring live "DJ" makes for a " l will just drink more beer coz I can't wait for this to be over " experience.

Buttler is so bad he cant even catch COVID.

Thanks Flem Leach bowling leg stump was weird even for park cricket. If he has no intention of getting a wicket, just add his runs to the other end to get the average. Green fell for the same trick as Javed against Skulls - played for spin. The only reason England are this close is we hit the catches to Root. He is their only bat, best catcher, best spinner, probably has to administer the Covid tests (any other Pom would not be able to use the stick), but hard to see many positives in his on field captaincy

Flem ~ no one talks about cut anymore? ( as in bowling cut and swing ) With a scrambled seam doesn't the ball bite on the seam bit that hits the pitch and change direction? Geoff Dymock was a great practitioner of it (albeit not with a scrambled but pointing the seam in a direction but still vertical

Silverwood and Root just seem to be outsmarting themselves, resting players in the first game, rotating wood off after two overs, and bringing Stokes on when Jimmy was on fire at the other end, playing leach directly after lunch, selection stupidity, the list goes on, I think it’s a reaction bro not having Archer and Stone on your and they just know they don’t have the batting talent so they’re trying to win it with tactics. Sometimes people forget that sport isn’t always super complicated, you pick your best team, that’s it, being fit might actually help as well, some of their players have been eating too many bacon butties, Robinson was bowling the slowest of any full time seamer I’ve seen in Oz, he was stuffed after the first day of the first innings in the field.

They didn't say it directly or even mention 99 final. They told me lots of other things that got me myself thinking in that direction.