Yep. I’ve been to those two. Far harder to psyche yourself up to go super hard for three or four days and nights when it isn’t the end of the year

I do remember that India test having some incredible batting. Iirc Sachin, Sehwag and Ponting all got tons

salt 109* (56) and brook 31* (7) chasing down 222 with a ball to spare was good fun. hopefully a turning point for what is a talented group

salt follows it up with 100* (48), guys a ****ing problem

didnt get a bid in the ipl, meanwhile some idiot team saw fit to give $180k to the desiccated corpse of mohammad nabi

ends on 119 (57)

The IPL auction is often devoid of logic.

IPL trying to make up for all the years that Starc hasn't played in the IPL.

Happy new year all

Test Match cricket is on the ropes

I'll enjoy it while it lasts, well done Aussie, so hard to beat at home

I could watch Mohammad Rizwan bat all day, what an entertaining player

day one of the second test in south africa

SA 55 all out

india just lost their last 6 wickets for no runs (!?), 153 all out

SA back in, still plenty of time left in the day

Test cricket is dying but other forms of the game can rarely be more interesting than what has happened today, in both Sydney and Cape Town.

i miss the days when more than a couple of batters on each side were able to stick around for an hour or more. im not watching this SA IND test so i dunno if its just a terrible wicket or what but the point stands either way - its now deeply weird to see a test reach the 5th day without weather and for me that sucks

Some Indians on twitter complaining that if this was an Indian pitch, the masses would be saying it’s a bad pitch.

India were 4/153 scoring at 4.5 per over, didn’t seem to be any issues then. Yes it’s a challenging pitch, but quality batsmen should be able to hang in there, concentrate deeply and build a slow, measured innings. But there are very few quality Test batsmen these days.

South Africa are bad, and will be even worse when they tour New Zealand in a couple weeks. Yes, India did lose their last 6 wickets without adding to their score. That was just a freak occurrence, nothing to do with the pitch.

India should be embarrassed that they lost the first Test and missed an easy opportunity to win their first ever series in South Africa.

107 overs - apparently the shortest completed test in history

https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...ults;type=team

Like many of these wickets - they have no pace in them. So yes there was variable bounce and movement off the seam (quite a bit) the pitches are slow enough that you can adjust or you can adjust if you are good enough. All this dangerous pitch talk just because there is a bit of movement really annoys me.

Similar to matches getting called off for light in 2024. That shouldn't happen any more - go take a pink ball out of the box and go back out there. I'm pretty sure at even the suggestion of the need for a pink ball that the batsmen will say there is no more light issue and can play on against pace. But even if they say they can't at a later stage the umpires should tell them that is what we are going to do to get the overs in for the day.

really disappointing series performance from Babar Azam. Double figures 5 times out of 6 but never got to 50

21
14
1
41
26
23

12 wickets lost today in the last 30 overs in Sydney. Must be the pitch.

Watched the india SA test the pitch had lots of variable bounce so it was a very tough surface.

At some point india decided sticking around was not the best strategy and started attacking, Rohit was stepping down and hitting Rabada.

I'm curious how the teams of early 2000's would've approached this wicket, it was tough but something tells me they might've made 200 odd.

I dunno but pitches were really flat in that period everywhere except maybe South Africa

Aussie women humbled by India in the first T20.

Australia - 10/141 (19.2)
India - 1/145 (17.4)

Adelaide test is going to be over before tea on day 3 which...will be a Friday. Horrific scheduling by Cricket Aus - the Saturday of the test match in the members at the Adelaide Oval is one of the great days of the test calendar and both Sat and Sun would be two of the biggest drinking days you'd ever find at a test. God knows how much $$ it's going to cost them in terms of reduced booze sales

EDIT - probably over by lunch day 3

Brook returning home from India for family reasons is a shame from a cricketing perspective.

Im excited to see how bazball will fare in in this Indian series!

2 x Test matchs kicking off later today, awesome!

I saw an interesting post from Michael Vaughn advocating for a 3 month a year window where teams only play Test cricket. He says this is needed to stop Tests dieing out.
The rest of the calendar can be used for T20 Leagues and Internationals and ODIs.

I reckon fencing off a part of the year for Tests only to protect them, is a great idea but would prefer 2 x 2 month blocks to coincide with each hemisphere's summer season

The game is played in both hemispheres and 5 continents. Good luck with that lol

Australia v West Indies (D/N)

India v England

Both Tests starting at the exact same time!

Brisbane’s wet weather forecast: