The Cricket Thread

[PaddockLad 17260]

Read a bit about this today and it strikes me that the cps completely bungled the charges Stokes was tried on. He could have been charged not only with affray (quite often a "group" offence) but also ABH which would have concentrated on what he dished out himself. He may have been looking at 2 years if found guilty of ABH. Lucky boy. 

[Alex 35082]

They've certainly wasted plenty money anyway

[RobinRobin 11270]

17 hours ago, PaddockLad said:

Read a bit about this today and it strikes me that the cps completely bungled the charges Stokes was tried on. He could have been charged not only with affray (quite often a "group" offence) but also ABH which would have concentrated on what he dished out himself. He may have been looking at 2 years if found guilty of ABH. Lucky boy. 

Lucky boy indeed.  The CPS decided to try at the beginning of the trial to bring in the ABH charges, but the Judge, quite rightly, told them to get stuffed as it was too late.  Only took them 11 months to get there and to decide at that late stage that they had stuffed up was pathetic.

Glad he is free to play, but realistically he should have been packing his toothbrush for a holiday, courtesy of HMP.

[David Kelly 1245]

Not a massive surprise that Stokes is back into the team at Curran's expense.  It's a bit of a shame because the option of a left armer was pretty good imo.  But in terms of ability you can't really argue with Stokes and Woakes getting the nod.

 

I see Durham have signed Bancroft for next season with Latham expected to be playing for NZ in the world cup. 

[Dr Gloom 21923]

England don’t know how to bat in tests anymore do they? 

[Alex 35082]

Not that it would've made any difference to the result but it's just deserts for putting Stokes back in at the expense of Curran. I'm not saying Stokes should be banned further from playing for England because I think missing The Ashes was quite a big thing for any cricketer and although he was lucky to be found not guilty imo you have to respect the decision of the courts. Some of the attempts to portray him as a hero is fucking laughable as well. I simply think he didn't deserve to come straight back in at the expense of Curran.

[Dr Gloom 21923]

Nice to have a left armer in the attack too. He certainly hadn’t done anything wrong and you can understand why it was easier to sling him rather than broad given his age, when he is arguably more deserving of a place. 

Edited August 20, 2018 by Dr Gloom

[Alex 35082]

Don't bet much but stuck a tidy sum on India after I saw they were 'only' 1/10 this morning with some bookies. 1/50 or even shorter was more realistic imo.

[Dr Gloom 21923]

i wonder how far we are away from needing two new openers. cook seems to struggle along making scores of less then 30, which people forget every few series when he makes a double ton. 

[Alex 35082]

36 minutes ago, Dr Gloom said:

i wonder how far we are away from needing two new openers. cook seems to struggle along making scores of less then 30, which people forget every few series when he makes a double ton. 

Averaging 19 in 14 innings this year

[Gemmill 44879]

You can make decent money in cricket from laying the draw at the exchange. Especially if there's a half decent first wicket stand. The price on the draw comes in massively, you lay it, and then just wait for a handful of wickets to fall, at which point you can get out for a profit.

[Gemmill 44879]

There you go. The draw has been matching as low as 2.78. Its now at 80. You can see on the graph when a load of wickets has come. Piece of piss.

[Alex 35082]

10 minutes ago, Gemmill said:

There you go. The draw has been matching as low as 2.78. Its now at 80. You can see on the graph when a load of wickets has come. Piece of piss.

So you'd back against the draw (lay) when there's a decent opening partnership then what? Cash out for a profit when a few wickets fall? I only really use smarkets but it would be the same as the Trade Out button on there?

Edited August 21, 2018 by Alex

[Gemmill 44879]

Aye it's just the trade out button. If you look at the price of the draw before the match starts, usually it just looks wrong when you compare it with how often a draw actually happens. But the exchange markets often overreact to a good opening partnership and the price of the draw will come in even more. You don't even have to wait for a good partnership if you don't want to. If you lay the draw pre match and there's a few early wickets you're quids in anyway. But waiting a bit allows you to take advantage of the market overreacting. Basically buy low, sell high is the same rule as lay low, back high.

 

From memory, I think the golden figure was 3.5 which was generally considered a good price to lay at.

 

If I could zoom in to the graph you could see how much it swings out when there's a couple of wickets, but aye you basically just use the trade out button when you're happy with the profit figure 

 

Obviously you wouldn't try it in a match where there was bad weather forecast.

 

[Gemmill 44879]

Quite often you can do it multiple times in a match too. If there's a strong partnership for say the 5th wicket, or if the next team starts their innings strongly, the price for the draw will start to creep in again. You just have to decide when you think it's looking daft in probability terms.

[Gemmill 44879]

There's things in football as well like laying the current score in a close, high scoring match where there's 10-15 minutes left. The amount of goals that come late on is incredible. It's tough to take when it doesn't come through obviously. Cricket draws is safer cos of how infrequently they happen compared to the probability suggested by the odds.

[Alex 35082]

Interesting, thanks. I was going to alert you about the odds on India actually but I'm always reticent about stuff like that because I'd feel responsible if it didn't come through. I wish I had the balls to stick a few grand on it tbh as 1/10 of India winning was basically free money. I know the bookies are cautious about the possibilities etc. but suggesting they'd only win 10 times out of 11 is ridiculous. They'd win at least 99 times out of 100. Especially with the forecast for dry weather for today and tomorrow.

[Gemmill 44879]

Aye it was the same with the Mayweather fight. Nonsense odds on him to win when he was blatantly going to.

 

I'm the same though. Would never have the balls to lash a load on.

 

Tennis trading is a good one particularly in the women's game. One tried and tested tactic is to lay the favourite when they go a break up or a set up. Again, the market massively overreacts and the women exchange breaks of serve so often that they'll usually get broken back and their price will swing right back out.

 

The beauty of this is that you can lay at ludicrously short odds on prices - so you can stick 100 quid lay on and your liability will only be £15. So your exposure is really small compared to the upside. Worst comes to worst, if they go on to cement their break you can trade out for a small loss. There's YouTube videos on it - I saw a lad lay £1000 at 1.03 once. £30 liability and the lass he laid fell apart not long after.

[Alex 35082]

8 minutes ago, Gemmill said:

 the lass he laid fell apart not long after.

Story of my life tbh

[Dr Gloom 21923]

Well played Joss Buttler. 

[Alex 35082]

Some of the stick Pope is getting is unbelievable by the way. I know he played a bad shot but he's 20 years old and he's been batting at no. 6 for Surrey. He's played 16 first class matches and before he'd played test cricket he'd never come in to bat until more than 20 overs had been bowled in the longer format. Then he's been faced with coming in at 4 with the ball about 10 overs old against a world class attack. He's clearly got talent and got something about him but the likes of Buttler and Stokes should be coming in to bat before him. We should be gently nuturing talent like that not hoying it in to the deep end.

[Kid Dynamite 7027]

17 balls. Notts tried to charge £10 entry

[Alex 35082]

10 minutes ago, Kid Dynamite said:

17 balls. Notts tried to charge £10 entry

I read that. Refunding those who bought tickets now though. Said there was a 5 day ticketing policy so I can only assume they were bought in advance when it looked like there would be a bit more play on the final day (allthough I didn't think they bothered selling tickets for the 5th day in advance any more). Said there was 2,000 bought so they must've been bought before the close of play otherwise I can't see how there'd by anything like that number taking up the offer. Wouldn't want to criticise Notts too much because at least you can buy decent food and drink at a reasonable price for the tests there unlike the generic, overpriced shit and piss served up at the likes of Durham for big matches.

[Dr Gloom 21923]

3 hours ago, Alex said:

Some of the stick Pope is getting is unbelievable by the way. I know he played a bad shot but he's 20 years old and he's been batting at no. 6 for Surrey. He's played 16 first class matches and before he'd played test cricket he'd never come in to bat until more than 20 overs had been bowled in the longer format. Then he's been faced with coming in at 4 with the ball about 10 overs old against a world class attack. He's clearly got talent and got something about him but the likes of Buttler and Stokes should be coming in to bat before him. We should be gently nuturing talent like that not hoying it in to the deep end.

Ridiculous playing a kid like that at 4 when you’ve got experienced batsmen like bairstow and stokes who could easily move up a spot. 

I think the finger injury to bairstow might have come at the right time as a difficult decision could be made while he’s out: bairstow won’t like it but Buttler could retain the gloves at 7 while we give the kid from Surrey, who’s averaging 65 in the CC, a go further up the order.

It was always a bit of a weird experiment to bring butler back as a specialist batsman at number 7. Give him the gloves full time if he continues to bat like this and let bairstow concentrate on his batting as he could conceivably go as high as 4.

There have been rumours circulating that they might even try Bairstow as an opener, which wouldn’t surprise me given some of Smith’s calls so far, but which I’m a bit sceptical about. Bit it might be worth a gamble - can he be any worse than the alternatives of the past couple of years? The hope would be he kinky end up settling in as a sehwag/Warner type to complement Cook, or another opener who values their wicket.

[Alex 35082]

21 minutes ago, Dr Gloom said:

Ridiculous playing a kid like that at 4 when you’ve got experienced batsmen like bairstow and stokes who could easily move up a spot. 

Totally agree. The thing is, Pope has done well batting at 6. If you're going to play a lad his age at least let him bat in the position where he's done it for his county. Conceivably batting at 5 is ok, but at 4 (especially at the beginning of his test career, with the fragility of our top 3) is completely unfair.

I think the finger injury to bairstow might have come at the right time as a difficult decision could be made while he’s out: bairstow won’t like it but Buttler could retain the gloves at 7 while we give the kid from Surrey, who’s averaging 65 in the CC, a go further up the order.

If you're on about Rory Burns he's actually 27. Apart from the excellent season he's having his overall first class record, whilst not amazing, is pretty good with his average being in the mid-40s. I know they're both openers but Stoneman and Jennings average less than 35 in the longer format. If you pick players who average less than 40 (James Vince being another example) then it's not really surprising they don't do the business at test level.

It was always a bit of a weird experiment to bring butler back as a specialist batsman at number 7. Give him the gloves full time if he continues to bat like this and let bairstow concentrate on his batting as he could conceivably go as high as 4.

Buttler's an interesting one. Given the problems with the batting and his obvious talent I could see why they brought him in but I don't like the idea of a specialist batsman at 7. It seemed to upset the balance of the team a bit. He's still unproven outside of limited overs but hopefully that was a breakthrough innings. In ODIs he's shown a great aptitude for playing to the situation and there's loads more to his game than just coming in and playing destructive innings. But aye, might be worth trying him with the gloves as I think it's a big ask to bat at say 4 and keep wicket, but Bairstow is certainly good enough to bat higher than he has been.

There have been rumours circulating that they might even try Bairstow as an opener, which wouldn’t surprise me given some of Smith’s calls so far, but which I’m a bit sceptical about. Bit it might be worth a gamble - can he be any worse than the alternatives of the past couple of years? The hope would be he kinky end up settling in as a sehwag/Warner type to complement Cook, or another opener who values their wicket.

Could see it, purely because they're running out of options. Ordinarily Cook would have been struggling to keep his place as it stands but given Hameed hasn't broken through and no one else seems to be coming through it might be worth a try. Even then 3 remains a problem as Root doesn't look happy there. His performances at 4 and (in particular) no. 5 are much better.