End of Summer

Where did the summer go?  Nowadays a good chunk of it is wasted with that fucking Hundred bollocks, can anyone remember who won?  Now it’s mid September and the three test series against Pakistan has been and gone. Captained by Joe Root, England have dominated every day bar one and have inflicted three thrashings on a Pakistan side that has barely been competitive.  I expected more, especially with them coming here on the back of a creditable drawn series in the Caribbean.  Any Test cricket is good but what we saw in this series was a long way from the standard of cricket we saw against India last year.  England could not do more than crush the opposition three times, especially after what came in the weeks and months before this series. 

It’s difficult to say whether England have been good or Pakistan have been bad.  On paper the Pakistani batsmen looked decent, some youngsters along with experienced players with test hundreds and decent averages.  The media wants us to believe they’ve run into a top quality England pace attack and that might well be the case but conditions were in the bowlers favour this year.  However this does look like an attack to get excited about, all four have been excellent at times, including Gus who has been unlucky. 

Robinson has been world class this summer and was pretty bloody good when he first came into the Test side a few years ago.  I can’t help wondering what the fuck went on to cause his exile?  Some of the blame must be with the player but with this obvious talent, the management should have treated him the same way as Wood and Archer.  Jofra has been consistently good this year, playing regular Test cricket without fitness issues has been good for him, his rhythm is in the groove.  Josh Tongue is still raw but he has a habit of bowling unplayable deliveries, he’s only going to get better.  Poor Gus Atkinson has been bloody unlucky this series and hasn’t got the wickets he deserved but this could be because the other three have been so good!  We’ll need reserves so add to this the likes of Stone, Baker, Fisher and yes Carse then things are looking pretty good.

England’s batsmen have scored enough runs to win comfortably three times, without looking particularly impressive.  At the top of the order Duckett scored the only England test century of the summer but done little else, we know he’s better than this but he needs to start showing it.  His opening partner, Emilio Gay has scored tough runs and may have done just enough to keep his place in the squad, opening the batting has been tougher than ever in the conditions this summer.  Injury to Bethell has meant a revamped middle order with Cox and Lawrence putting themselves in the frame for the future but like Gay, they need a century, something no one has managed this series.  Root has not been near his best this summer but we know he is world class, as is Brook but I feel he should do better.  Smith was barely noticeable behind the stumps, which is what we want from a keeper and when he stood up to Robinson he looked good.  He looked more comfortable with the bat too and got a couple of decent scores.  The conditions have been tough for batsmen this year but Abbas aside the Pakistan bowlers did not impress so the players that came in still have much to prove.

We have an idea of what the team will look like in the near future but what we won’t know is how the team can be balanced now Stokes has gone. At some point we’ll need a spinner and I think England have missed a trick in not picking Rehan Ahmed for this series, although to be fair he probably wouldn’t have bowled much.  Are there any other decent all rounders out there?  Maybe a more experienced Sam Curran?  Other spinners in the frame, obviously Bashir has talent but Leach is as good as anyone and Bess has done well in first class cricket this summer.

Joe Root’s captaincy looked fine for most of the series, as long as the four quick bowlers were doing their thing, he barely had to steer the ship.  Then in the third test when Pakistan counter attacked he completely lost the plot and control of the game, this was all too familiar.  If this looks like happening again, someone needs to have a word or he won’t be captain for long.

There’s some ODI stuff coming up in the autumn but the next real cricket will be in South Africa in December.  The Saffers have proved me wrong, they are top team and will be a real test for this evolving team which by then will have another Kiwi coach.  From memory Fleming the batsman was totally unlike BM, hopefully he’ll be the right man for the job.

Squad for South Africa

Root ©, Duckett, Gay, Bethell, Cox, Brook, Lawrence, Smith (k)
Archer, Atkinson, Robinson, Tongue, Stone, Baker
Ahmed, Bashir

Third test. It can't get any worse

Third test.  New Zealand won the toss on a flat pitch and decided to bat.  Openers Latham and Conway opened the batting and kept going and going and going and…

As the runs piled up, landmarks came and went and sessions passed so the questions formed in my mind; flat pitch or good batting? Will we ever take a wicket? What the fuck is going on?  If NZ bat us out of the match, will that be the end of the Kiwi?
Eventually, deep into the third session both openers fell in quick succession but not until each had passed 150 and the partnership was over three hundred.  England mugged two more out before the end of the day and things looked a lot brighter.  It wasn’t long ago that we thought England could win from any position but that confidence is long gone now.

Day two saw a complete reversal.  England bowled well - Stokes in particular, kept the pressure on and managed to take the final six NZ wickets for just seventy seven more runs and New Zealand finished on 438.  In England’s reply Gay fell early but Duckett and Bethell were superb and when the day closed the score was 223/2. Duckett was out having made 113 but Bethell was unbeaten on 74 with Root alongside him at the crease.  Despite their still being a large deficit the feeling was England were ahead in the game and should be able to power on in the morning and get a lead.

On the third day the match flipped again.  England lost the overnight batsmen quickly and there was a procession of wickets; Smith and Stokes contributed little but Brook passed fifty again before missing a straight one.  The innings was all over at tea all out for 354 now New Zealand were clearly ahead in the game although the TMS commentators were saying the pitch was deteriorating.  Jofra removed the openers and it was game on but NZ batted well and finished on 120-3.  With a lead of 204 their position was stronger than it was at the end of the first day.

The fourth day was one of good old fashioned attritional cricket with England bowling well, nicking wickets but NZ gradually building their lead.  Ravindra was out in the nineties and Mitchell scored the slowest half century for years while Stokes and Archer took the wickets. 
Then in the middle of the afternoon came a total shock, Ben Stokes announced his retirement at the end of the game.  Why?  Was it for his long term health and fitness or have the controversies and disappointments of recent weeks and months taken their toll?  Reasons are irrelevant, England will be losing one of our greatest cricketers and the future for this current team is uncertain to say the least.

Back to the cricket…  New Zealand kept plodding along, Stokes got a wicket in the first over after his retirement was announced, of course he did!  Mitchell completed a brilliant hundred and NZ declared with a lead of 370+.  Stokes opened the batting (of course he did!) blazed away to 30 then got out and was applauded from the field for the final time, he’ll be missed in so many ways.  After that England batted like it was a one day match, runs scored, wickets fell and finished the day on 103/4.  I know this was an emotional afternoon but this was brainless cricket, almost disrespectful to the game and to the opposition.

The final day had no surprises unless you count Smith getting a few runs and perhaps extending his test career a while longer.  England managed to bat on into the second session which suggests that with a bit more application on the previous evening, a draw might have been possible.  Drawn test matches have gone out of fashion lately but there have been countless great test matches that finished without a result.  New Zealand eventually bowled England out to deservedly win the match by 160 runs and take the series 2-1.  NZ didn’t win because of all the disruption going on in the England camp, they won because they played better, more disciplined cricket.

So no more Stokes in test cricket, a shock as well as a disappointment, I hoped we see him play for a couple more years yet and I wonder if there’s more to it than meets the eye.  Apart from a few great bowling spells and some blinding catches I can remember four innings that left me open mouthed and one of them may have been the best ever.  For me his captaincy tailed off towards the end but at his best he was as good as any I’ve seen.

 

So where does that leave us? Right back where we were at the start of the BB era, up shit creek without a paddle and with a large hole in the boat.  When you look at the players we have along with others who have retired in the last four years, led by an excellent captain, we could have dominated Test cricket.  What has become apparent is the team has been under prepared, at times one dimensional and often badly selected, no wonder we’ve under performed. 

What next?  We have an unproven team with potential but no obvious leader, other than Root who is poor tactically.  Yes exactly where we were four years ago, the Kiwi has to go along with Key.  New coach?  I’d go for Alec Stewart ta very much.

We’ve got a load of white ball stuff coming up next along with the bastard hundred, the next test is against Pakistan in August, somebody needs to do a lot of thinking before then.  Apart from the obvious (I’d still balance the side with Rehan Ahmed) I can’t see the line up changing much.  The bowlers are largely blameless for these latest debacles and Ollie Robinson is one of the summers plus points.  Emilio Gay came in to the side in good form and did okay.  Jacob Bethell was in no form at all and struggled until the third test.  If England are serious about him as a test player he needs to play first class cricket ahead of a franchise payday.  If Bethell himself is serious about test cricket he should choose to do so.

That just leaves the captaincy.  Put the names below onto a dartboard and chuck a dart blindfolded.

XII for Pakistan
Gay, Duckett, Bethell, Root, Brook, Smith, Ahmed, Atkinson, Robinson, Archer, Tongue, Bashir

Second Test

I was away from home last week which is one of the reasons I totally missed the first day, Test matches start on Thursday don’t they? Ironically a much different England team (five changes!!!) had a decent day but as soon as I tuned in, things went downhill. The first session I heard was the start of day two when England were fucking diabolical and Joe may be a saint but he isn’t a captain, he still hasn’t learned. New Zealand got on top and remained there for the next two days. NZ won the crucial moments and outplayed England. I have to have a word on selection. Just to say, with Stokes out I’d have picked another all rounder; Rehan Ahmed has taken wickets and scored good runs in the championship today. I haven’t seen James Rew - the stand in Wickie but he dropped two catches. An interesting trend in recent series is opposition keepers standing up to fast/medium bowlers. If this continues it’s all the more reason to pick a proper wicket keeper…
The match made it to the fifth day with NZ well on top but was all over within the hour, Matt Henry bowled brilliantly to take eleven in the match and New Zealand won by 253 runs. A thrashing and for the series to be all square feels right and fair. England were outplayed in all aspects of the game; we fielded badly, didn’t score enough runs and the captaincy was poor. This was one of the worst home performances I can remember, there is no disgrace in losing to NZ but the margin of defeat is embarrassing and five changes is no excuse.
Of the players who came in Archer and Fisher done well but I expect only Jofra will make the next XI. Rew’s keeping was not good enough and neither he nor Cox made enough runs to make a case for selection in the near future. I can’t understand the Baker selection, with Archer and Tongue in the side there is enough pace and Matt Henry showed the worth of a line and length bowler, like Sam Cook of Essex who was tried last year? To be fair the bowlers weren’t the problem, England just didn’t score enough runs.
There will be changes for the next match; Stokes should return and hopefully Atkinson, Robinson and Smith should be available. Even a “full strength” England team will have their work cut out to beat New Zealand and dare I say it, there are players under pressure as well as the management.

MCC & England. Both should be embarrassed

4^th June  Day one

Welcome back TMS and the voices of summer!  New Zealand won the toss and put England into bat under gloomy skies, to see our batsmen reduced to 55-5 was predictable and didn’t hurt as much as it should have.  NZ played and won a test match in Ireland last week so came to Lords in the groove while England’s players had played a few county games.  To see England bowled out for 140 was no surprise but to be fair NZ bowled really well and only Brook gave his wicket away but not until he’d played a typical innings of 56, although he was dropped twice along the way.  With less than forty overs bowled in the match, England were in deep shit again and it seemed all too familiar.

But Ollie Robinson bowled a superb opening over to leave NZ 2-3 and there was only one loose ball in his opening spell which was 6-3-10-4.  This is the player that hadn’t been picked for two years.  Atkinson and Tongue chipped in with wickets too and play finished with NZ on 61-6, England have a chance of a first innings lead which is insane.

Day two

England managed to bowl out New Zealand without too much fuss, Robinson got five and deserves his place on the hours board.  NZ were 113 all out so England finished with a lead of 27 and the second innings progressed slowly but surely passed 100.  Gay in his first Test reached fifty but when he was out with the score 126-3 it sparked a collapse to 126-7 and the game was swinging towards the southern hemisphere.  Together Smith and Atkinson steadied things and later Robinson chipped in and for the second day in a row England benefited from bad misses in the field.  Eventually all out for 226, England set NZ 254 to win the match.  Just like the first day, New Zealand had to start batting again after spending most of the day in the field, England had to make the new ball count.  With the score finishing on 36-3 and Williamson gone they just about did.  England on top but one decent partnership could swing it the other way.

Day three was a non event, a few overs bowled, a few runs scored and two wickets for Robinson put NZ even deeper in the shit.  Day four began with a New Zealand win possible if unlikely but any England nerves were settled by an Early Wicket for Tongue.  This was followed by NZ’s best partnership of the match which passed fifty before it was broken by Stokes.  Atkinson soon mopped up the tail to finish with five and England won by 115 runs.  In the context of this low scoring match the margin of victory amounts to a thrashing, England were better in every department, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to say that!

There was a lot of chat about the pitch which was very poor, not good enough for any first class cricket, let alone a Test match.  Thankfully it didn’t favour one side over the other, It was a fair and even contest but not a memorable game of cricket.  England go one up and will almost certainly name an unchanged side next week but we haven’t learned much about this ‘reset’ England team.  I have learned that I still care though.

Or do I?  Professional sportsmen, people given the one in a million chance to follow their wildest dreams and make a living doing something most of us can only wish we had the ability to do.  Sadly some of these fortunate people don’t have the intelligence to stay out of the fucking pub, morons.  What goes on in Stokes’ head?  He’s given us once in a lifetime performances on the cricket pitch but his after hours shenanigans have cropped up and got him into trouble before.  His attitude when interviewed during the most embarrassing Ashes series in living memory was arrogant and out of line.  Everyone needs to let off steam, fair enough but what are professional sportsmen doing in a night club in mid series?  But for off field decisions England could be ranked number one in the world and I’ve been critical of the Kiwi but is Stokes off field stupidity the real problem?  Is it him selecting players that have no business in test cricket?  That the captain doesn’t think a team curfew applies to him is completely wrong.  “Run towards adversity” they say but you get the impression this squad would run blindly towards a pride of hungry lions or swim a crocodile infested river.  Worryingly they’re in South Africa this winter…

Test Cricket Tomorrow!!!

The greatest sport of all returns tomorrow, England vs New Zealand at Lords but a showery week is forecast.  We’re stuck with the Kiwi so have to live with it and the on field personnel are mostly familiar.  I’d like to have seen a different keeper but Foakes has been injured though I doubt they’d have picked him anyway.  I hope Smith does well and stops all speculation.   As for the Kiwi, it’ll take more than a couple of home wins to convince me.

Crawley has gone which can be no surprise to anyone, replaced by somebody called Emilio Gay who has been going well in the championship, fair enough.  Otherwise the batting line up is the same although Smith and Stokes may swap places.  The bowlers are mostly familiar, Bashir is back (?!), good for him, I hope he does well.  Apparently Carse would have been in the squad but his injury opens the door for others.  Robinson is set to return from exile, at his best he’s as good as anyone we’ve got these days.  Josh Tongue should be an automatic choice now which leaves Gus Atkinson or the wild card Sonny Baker.  Apparently he’s fast but I’d leave him for later in the year and go with Gus.
New Zealand are a good, well drilled team with excellent batsmen and some bowlers we’ve not seen much of before.  England should expect to win every home series but have to be at their very best otherwise New Zealand could well win.  If England fail to win this series will anything change?

Lowest ebb

It’s difficult committing thoughts to virtual paper when you live in a world where the Israeli leadership has got the US and other western governments in a headlock thanks to evidence gathered via a paedophile ring by a Mossad agent.  In a sane world the previous sentence should be considered ludicrous and instantly dismissed as nonsense but in 2026 it could actually be true.  If Epstein was an agent then whatever Trump and co. are trying to hide is certainly known by Israel.  They also know what Mandelson was up not to mention randy Andy.  It would be nice to think that the truth, whatever that may be, will someday come out but we can’t even be confident that will happen.

Apparently the person widely regarded as the King is paying a state visit to the American idiot later this month.  That anyone thinks there is a shred of justification for this is further evidence of a warped reality but something we know for certain is Charles has plenty of form when it comes to associating with paedophiles.  If he goes to the US and sits down to dinner with Trump then he (and in the eyes of many, we) will slither down to a new low.  If there really is a valid reason for this meeting of two old millionaires then is it too much of a jump to think it must be a filthy secret?  I doubt we’ll ever know what it is.

There is theory and speculation which we can all have fun with then there are facts;
The president of the US is a criminal, a brazen liar, a bigot and a con man.  He should be in prison.
The Israeli leader has ordered a genocide, comparison with Hitler is justified and he should be on trial in Den Haag.
Successive British governments have remained silent in the face of crimes against humanity.

I think it’s fair to say that most people assumed humanity had reached its lowest point during the second world war but Israel and the US have this hindsight yet decided to wage war on mostly innocent people regardless.  Humanity’s lowest ebb is right now. 

Poison frogs and paedos. Tell me I'm not the only one seeing this stuff?

Writing stuff down, committing words to paper/screen/existence?  Whatever it is, it helps me to unravel the thoughts going through my head.  I try to ignore the insanity swirling around the world, the edited highlights presented to us as news but the bullshit seeps in, it’s impossible to stop.  Take yesterday, Saturday February 14^th, the headline said “Starmer says ‘Europe must be ready to fight’…”  Fight who?  Is this the proxy war going on in Ukraine?  Or is our latest corrupt prime minister just parroting what the yanks want to hear?  Spending more billions on ‘defence’ effectively means giving all that money to American corporations; the bully started threatening, Starmer and others caved in, the bully wins again.  This is tax payers money being handed over in the name of defending ourselves against an enemy but which enemy?  Who is he/they?  Where are they?  When our government tells us we have an enemy, few people question it let alone realise they are paying for it.

The other headline that caught my eye concerned the former Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in prison in 2024. He was apparently killed by a toxin found only in Amazonian frogs and used in poison darts, so we’re told by ‘western sources’.  Is it true?  We know Putin is a murderer so it is possible, even likely. Of course Putin is the unnamed enemy that we are supposed to fear in order to justify giving billions to the US arms industry.  Yes we know Putin is a bad man but we also know there is a paedo in the white house (and that is listing just one of his known crimes,) so the timing of this Russian revelation is perfect for the western governments.  If the world is looking towards Moscow it gives Starmer and Trump a temporary respite from scrutiny over whole Epstein shitstorm.  Time to get their stories straight and plan for the next batch of E files; will they answer, counter, ignore or bury?

Just as we know what Putin is, we also know that Trump is worse.  Just having known about Epstein should be enough to see the tangerine Palpatine driven from office and in a fair world his involvement should see him locked up. If the yanks aren’t getting rid of him then it really isn’t our concern but what happens on the slightly saner side of the Atlantic absolutely is.  In the exposure of Mandleson’s friendship with a man he knew to be a sex criminal, another plot is being uncovered.  As someone who swings to the left politically, this one is grit in the eye.

Whatever people’s opinion of Jeremy Corbyn, history will record that under his leadership the Labour party reached record levels of membership.  He was a popular leader amongst the ordinary members and should have won the 2017 general election had it not been for sabotage within the Labour party structure.  Mandleson was quoted around this time as saying “I try to undermine Jeremy Corbyn every single day”.  With what went on afterwards we may conclude he did so with some success.

After the 2019 election Corbyn couldn’t survive as leader and Starmer was elected with on the back of Ten pledges that could have come from JC himself but these were all soon forgotten.  It seems that Mandleson was behind the scenes, pulling strings the whole time.  Starmer then consolidated his leadership, undermined the left of the party – left leaning prospective candidates were rejected in favour of Mandleson’s selections and his Lordship’s protégés were slotted into positions behind the scenes. Corbyn was expelled under the ludicrous charge of antisemitism that only the Murdoch fed herd took seriously.  I expect Mandleson as a Jew enjoyed that.  I don’t want to be using that kind of language because I understand the difference but there are things that cannot be left unsaid, so from here on, I’ll refer to him/them as Zionists should the need arise.

We currently live in a world where the state of Israel can commit genocide against the Palestinian people and go uncensored by most media outlets.  Our own government is guilty of aiding and abetting the Israeli murder machine and remaining silent when civilians are being slaughtered.  Just as Mandleson said nothing while young women were being trafficked, this Labour government has been silent while children have been murdered.  When I read that in 2024, thirteen out of the twenty five strong Labour cabinet received donations from pro-Israel lobbyists* I cannot help but be suspicious (*source- Declassified UK).  That’s right, this Labour government is being funded by Zionists.  This same Labour government criminalised protest in order to spare their Zionist friends from embarrassment but thankfully in a more welcome recent headline, this ban has been ruled unlawful.

What the fuck am I saying here?  That Mandleson was part of a conspiracy to create a political culture in which genocide was made possible?  Sounds daft when I put it like that but it happened whether it was deliberate or not.  Is this all part of a worldwide Zionist plot or is this another hysterical conclusion?  It is certainly not one I want to believe in but as the layers unpeel it’s hard to write things of as coincidence.  That the media regards Palestinian lives as less valuable than Ukrainian lives is undeniable, this is no accident, it is orchestrated, bought and paid for. When I first read that Epstein was a Mossad agent, I couldn’t take it seriously, surely this is a media creation but this unbelievable statement has a growing chunk of evidence behind it.  If this turns out to be true then how far does it go?  It doesn’t bare thinking about.

Poison frogs and Zionist paedo conspiracies.  Is this really happening or have the nineties caught up with me?  I'm not the only one seeing this stuff am I?