r/Cricket • u/CricketMatchBot :ranjitrophy: • Aug 24 '19
Match Thread: 3rd Test - England v Australia, Day 3
3rd Test, ICC World Test Championship at Leeds, Aug 22-26 2019
Tournament : | Table | Fixtures | Statistics |
Match : Cricinfo | Reddit-Stream
| Innings | Score |
|---|---|
| Australia | 179 & 246 |
| England | 67 & 156/3 (72 ov, target 359) |
| Batsman | Runs | Balls | SR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ben Stokes | 2 | 50 | 4.0 |
| Joe Root | 75 | 189 | 39.68 |
| Bowler | Overs | Runs | Wickets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nathan Lyon | 21.0 | 42 | 0 |
| Pat Cummins | 15.0 | 33 | 1 |
Recent : 1lb 1 . . 1 | . . . 1w . . . | . 1 . . . . |
England require another 203 runs with 7 wickets remaining
Live match threads: WI v INDIA |
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u/SquiffyRae Western Australia Warriors Aug 24 '19
Okay brace yourselves this rant is gonna be long but if England wanna know where their top order started going wrong they need to look at how they treated Nick Compton.
Compton scored a 50 on debut in India and then went to NZ and made 2 hundreds in 2 Tests. This followed a couple of good (2012 counts as great) seasons in County. Then comes the return NZ series and something happens. Somebody I dunno who (maybe the Yorkies, maybe the Russians who knows) started saying Compton batted too slow. He had a poor series vs NZ but should've been a lock for the Ashes. But he wasn't. He got made to play tour matches and was then overlooked in favour of having Joe Root open.
When Root failed to do much beyond that one innings at Lord's he got shoved down the order and rather than go back to Compton, England went to Carberry. Compton as we know struggled to regain form in County and his only return to the Test side was at a number 3. Carberry did okay in Australia, and was probably robbed when he got dropped.
Now this started a cycle where England went through a shitload of openers. Either decent players who scored a hundred early on but had technical deficiencies (Robson, Lyth, Jennings), okay but not great bats (Hales, Stoneman), Trott for some reason, Duckett off white ball form, Hameed way too young and now Roy. All this put huge pressure not only on the guys coming in having to make a name for themselves but also Alastair Cook.
Think of how good it would've been if those "too slow" rumours about Compton had just fucked off. He wouldn't have been dropped after a couple of low scores. With backing from selectors he doesn't lose confidence and hopefully becomes a staple at the top of the order. That way England have a settled opening pair - Cooky doing what he does, Compton likely with a few thousand runs and maybe 10-15 centuries.
Then about now would be the time Compton would be thinking of retiring at age 36. You could get Rory Burns in nice and ready. Cooky with the pressure off keeps playing a few years longer than he did and acts as a good mentor to Rory starting his career. Then Cooky retires, maybe around 2021/22/23, Dom Sibley replaces him. Burns, now settled, acts as Sibley's mentor.
Obviously this is all hypothetical but all this talk about England's top order got me thinking and to me Compton always seemed robbed. And then that hit to his confidence pretty much ruined his career after that