Re: cricket - general cricket chit chat thread : Sat Jan 28, 2012 1:04 pm  

Terrible display....I can't see how we can avoid a whitewash, as its painfully obvious our batsman are out of their depth against their spinners.

Morgan should be sent home immediately and never allowed near an England test side EVER again....The sad thing is, most observers could see how poor he was a long time before this tour even started, yet he has been persisted with - For once, England's recent policy of giving players a fair crack as proved a wrong one.

I actually feel sorry for the bowlers as they have done a very good job in this series, just a shame that our batsman have been found wanting once up against a half decent examination of their techniques.

The only consolation I can muster, is that I don't think any other side in the world would fare much better against that Pakistan side in those conditions....Its just the humiliating nature of the defeat that makes this so painful to watch.

Re: cricket - general cricket chit chat thread : Sat Jan 28, 2012 1:38 pm  

That was on the cards as we just cant handle spin.Batting order needs seriously looking at as so many out of form and in last chance saloon,Morgan needs to go imo and possibly putting Prior upto 6( is he good enough for 6 though),Bresnan,when fit, at 7,Broad at 8,Swann 9,Anderson 10 and Tremlett 11....Gives us a better balanced attack and does stiffen the batting up a lot more or is there anyone coming through to stake a place.Bopara has had his chance and is too much like Morgan.

Re: cricket - general cricket chit chat thread : Sat Jan 28, 2012 4:57 pm  

It doesn't bode well for this year with trips to Sri Lanka and India to come, though I don't think either currently have as good a spin attack as Pakistan do.

Am I right in thinking this is the first Flower/Strauss led side to go to Asia? It's going to be a big test for them to see how they respond.

Re: cricket - general cricket chit chat thread : Sun Jan 29, 2012 10:26 am  

fc baldy wrote:

That was on the cards as we just cant handle spin.Batting order needs seriously looking at as so many out of form and in last chance saloon,Morgan needs to go imo and possibly putting Prior upto 6( is he good enough for 6 though),Bresnan,when fit, at 7,Broad at 8,Swann 9,Anderson 10 and Tremlett 11....Gives us a better balanced attack and does stiffen the batting up a lot more or is there anyone coming through to stake a place.Bopara has had his chance and is too much like Morgan.

Now isn't a time to weaken the batting line up, I think the decision to go with four bowlers has been proven right in Pakistan, we've bowled very well and mostly the seamers in the game have been redundant.

Batting wise, who can we bring in? I mean Morgan & KP really do look like they need a spell out of the side, KP in particular whilst I like him and I respect what he's done doesn't merit his place in the side on current form, but then you come to the question of who's knocking on the door to replace these guys? Bopara - Is he a great player of spin, he's never convinced before, who else? The lions have been tonked in Bangladesh, so without doing too mich research, I presume not too many of them are making a strong case for inclusion.

Sadly, I think we've got the best players currently available to England playing, they just need to sort themselves out, work out a method against spin and play that way. What irritates me is that when KP breezed into the England side in 2005 he was so aggresive to Warne, Warne got 40 wickets in that series at like 40 a piece as he took stick and Pietersen played him well by being aggresive, I think it's his tentativeness presently against spin that's causing his issues, if he went in and was positive, the field would retreat and he'd be able to play more freely.

Re: cricket - general cricket chit chat thread : Sun Jan 29, 2012 3:32 pm  

At times, we really seem like "rabbits trapped in headlights" whenever our batsmen face quality spinners
Should they really be scared. These Pakistani spinners are good, but they're no Shane Warnes.
Do we simply hit out at them, or just pad up to them. We don't seem to have an answer.

Morgan plainly isn't Test standard (yet), Strauss is so out of nick, it's untrue, and, despite a good summer 11, Pietersen is still a concern. I have it good authority, that he tried to usurp Flower, even after the Moores episode. We all know Pietersen's value to the side, but, do we have the luxury to make him think about his position in the side, and give his ego a bit of a knock into shape.

When this tour is over, our bowlers can return with their heads held relatively high...not so our batsmen

Re: cricket - general cricket chit chat thread : Sun Jan 29, 2012 4:14 pm  

lefty goldblatt wrote:

When this tour is over, our bowlers can return with their heads held relatively high...not so our batsmen

As a unit, the batsmen have failed in 3 out of 4 innings, shocking

Re: cricket - general cricket chit chat thread : Sun Jan 29, 2012 7:06 pm  

The only English batsmen in the game who looked to play an aggresive innings was Stuart Broad, he finished 58* and did it by pretty much from the first ball he faced looking to counter attack. He picked areas and hit over the top. It's not rocket science, I know we all average 99 in the living room, but watching England crawl towards a target of 140 I was sat there thinking Trescothick would have had England 23-0 from 2.3 overs.

Re: cricket - general cricket chit chat thread : Sun Jan 29, 2012 7:19 pm  

JWP wrote:

The only English batsmen in the game who looked to play an aggresive innings was Stuart Broad, he finished 58* and did it by pretty much from the first ball he faced looking to counter attack. He picked areas and hit over the top. It's not rocket science, I know we all average 99 in the living room, but watching England crawl towards a target of 140 I was sat there thinking Trescothick would have had England 23-0 from 2.3 overs.

Pretty much spot-on, JWP

We seem to "pooh our pants" every time we go near the sub-continent, and face 2 spinners.
If we lose a couple of wickets, so be it, but we've died trying, if we've tried to "hit out" against the spin.

Yesterday, the writing was on the wall @ 10am, and we just took the inevitable defeat...not good enough.
145 SHOULD have been child's play, no matter if the ball was doing something for the spinners. It wasn't a "death trap" wicket, after all. It pains me to say it, but I think we "bottled it".

A two match series away v SL looms in March. Thank the lord Murali has retired, if we're currently having trouble with spin in the UEA

Re: cricket - general cricket chit chat thread : Sun Jan 29, 2012 9:41 pm  

We're making Ajmal look a worldy, he isn't. Swann is a better spinner than him, even without a doosra and a 'teesra'.

We did bottle it, I agree. From the moment we lost Cook and Bell strode out at three, the writing was on the wall, body language was bad etc, Strauss had just had a life from the third umpire and we just looked shellshocked.

I didn't expect KP or Morgan to come to the crease switch hitting like, but they're both such clean strikers of the ball, both hit the ball well straight a few lusty blows would have made such a dent in that target Misbah would have been forced to have boundary riders etc, the momentum would have shifted back our way.

All to prove going into the third test.

Re: cricket - general cricket chit chat thread : Tue Jan 31, 2012 1:07 pm  

JWP wrote:

Now isn't a time to weaken the batting line up, I think the decision to go with four bowlers has been proven right in Pakistan, we've bowled very well and mostly the seamers in the game have been redundant.

Batting wise, who can we bring in? I mean Morgan & KP really do look like they need a spell out of the side, KP in particular whilst I like him and I respect what he's done doesn't merit his place in the side on current form, but then you come to the question of who's knocking on the door to replace these guys? Bopara - Is he a great player of spin, he's never convinced before, who else? The lions have been tonked in Bangladesh, so without doing too mich research, I presume not too many of them are making a strong case for inclusion.

Sadly, I think we've got the best players currently available to England playing, they just need to sort themselves out, work out a method against spin and play that way. What irritates me is that when KP breezed into the England side in 2005 he was so aggresive to Warne, Warne got 40 wickets in that series at like 40 a piece as he took stick and Pietersen played him well by being aggresive, I think it's his tentativeness presently against spin that's causing his issues, if he went in and was positive, the field would retreat and he'd be able to play more freely.

I agree with just about all of that, but KP averaged 73 from 11 Tests in the calendar year of 2011, so not meriting a place on "current form" equates to the two Tests in the current series, in which case the same logic applies to all of the top six bar Cook & Trott.

This is still the team that got us to number 1 in the rankings, so wholesale changes would be an overreaction. They've failed badly in this series so far, having had a 4-5 months break with no cricket other then the ODI series in India in late Autumn, which some of them missed anyway. Then they've gone into an awkward series undercooked, with just a couple of warm up games against substandard opposition in alien conditions of a type in which English teams have rarely prospered.

Personally I wouldn't have Morgan anywhere near the England Test team in the first place, but Bopara would be on a hiding to nothing coming in for him for this week's dead rubber unless he's guaranteed to keep his place for the Sri Lanka series. Otherwise: fail and he's probably off the plane to Sri Lanka while Morgan still goes; get a decent score and it was only a dead rubber. (I'm not convinced Bopara is really a proper solution in any case.)

If Bresnan is fit for Sri Lanka I'd be happy with him coming in at 7 and Prior moving up a place. Unless Bresnan, Broad and Swann are all in the team I'm not sure I'd deviate from the four bowlers policy that has served us so well in recent times, as we'd be left with a much weaker tail. Ideally we need a proper auxiliary bowler in the top order, i.e. someone whose selection is fully justified on batting ability alone, but who is capable of bowling 10-15 overs in an innings and taking a wicket.

Batting in spin friendly conditions is clearly the problem, so introducing more than one different batsman in Sri Lanka would clearly be a gamble. Samit Patel could be worth a shot as he's a relatively experienced county player with international experience in ODIs and offers a fifth bowling option.

Looking a bit further ahead, James Taylor has a first class average of a fraction under 50 from his first three seasons of Championship cricket, despite his county finishing bottom in two of those seasons. I was very impressed with him when I saw him live. I also like the look of Joss Buttler, who seems to have an impressive ability to either rebuild an innings after a top order collapse or to go for all out attack depending on the situation.

The big decision that may not be too far down the line, if his mediocre run continues, will be who replaces Strauss. Purely on age grounds he ought to be the first of the current established batsmen to fall by the wayside, and unless Joe Denly is revitalised by his move to Middlesex there aren't a lot of county openers with a compelling degree of youth, experience, weight of runs, or talent.