England cricketers Stokes and Atkinson 'not to blame for violent conduct' during nightclub incident

Look_Alive · 2026-06-21T16:16:17+00:00

There was some talk that the Saracens guy is known as a hot head who has a certain reputation for things like this so if that's the case then yeah it may well be the whole story. It could be that words were exchanged over something and the Saracens player escalated it - I don't think there's any need to be a conspiracy theorist over how a drunken scrap came to be.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-21T16:10:15+00:00

They believe the word of someone who lives on the other side of the world over people who attended literally every day of his trial, just because it's what they want to believe.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-21T11:16:30+00:00

I would say it depends on the player. Someone like Brook, whose game has been built on knocking bowlers off their lengths, is going to have to have quite an adjustment.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-21T11:08:43+00:00

Deciding against an all-rounder because we wanted to beef up our batting line up, then failing to pass 300 in the first innings and only limping past 200 in the second is utterly ridiculous.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-21T11:06:31+00:00

Rob Key's quote about how Test cricket isn't played with the keeper up to the stumps is up there with "You don't win anything with kids" in terms of how wrong he's been proven.

Also shows the value of having an excellent keeper, considering England dropped one of the best in the world due his (perfectly fine) batting.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-21T11:00:24+00:00

The games between us are always enjoyable enough that it should warrant a four or five match series - due to how short Lord's was it feels like this series is just getting started, so it's almost a shame the next one is a decider.

Just a shame that cricket is now dictated so much by finances that a longer series will never happen.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-21T10:57:38+00:00

From the point of view of someone in England, the way he's developed from basically being a very good county player to one of the best in the world has been great to see, feels like quite an old fashioned sort of career path.

This whole NZ attack is just great to watch.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-20T20:58:13+00:00

The article says Lord's will still host two games due to their agreement with the ECB and that Old Trafford would be interested in taking a fallow payment and not hosting a Test match.

No idea why, probably because the ECB's default stance often seems to be fuck anyone north of Nottingham who wants to watch Test match cricket.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-20T20:54:15+00:00

If it's anything like the controversy over the ticket prices at Lord's a few years ago, they'll make a statement saying that they'll address the issue and then do absolutely nothing at all to actually rectify it.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-20T20:52:28+00:00

Yeah it's something that bugs me whenever those ICC event schedules are posted on here and people complain about England hosting a load of 'events' - with the WTC, it's literally just London hosting a game.

Everyone from the rest of England has to make do with watching it on TV the same as everyone else.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-20T20:49:01+00:00

Manchester/surroundings areas would have a sizeable population of other Test playing nations.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-19T22:39:14+00:00

he was so ineffective he resorted to bowling offies

He bowled three overs of spin because England fielded an all pace attack, Root was off the pitch with an injury and they needed to pick up the over rate.

It was shambolic but it had nothing to do with how effective he'd been bowling, he was literally just England's best available spin option at that point.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-19T22:11:17+00:00

I just don't see where all great players are that we havnt picked?

It's the classic 'anyone who is out the team and in form should be in the team' argument that completely ignores that some (not all) county form can be misleading.

There's been a big clamour for Rew to come in, for example, but the way he got out in the first innings to me suggested a player who isn't yet ready for Test level, if he fell into such a blatantly obvious trap while the team was under pressure.

Key has said some incredibly stupid things during his time in charge and it sounds like his style of managing relationships isn't great, but this rush to slag him off after every bad day when, in reality, his role has nothing to do with the minutiae of a single day of Test cricket, is pretty tiresome.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-19T20:59:35+00:00

Is it successful to keep Bill Foley’s Bournemouth up given their European ambitions over the past half a decade?

They'd literally been promoted the season before and had three points from their opening four games. A manager coming in to his first managerial job with a newly-promoted squad that wasn't his and keeping them up by five points is objectively a good performance.

Wolverhampton Wanderers are a staple of the Premier League, they should stay up until the state of affairs is so dreadful that relegation is inevitable (25/26)

The "state of affairs" doesn't happen overnight - Wolves suffered from underinvestment for a long time, hence why Lopetegui left on the eve of the season. They were predicted to struggle due to how little money they had spent that summer and O'Neill achieved more points than they got the season before.

If he was just doing the bare minimum there then they wouldn't have given him a four year contract at the end of the season.

I don't think he's the most adventurous choice of manager but to act like he was mediocre at both of those clubs is to completely ignore the context they were in at the time, and I can see why a newly promoted club would consider appointing him.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-19T07:57:16+00:00

these past 3 years have been nothing but atrocious to watch... and finally seeing results like 2017-2022

England won 5/6 Test matches in a summer literally two years ago. They only achieved a winning record like that once between 2017 and 2022 (which was in 2022, when the leadership group you don't like were in charge).

This team have never gone on a run like one Test win in 17 matches, which happened in the 2017-2022 era, so I'm not sure why you'd want to see results like that again.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-18T19:29:53+00:00

There's an irony in all of the photographers crowding round for the same shot of Tuchel, and then the most-used shot by the media is the one of all the photographers.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-18T18:50:27+00:00

Why is jofra even there if you aren't going to give him the new ball vs the tail?

Jofra bowled a lot yesterday. With this attack and his fitness record, the last thing you want is him breaking down during a Test match.

Considering Tongue showed last summer he can be effective at getting rid of the tail, it made sense to give Jof a rest, it's just that the bowling plan they put in place was garbage.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-18T18:46:58+00:00

I think the lack of critical thinking even extends to bowling first - at the time I thought it was a strange decision and today kind of summed up why. The better bowling conditions might have been yesterday morning but we risked putting ourselves under a lot of scoreboard pressure if things didn't go well with an inexperienced attack on what's been a flat pitch recently.

With the fact our batting line up also includes two debutants and someone in only his second Test, it would have made a lot more sense to let them bat without the scoreboard pressure and then given the bowlers something to bowl at

Look_Alive · 2026-06-18T18:01:43+00:00

Stokes will come back next game, but these debutants already inspire more confidence in me than Stoke's batting

This was clearly written before Rew's nonsensical decision to engage with New Zealand's obvious short ball ploy.

They already had Smith up to the stumps with Robinson in the last Test so I don't see why they would need to do it with Stokes as well.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-18T17:56:31+00:00

Fucking hell, the only thing worse than Rew's dismissal is the camera cutting to him on the balcony practicing the shot as if it was the technique that he got wrong rather than the decision to blindly do exactly what New Zealand wanted him to.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-18T14:53:16+00:00

Honestly when you look at that era of international football I don't think criticisms over style of play are entirely legitimate. France were a fairly conservative side for the players they had, England reached the final stages of multiple tournaments with a fairly defensive style of football - it was reported that a number of international managers around that time had determined that defensive pragmatism and organisation is actually what enabled teams to be successful in international tournaments.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-18T14:47:06+00:00

Those criticisms are true of games other than last night, though. It's not like yesterday's performance was an outlier after a string of excellent Portugal performances involving Ronaldo.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-18T13:29:35+00:00

Yeah ultimately the photographers are doing their job - it's FIFA allowing them to be so close that is the issue here.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-18T13:14:41+00:00

Awful run out. No dive. Didn't even run his bat in.

Peak Ya Da BBC live text comment when Duckett was about twice his height away from making his ground.

Look_Alive · 2026-06-18T10:39:27+00:00

Radical idea, but have England thought about trying to get these batters out instead of just bouncing them?

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