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5m1tm t1_jacud83 wrote

Reply to comment by whoareyouguys in New Zealand defeat England by 1 run in the 2nd Test Match at Wellington by IntoThePeople

Foakes was trying to protect the tailender at the other end because tailenders obviously can't bat nearly as well and England couldn't afford to lose easy wickets. That's why he was taking singles only towards the end of the over, to minimise the balls that the tailenders faced so as to minimise their exposure to the NZ bowling.

It made total sense what Foakes was doing. In fact, it would've been stupid to not do that.

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whoareyouguys t1_jacvkr6 wrote

Oh that makes sense. I didn't think about not wanting to give the other guy turns at the wicket. Thanks! I'm new to cricket

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5m1tm t1_jacw7jw wrote

No problem! :D

Yeah so the thing is, ideally, you would want to "keep rotating the strike" (i.e., giving the strike to the other batter. It's a common cricketing phrase), because it "keeps the scoreboard ticking" as they say in cricket parlance. And when you're chasing, it's obviously helpful since 1 run regularly would keep getting deducted from your target. But it's only advisable to do this if the person at the other end is a specialist batter or an all-rounder (cricketers who can both bat and bowl), or atleast a tailender who can bat a bit decently. Anyone who comes after the 8th wicket falls is usually not any of those things, and you would obviously not want to lose 10 wickets in a chase coz that means losing the match. So you "farm the strike" (another common cricket phrase) in order to protect the tailenders at the other end.

Cricket is a game of permanent cost-benefit analysis for both teams on the field, in all aspects of the game.

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