Nasser Hussain says the conditions should not hide the fact that England’s bowlers had a bad day at Old Trafford.
Let’s be fair, England were poor now. However, I believe you have to set it it’s turned into very, very difficult day for bowling. Any bowler who has played in such windy conditions, it was cold also, will inform you have difficult it is to get into any kind of rhythm.
A day just like this was hard work and it also looks a bit flat. The pitch is an absolute belter and also after what occurred in the Headingley, what will look a bit flat. You’ve gone from one extreme to another.
Just the body language on a cold day just like this — and it had been arctic cold out there — players do wander around with their hands in their pockets so that it seems somewhat flat, as you have got handwarmers in your pockets.
That doesn’t eliminate the fact that I thought they were bad although you have to give it a bit of context.
I thought it was incorrect that Jofra Archer only bowled seven chunks at Steve Smith until the lunch break, although a fantastic spell bowled.
That was and Joe Root had 2 choices: to maintain Archer moving after he had bowled five overs and jar him for a spell, nine or eight overs, and proceed once Smith had been previously in. Or take off him and then put him back just prior to lunch, you’ve given a break to him so you may request him to actually steam in for three or four overs of hostility.
We got that and neither enabled Smith to settle once he settles he is a rock to 24, and we all know.
He has looked bothered but has there actually been a time of sustained hostility in him? Has anyone gone round the wicket in him? Has anybody targeted him? Just a small bit but not actually, and it is likewise a pitch to play the short ball .
Smith stated himself on interview this morning as it goes through, that he was looking forward to batting on it, it’s a bit like an Australian pitch. It’s not quick so when it will go in brief, you can escape the way but you can trust the bounce.
Some of those other pitches in this series have been two-paced and you don’t know whether to duck or sway. I think they’ve shifted their technique marginally as well, Smith and Marnus Labuschagne were all rocking to try and avoid Archer’s bouncers but because he nips the ball at the ball was after them so what they have done today is phased out of their way, offside of it and also let the ball go.
As for me, I would like to have a bit more of an explanation on Chris Woakes and why he was left out. He is a good cricketer and England might know something he’s going into the’zone’ or his knee however, for me personally, a Woakes would still maintain my side. That is nothing against Craig Overton, he’s a good cricketer now, and he has done well.
The ball for Labuschagne was a complete beauty, there is not a lot in the pitch and what I have said about the terms applies to Overton because it does to Archer and everybody else — .
I was surprised they didn’t have the heavy bails in Old Trafford. I could not believe that, together using the prediction and particularly up here exactly what it was.
I have played many a game where they’ve called for the heavy bails and the other evening I was watching my child play at the Essex league in which they just took the bails off, just as they did now, so I’ve seen it at club cricket but not in international cricket before!
For a while, conditions were dreadful; it was icy cold, crisp packets wind and also in one point a beach ball blew across the ground.
This was a really very tough afternoon and fair play into the spectators who stumbled through it and observed all that since you’ve got to be a soul and a cricket lover to do that.
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