That Babar innings was so, so good. This is a guy who has scored a 49-ball hundred in T20 Internationals batting for 425 balls in the fourth innings. Guy has it all.
Virat Kohli. People still doubt him. His innings is the archetype of holding your nerve in the big game. It isn’t about strike rate, it is about winning.
New Zealand making the last three ICC finals in ALL THREE FORMATS is such an incredible achievement.
Just such an impressive group of players in every sense.
After 224 ODIs -
Sachin Tendulkar - 8350 runs, ave 42.6, SR 86.45, 23 hundreds, 44 fifties
Virat Kohli - 10686* runs, ave 60.03, SR 92.61, 40 hundreds, 49 fifties.
It isn't even close for the best ODI batsman ever any more. Kohli wins hands down.
This World Cup really has seen a return of all the classic tropes. England being awful. Australia turning it on for the World Cup. South Africa looking great until the knockouts. It is good to know that traditions are still important in cricket
Times like this is when we will all miss Dhoni playing forward defensive shots and turning down singles until the required rate is 15 an over before deciding to hit a load of sixes.
I find the “doctored pitch” chat when teams tour India so distasteful. Different ≠ doctored. Test matches in India are endlessly interesting to watch.
Cricket would be an awful game if every match was played at the ‘Gabba.
There is nothing in cricket I love as unironically and completely as I love Kohli's relentless climb to the summit of white ball batting.
50 hundreds, most runs in a single ODI World Cup, most runs in a single T20 World Cup. The best there ever was.
What a start to Abdullah Shafique’s career. Averaging 80 in Tests and scores a match winning 160* in the fourth innings of a Test in his ninth first class match. Unreal
Cricket accidentally created the best decision referral system in any sport the first time they tried. Any attempt to change its basic structure or the way it is implemented would be genuine madness.
Kohli is so good that he is leading run scorer in IPL with a strike rate of 147 and average of 72 and people think he is underperforming and want him sacked and dropped from Indian team. Us mortals can only dream of such things.
Regardless of what happens for the rest of 2024, this all run five after the fielder runs off over the boundary and apparently disappears will be my highlight of the year
While Virat Kohli has been far from his best over the last couple of year's I find the "since his last hundred" stuff very telling with cricket's obsession with round numbers.
Since Kohli last scored a hundred only Babar Azam has more 50+ scores in international cricket...
Safaraz waiting this long for a debut he deserved long ago and playing brilliantly and then getting run out because cricket is obsessed with base 10 numbering. Heartbreaking.
Tim Southee has more sixes in Test cricket than -
Ricky Ponting
Sachin Tendulkar
Ian Botham
Gordon Greenidge
AB de Villiers
Sanath Jayasuriya
Rohit Sharma
David Warner
Innings like this one are why I rate Kohli as the absolute best. He scores runs when it is easy going, of course, but he also churns out the runs when everyone else finds it tough. Greatest white ball player of all time.
This Test only further cements India as invincible at home. From 139/7 and in danger of conceding a significant first innings lead to a straightforward win. Just not sure there are any teams who can give them a real challenge in India.
India losing this game would be a bigger choke than any other nation managed in a World Cup. Amazing from Australia after that awful start to this comp.
England winning in India with this bowling attack in India should be the biggest Test upset of 2024. Brilliantly it isn’t even the biggest upset today.
Steve Smith has missed one and a half Tests in this series. He is the leading scorer in the series by over 150 runs and his lowest score in four innings is 92.
Interesting to see tweets about Zimbabwe not having Test status when Pakistan lost by a bigger margin against New Zealand four months ago...
Always surprised when cricket fans and pundits want our sport to be smaller. Makes little sense to me.
I have seen this Bazball episode before so not worried for England. Someone will do a top 5 performance of all time in their second innings to win them the game.
Kohli has 11977 runs in 250 ODIs. That is 48 runs per game.
By comparison (runs per ODI)
Amla - 44
Tendulkar - 38
Ponting - 36
Sangakkara - 35
Lara - 34
The Dutch getting to two wins before Bangladesh or England is such an amazing story. Looking forward to more of those stories when we are back to a 14 team World Cup in 2027.
Blaming the Hundred for England’s World Cup failure is such lazy thinking. Top white ball players don’t play 50 over domestic cricket.
Warner has played 3 domestic list A games in the last 10 years.
Kohli last played a domestic List A game in 2013
For De Kock was in 2014
The “biggest World Cup upset ever” takes on Afghanistan winning against England are a bit mad. It is the sixth ranked team losing to the ninth ranked team. And the ninth ranked team have Rashid Khan and Mujeeb…
England have lost to associate teams at World Cups.
MCC on Ashwin v Buttler.
Summary -
- No need for a warning.
- That we was only just out of his crease is irrelevant
- Whether he waited too long is for umpires to interpret
- What Ashwin did is not outside of Spirit of Cricket
Most runs by an England opener in a home Ashes series since year 2000:
Z Crawley - 478 runs at 59.75
A Strauss - 474 runs at 52.66
M Trescothick - 431 at 43.10