What's new
The Front Row Forums

Register a free account today to become a member of the world's largest Rugby League discussion forum! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

1st Test: England v West Indies @ Lords July 10-14, 2024

TheParraboy

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
67,008
1st test (of 3) commences tonight 8pm AEST

Jimmys last test

Stokes says he is building a side for the ashes, wants to go at us and win

Dont blame the rebuild, currently has a squad that resembles the Parramatta Eels

Nice to see he is thinking beyond these 3 tests vs West Indies.




1720565612141.png


Ben Stokes says that England's evolution as a Test team has to begin in this summer's home series against West Indies, because he wants to be able to lead a team into the 2025-26 Ashes tour in 18 months' time that can "not just compete with Australia, but beat them".

Speaking at Lord's on the eve of the first Test, Stokes admitted it had been a hard decision to tell James Anderson that his 188-match career has to come to an end this week. However, he acknowledged that the shortcomings exposed in England's recent 4-1 series loss in India had forced them to redouble their efforts to be ready for their next big overseas challenge Down Under - arguably the one by which the success of Stokes' era as captain will be judged.

"I'm not going to lie: I want us to be able to take a squad out there that I know is going to go at Australia," Stokes said. "I'll be nearly four years as captain when we go out there. I want to be able to go out there knowing we've done everything possibly right over this 18-month period, to go out there with a strong enough squad to not just compete with Australia, but to beat them."
 

AlwaysGreen

Immortal
Messages
49,177
England will flog the Windies unfortunately. Then they play Sri Lanka and it will be floggings again.
England have dropped the dead wood and will be better for it.
 

Fangs

Coach
Messages
12,190
Windies won their first test in Australia since the 1990's last summer. They won a test in England on their last tour over there as well.

Would be terrific to see them embarrass England at home once again.
 

mozza91

Coach
Messages
13,391
We’re all just so privileged to be able to watch this amazing England side go around.

Forgot Don Bradman or Shane Warne, Wally Hammond or Ian Botham. Generations to come will hear tales about Zak Crawley and Gus Atkinson and be buoyed to play Bazball and pursue dreams of moral victories.
 

TheParraboy

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
67,008
Windies won their first test in Australia since the 1990's last summer. They won a test in England on their last tour over there as well.

Would be terrific to see them embarrass England at home once again.

West Indies also beat the Poms in a test series last two times the Poms toured the Caribbean 2-1 in 2019, and 1-0 couple of years ago

Expect the Poms to win well here, but could be close rest of the series
 

TheParraboy

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
67,008
Poms toss win, elected to field

WI 0/17


England: 1 Zak Crawley, 2 Ben Duckett, 3 Ollie Pope, 4 Joe Root, 5 Harry Brook, 6 Ben Stokes (capt), 7 Jamie Smith (wk), 8 Chris Woakes, 9 Gus Atkinson, 10 Shoaib Bashir, 11 James Anderson

West Indies: 1 Kraigg Brathwaite (capt), 2 Mikyle Louis, 3 Kirk McKenzie, 4 Alick Athanaze, 5 Kavem Hodge, 6 Jason Holder, 7 Joshua Da Silva (wk), 8 Alzarri Joseph, 9 Gudakesh Motie, 10 Shamar Joseph, 11 Jayden Seales
 

JJ

Immortal
Messages
31,975
The Stokes hot air is becoming pretty embarrassing tbh.

But that aside, Anderson has had a quite the career, what he’s done has been amazing…. He’s quality, a touch below the best imo, but he’s pace bowling is an incredibly tough business, and to perform at this level for this long is staggering
 

Twizzle

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
151,862
West Indies Flag
West Indies
(34.5 ov) 121 & 79/6
England Flag
England
371
Day 2 - West Indies trail by 171 runs.
 

King-Gutho94

Coach
Messages
13,390
As great as it was for the Test Cricket for West Indies to beat us at the Gabba.

If you look at it from a realistic point of view it may go down as one of our worst ever losses at home.

We basically lost to a Ron Massey Cup side in RL terms.
 
Top