... and lose by 9 wickets inside 3 days? Discuss?
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Can a team be considered competitive ...
In reply to natty_forever
When expectations are lower than the white line in the road, such phenomena can occur
In reply to imusic... well I am not one singing from that hymn book. Na lie the second test win gave me hope. Therefore even tho I wished to win the third test I felt it might be far fetched, so I would have accepted the match again going into the 5th day, win lose or draw as a sign of improvement.
In reply to natty_forever
Don't fuget test #1 was won by an innings and 209 runs in 3 days too by England.
The second test was an aberration of gigantic proportion and we have seen this done every once in a blue moon by the Windies.
So the answer to your question is a resounding NO....
In reply to natty_forever
The 2nd test victory was magnificent no doubt.
But a look at the facts reveal the following:
1 - England tried to win the 2nd test match. To do so, they needed to declare when they did to give themselves enough time to bowl out WI
2 - They knew there was a chance that by declaring, they were giving WI a sniff at getting back into the series, but they took a calculated gamble that they could win and lost. Many commentators said that had Alistair Cook been the captain, there was no way a declaration would be made at that point.
3 - Even with the declaration, England...Cook in particular....dropped chances that they would otherwise have been expected to take. That is part of the game. West Indies dropped numerous chances as well so you have to deal with what occurred....not what might have been.
In essence, the better team....as expected....won the series handily.
Did the underdogs (WI) perform above expectations? They did. But the expectations were abysmal to begin with and pathetic after the first test performance. So any improvement.....and the improvement came in the bowling department and the 2nd innings of the 2nd test....could be seen as the team being "competitive"
But what that TRULY means....IMO.....is that the team has one or 2 decent batsmen on their day, one or 2 decent bowlers on their day....and that's about it.
So again....were they competitive? I really can't say that they were. I will say that the mental fortitude they showed in the 2nd test to come back from that 1st test performance, was admirable. But there was always going to be one winner in the series. And that winner won comfortably....as expected.
Is that competitive? I guess it's in the eye of the beholder.
In reply to Kay... I think I agree.
In reply to imusic... no it is not.
In reply to imusic
Well reasoned
In reply to natty_forever
how did WI do compared to south africa?
i dont know how unnuh does analyse things. of course a team could lose badly and still be competitive. in a 5 test series or a 3 tests series as was the case a team can be despite how it loses a match. sometimes a session can decide a match especially in Eng when cloud cover can cause the ball to swing and when the sun comes out it is good for batting
consider that team A gets 2 fuh in the first match. then wins the next 2 by one run. wasnt team B competitive.
of course WI was competitive. they lost the first match, won the second and lost the third. in the end they were beaten 2-1. that is as close as it could get in terms of wining if matches were not drawn.
WI lost the 3rd test in the first session of the match when the ball was swinging prodigiously and in the second innings they batted under cloud cover again. Eng had the best of conditions and still got bowled out for 194 which was 40-50 runs too much and in the second innings they batted in sunlight as bright as it gets in Eng this time of year notwithstanding they only needed to get 100 odd runs
SA got beat worse in Eng. was SA competitive?
some fella talked about Cook dropping catches in the game WI won but never mentioned Cook getting a chance when he made a double 100 in the first match and the numerous chances that Stokes got.
boy unnuh good.
In reply to sudden
And finding people to agree is the astounding thing.
First Match was not competitive. End of story.
What kinda idiotic reasoning is England tried to win and lost so...? Windies did not "barely" win with that aggressive declaration. We won easily. That match no matter if England played for a draw was competitive.
Boy we lose 2-1 in a test where it came down to the final day and spin doctors reasoning it was not competitive.
If I laugh...
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