The England Thread

[Richard]

I dont think talking about how "successful" the england odi and test sides have been neccessarily proves your point lol. Infact if anything it shows how rubbish it is to pick a different odi side! What competitions have england won in odis? zip

WTF have teams got to do with anything? I was talking about individual players - how many players England have had who've been good at one form and poor at the other. In other words, if England had picked the same side in both game-forms, they'd have been even worse at ODIs than they were, and the Test performances would've been every bit as bad in the 1990s as they were in the 2nd half of the 1980s.

What's now got to do with anything? Yes, those 1 happen to be good at odis only, but theres about a zillion who are good at both.
You cant take my three examples and contradict me with 1! and then call my argument less persuasive lol.

I can, because there are far more than 1 example. Most of the very top players (McGrath, Warne, Murali, Tendulkar, Lara, the like) are good at playing a similar role in both game-forms. However, there are more than enough examples - and more from England than anywhere else - that show that success in 1 form is by no means a gurantor of success in the other.

Bevan was one exception, though i think if he were playing in any other test nation he would have made both teams, he certainly wasnt all that bad in tests, just never quite made it, sort of on the fringes like symonds in tests.

He was bad in Tests - for no apparent reason, no, but he was given plenty of chances and came-up short each time. Why that'd be different for any other team is beyond me.

 

[Richard]

Id much rather have a bowler take 3/ 60 than 0/40. Look at todays odi, dalrymple and panesar both bowled economically, then the seamers come back and get put away (albeit the game was over by then) but if panesar and dalrmple had taken a few wickets each it would have been a different game...

If you'd rather a bowler who took 10-60-3 than 10-40-1\0 then you don't really know much about one-day-cricket.

The reason the seamers got put away is because they bowled crap, simple as. Both before and after the spinners came on.

 

[Richard]

The point of the arguement was whether one should have an attackibng or defensive spinner in the odi side. Obviously spinners dont often roll over sides in odis

The point is that unless you're Warne or Murali you can't be an attacking spinner in ODIs, and to expect anyone else to be an attacking force except on pitches of great help is to show illiteracy of the one-day game.

but a few wickets in the middle overs mean everything.. new batters come in to face the seamers afterwards and dont score as quickly..

Nonsense, if the bowlers bowl poorly the batsmen score quickly, regardless of the wickets taken earlier. Equally, if bowlers bowl accurately you can have as many wickets in hand as you want, you still can't score any quicker.

 

[albo97056]

He was bad in Tests - for no apparent reason, no, but he was given plenty of chances and came-up short each time. Why that'd be different for any other team is beyond me.

Because the aussies are way ahead of any other team, therefore making their players who didnt quite make it probably more than good enough to play for any other test side Id say the same for most of the aus rejects of the last 10 years

 

[Richard]

Hmmmm I think it is, although I take your point about different roles needing different skills. My point is that Aus still thought MW & Gilly were a better bet than whoever was making runs at the top of the order in the Aus domestic oneday competitions. Now OK, that's not a difficult call when you're dealing with world class guys like them, but I think the principle still holds true. If only becuae it's been true for avery consistently good oneday side, whatever TEC may try to kid us to the contrary.

Well... who else was making runs at the top of the order in ING (or MM as it was then) at that time?

Not too many, I'd imagine, otherwise Jnr. Waugh wouldn't have been tried there. Michael Slater, for example, should never have played ODIs.

We know for certain that Gilchrist was only given a go at the top because of a Waugh piece of guesswork, which he only tried because di Venuto, Law etc. had been tried and come-up short.

As for Lehmann, I think you're changing the rules a bit here. The fact is that he wasn't out of the test side because he wasn't good enough for test cricket: it was simply that others were better. Going back to your original point, it was nothing to do with him being suited to one form of the game and not the other.

I'd even argue that there weren't others any better - I can't believe anyone other than Stephen Waugh was a better long-game batsman than Lehmann in his era.

OK, Lehmann wasn't quite what you'd describe as the typical good-enough-for-one-not-for-other, but the fact remains that he was better than the likes of Blewett, Langer, etc. who were getting the Test chances and were being kept out of the ODIs.

Anyway, where have you been lately?

Nowhere special - just on one of my CW-breaks which I've now had 5...

It's not that I become tired of the place or anything, just that I sort of drift away then don't come back, for whatever reason, for a while.

 

[Richard]

Because the aussies are way ahead of any other team, therefore making their players who didnt quite make it probably more than good enough to play for any other test side Id say the same for most of the aus rejects of the last 10 years

Someone who averaged 24 over a good deal of Tests did more than "not quite make it". Same for the other "rejects" like Elliott and Blewett. Just because they played for a side that had lots of other good players doesn't mean they'd have been successful playing for someone else.

 

[wpdavid]

I always find arguments on this topic to be quite fascinating. Im presuming though that despite all the talk about Australia and India that we are still referring to the England ODI crisis. If we look back at the history of English ODI cricket, do you not find it to be deeply moving that our best ODI side in recent memory in terms of performance was at the 1992 world cup? Yet with all the talk of having your best test players play ODI cricket, and 8 out of 11 and what not, the side that played in the final of that world cup included all of Graeme Hick, Neil Fairbrother, Chris Lewis, Derek Pringle, Phil Defreitas and Dermot Reeve. Out of those 6 only 1 could claim to have had test match success for any sort of consistent period in Hick while the rest were all ODI specialists. That in itself should disprove your 8 out of 11 theory.
But if that tidbit didnt tweak a muscle in your body then lets go back to the last time we won a tri series in ODI cricket with 2 other teams that werent zimbabwe or bangladesh, all the way back to 97 in Sharjah. From memory that side had 3 test match regulars,( 4 if you want to be generous and count Hick who was for whatever stupid reasons never allowed to play regularly) in Thorpe, Headley and Stewart.
Look the point im trying to make is that you dont have to be einstein to figure out that for whatever reasons, England have continually produced players that are good in one form and very poor in the other. Our best ODI players ever- Knight, Hick, Ealham, Mullally, Fairbrother and a few others were all players that never succeeded in test match cricket. It might not be the same for other countries, but IMO the English domestic system has to blame for the fact that English FC cricketers are clearly nowhere near good enough when it comes to producing players that can nudge and nurdle, innovate, run well between the wickets or can save a few runs in the field. The players that did fantastically well in those 2 tournaments werent exactly supremely talented, nor did they manage to play consistently well for England but the bottom line was that they all were electric in the field, they were all brilliant runners between the wickets, they were all extremely disciplined and most importantly when they were at the crease you couldnt be sure whether they were going to hit you over fine leg or between gullies and when they bowled they constantly mixed it up with slower balls and off cutters. For those who watched the rather embarassing display of England trying to bat in 20-20 cricket the other day, didnt you want to break the tv sets when you saw Paul Nixon and some of the other clowns trying to reverse sweep? Or for that matter Flintoff bowling today and starting off with 11 wides?
Yes you cant win with just ODI specialists, but by and large you need the right combination of the two. When theres someone like a Nick Knight, you dont pick Aj Strauss because hes better in test cricket. Someone like Robin Smith who arguably would have been one of the best ODI cricketers ever had he been allowed to play longer only played 71 ODIs despite averaging 39 simply because he wasnt good enough in tests. Instead they picked Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain.

You have too much time on your hands mate! Anyway ......
I deliberately said "consistently successful". I'm talking about sides who have done well over a period of time, or even gone on to win WC's. The Sharjah win was fun but it was a oneoff. IIRC the same bunch of players then went to WI and were slaughtered. And, IIRC, haven't there have subsequently been questionmarks over the Sharjah tourny in terms of match fixing? Maybe I'm remembering that wrong.
As for the 1992 side, there are those who would argue that Hick & Knight should have had decent test careers if they had been handled properly. Beyond that, most of the players were a regular part of our test side, even if they didn't do very well in that format. That's just a reflection on the standard of players we had, I think. And the policy of the selectors not to give players a decent run in the test side. The exceptions, off the top of my head, were Fairbrother, Reeve & Pringle, which is exactly what I was saying re. 8 out of 11.

Of course, the bigger picture comes from looking at every side that has won a WC or just been consistently good over a period of time. They are not dominated by oneday specialists. Quite the reverse, even if batting positions are different. It's possible that England are the exception though. Looking at the performances of too many of our test side, I can well understand the temptation to look beyond them, even if the worldwide picture sends a completely different message.

 

[albo97056]

If you'd rather a bowler who took 10-60-3 than 10-40-1\0 then you don't really know much about one-day-cricket.

The reason the seamers got put away is because they bowled crap, simple as. Both before and after the spinners came on.

If the spinners had taken 3-60 each instead of 0-40 odd england wopuld have had a very good chance of winning the game, albeit the seamers would have had to do a job.

I dont think you know much about cricket period. Wickets are everything, too much emphasis is put on run rate in one day cricket, its been shown that with wickets in hand almost anything is achievable and if you are 4 or 5 down when the seamers come back on youre in big trouble and not likely to score very quickly. Wickets and run rate go hand in hand and if you cant see that you need to stop being so sure of yourself!

 

[albo97056]

You have too much time on your hands mate! Anyway ......
I deliberately said "consistently successful". I'm talking about sides who have done well over a period of time, or even gone on to win WC's. The Sharjah win was fun but it was a oneoff. IIRC the same bunch of players then went to WI and were slaughtered. And, IIRC, haven't there have subsequently been questionmarks over the Sharjah tourny in terms of match fixing? Maybe I'm remembering that wrong.
As for the 1992 side, there are those who would argue that Hick & Knight should have had decent test careers if they had been handled properly. Beyond that, most of the players were a regular part of our test side, even if they didn't do very well in that format. That's just a reflection on the standard of players we had, I think. And the policy of the selectors not to give players a decent run in the test side. The exceptions, off the top of my head, were Fairbrother, Reeve & Pringle, which is exactly what I was saying re. 8 out of 11.

Of course, the bigger picture comes from looking at every side that has won a WC or just been consistently good over a period of time. They are not dominated by oneday specialists. Quite the reverse, even if batting positions are different. It's possible that England are the exception though. Looking at the performances of too many of our test side, I can well understand the temptation to look beyond them, even if the worldwide picture sends a completely different message.

Well put

 

[Richard]

there are those who would argue that Hick & Knight should have had decent test careers if they had been handled properly.

Oh, come on! How could they have been handled better?

Both simply had technical deficiencies (Knight often hadn't a clue where his off-stump was and often groped for deliveries outside off; Hick couldn't play the short-ball at the start of his career) which stopped them becoming Test-class players but didn't stop them becoming England's best two ODI players of the modern era.

 

[Richard]

If the spinners had taken 3-60 each instead of 0-40 odd england wopuld have had a very good chance of winning the game, albeit the seamers would have had to do a job.

Nonsense, if the spinners had gone for 120 off 20 overs we'd have lost the game before the seamers even came back on.

All of which ignores the fact that, with the exception of the exceptional (Warne and Murali) taking wickets though attacking bowling is not possible on pitches that don't help you. England don't have a bowler of such skill (nor, in fact, does anyone except Sri Lanka these days) so spinners, if they play in ODIs (and for the most part spinners aren't good enough to bowl in one-day cricket, they're too easily milked) can only be defensive bowlers on most pitches.

I dont think you know much about cricket period. Wickets are everything, too much emphasis is put on run rate in one day cricket, its been shown that with wickets in hand almost anything is achievable and if you are 4 or 5 down when the seamers come back on youre in big trouble and not likely to score very quickly. Wickets and run rate go hand in hand and if you cant see that you need to stop being so sure of yourself!

No, it's been shown that with poor death-bowling (which has abounded recently) any run-rate is achievable in the last 10 or so. Wickets in hand don't come into the equation. Nor do wickets in hand make good blockhole-bowling any easier to hit.

Wickets and run-rate do indeed go hand-in-hand but not for the reasons you think - keeping a slow run-rate will invariably lead to wickets if the batsmen have any sense, because they won't be happy to just hang-around for 180 for 2 off 50 overs. It doesn't, though, work the other way around - if you take wickets and bowl inaccurately, teams will still score at 5.5-6-an-over. They might be bowled-out early, but that's another matter.

 

[albo97056]

Nonsense, if the spinners had gone for 120 off 20 overs we'd have lost the game before the seamers even came back on.

All of which ignores the fact that, with the exception of the exceptional (Warne and Murali) taking wickets though attacking bowling is not possible on pitches that don't help you. England don't have a bowler of such skill (nor, in fact, does anyone except Sri Lanka these days) so spinners, if they play in ODIs (and for the most part spinners aren't good enough to bowl in one-day cricket, they're too easily milked) can only be defensive bowlers on most pitches.

No, it's been shown that with poor death-bowling (which has abounded recently) any run-rate is achievable in the last 10 or so. Wickets in hand don't come into the equation. Nor do wickets in hand make good blockhole-bowling any easier to hit.

Wickets and run-rate do indeed go hand-in-hand but not for the reasons you think - keeping a slow run-rate will invariably lead to wickets if the batsmen have any sense, because they won't be happy to just hang-around for 180 for 2 off 50 overs. It doesn't, though, work the other way around - if you take wickets and bowl inaccurately, teams will still score at 5.5-6-an-over. They might be bowled-out early, but that's another matter.

The more wickets you take the less quickly you score, thats obvious because a side can take less risks. The fear of being bowled out or not being able to score with the last few bats, is what keeps the batsmen from unwinding on every ball, the more wickets you take the less risks they can take.. The quality of bowling is neither here nor there, you can only face up to whats in front of you

And we may well have lost the game, but we would have atleast given ourselves a chance and in closer games it certainly would have made a difference. Any captain you ask would rather have some wickets in the bag than a tight spell, if he has any sense, how often do you hear commentators and captains being interviewed talking about how important wickets are? you rarely hear them say " that was a matchwinning 0-30!

 

[Richard]

The more wickets you take the less quickly you score, thats obvious because a side can take less risks. The fear of being bowled out or not being able to score with the last few bats, is what keeps the batsmen from unwinding on every ball, the more wickets you take the less risks they can take.. The quality of bowling is neither here nor there, you can only face up to whats in front of you

The quality of bowling is everything - any decent batsman will score at 5-6-an-over if the bowling's inaccurate. The amount of wickets lost will not stop batsmen going after wayward deliveries.

Taking risks is different - mostly if you take risks against good, accurate bowling you'll pay for it anyway, however many wickets you've got in hand.

And we may well have lost the game, but we would have atleast given ourselves a chance and in closer games it certainly would have made a difference. Any captain you ask would rather have some wickets in the bag than a tight spell, if he has any sense, how often do you hear commentators and captains being interviewed talking about how important wickets are? you rarely hear them say " that was a matchwinning 0-30!

That's because there aren't that many capable of bowling 10-30 at the moment, and also the fact that usually if you do you'll get gifted a couple of wickets as reward for tying the batsmen down.

You might have noticed Shaun Pollock being praised for a couple of 10-23-0s not so long ago, though...

 

[wpdavid]

Going back to the Sharjah theory the scorecards make interesting reading. Nearly all the big innings came from Thorpe & Stewart - the oneday specialists barely made a score. Admittedly the bowling was another story, and there may be something in that, especially in those particular conditions.

 

[Richard]

England's best bowling-attack of the modern era was Caddick\Fraser, Gough, Mullally, Ealham. Two both-gamers, and two ODI specialists.

Equally, in Tests, we haven't had much better than Gough, Caddick, Cork, White - same thing.

Or you could say Hoggard, Flintoff, Jones, (Harmison). Neither Hoggard or Jones good enough in ODIs, Flintoff a both-gamer, Harmison good enough for neither.

And with regards the batting - yes, some "ODI specialist" batsmen have proven nonsense, while the likes of Stewart and Thorpe have combined both games. But I'll say it again - England's best three ODI batsmen of the modern era have been Knight, Hick and Fairbrother, none of whom were good enough in Tests.

A hell of a lot of it, too, has to do with mistaken identity - the like of Blackwell, Prior, Clarke, Shah, Solanki being picked primarily or exclusively for ODIs when their OD records are very poor and their FC records not bad (though no way do I feel Blackwell or Prior would be Test-class batsmen).

Plenty of players are picked for ODIs because "we might as well give them a go", which is applauded at the time, and when they come-up short 2 years down the line it's "the selectors didn't show any consistency".

 

[albo97056]

England's best bowling-attack of the modern era was Caddick\Fraser, Gough, Mullally, Ealham. Two both-gamers, and two ODI specialists.

Equally, in Tests, we haven't had much better than Gough, Caddick, Cork, White - same thing.

Or you could say Hoggard, Flintoff, Jones, (Harmison). Neither Hoggard or Jones good enough in ODIs, Flintoff a both-gamer, Harmison good enough for neither.

And with regards the batting - yes, some "ODI specialist" batsmen have proven nonsense, while the likes of Stewart and Thorpe have combined both games. But I'll say it again - England's best three ODI batsmen of the modern era have been Knight, Hick and Fairbrother, none of whom were good enough in Tests.

A hell of a lot of it, too, has to do with mistaken identity - the like of Blackwell, Prior, Clarke, Shah, Solanki being picked primarily or exclusively for ODIs when their OD records are very poor and their FC records not bad (though no way do I feel Blackwell or Prior would be Test-class batsmen).

Plenty of players are picked for ODIs because "we might as well give them a go", which is applauded at the time, and when they come-up short 2 years down the line it's "the selectors didn't show any consistency".

I think you underate jones - hes a shoe in for the one day game if hes fit. hasnt had much of a run unfortunately

 

[Richard]

A shoo-in whose 5 ODIs so far have produced the fabulous figures of 33-155-3 (4.69 at 51.66) and whose List-A-OD record reads the fabulous 5.06 at 46.88... (from all of 15 matches outside England games - in 9 seasons' worth...)

 

[marc71178]

30 man squad announced

No Tresco, Jones or Gough - we almost certainly will never see the latter 2 playing for England again - HOORAY!

Batsmen: Ian Bell (Warks), Ravi Bopara (Essex), Alastair Cook (Essex), Ed Joyce (Middx), Mal Loye (Lancs), Kevin Pietersen (Hants), Owais Shah (Middx), Vikram Solanki (Worcs), Andrew Strauss (Middx), Michael Vaughan (Yorks)

All-rounders: Rikki Clarke (Surrey), Paul Collingwood (Durham), Jamie Dalrymple (Middx), Andrew Flintoff (Lancs), Michael Yardy (Sussex)

Wicket-keepers: Paul Nixon (Leics), Matt Prior (Sussex), Chris Read (Notts)

Bowlers: James Anderson (Lancs), Stuart Broad (Leics), Glen Chapple (Lancs), Ashley Giles (Warks), Matthew Hoggard (Yorks), Amjad Khan (Kent), Jon Lewis (Glos), Sajid Mahmood (Lancs), Graham Onions (Durham), Monty Panesar (Northants), Liam Plunkett (Durham), Chris Tremlett (Hants)

 

[Richard]

No Tresco, Jones or Gough - we almost certainly will never see the latter 2 playing for England again - HOORAY!

Too late pal, you were already wrong with the "he should never play for England again after opting-out of Pakistan tour".

Let's look forward with relish to the future bowling-attack of Plunkett, Mahmood and Broad... fills you with excitement...

Though it is something of a shame that Jones (presuming, that is, you mean G.) was ever picked for ODIs ITFP.

Incidentally, if we ever DO see Gough playing ODIs again we can know for certain that the England selectors will never again mould a World Cup-winning team.

 

[marc71178]

Too late pal, you were already wrong with the "he should never play for England again after opting-out of Pakistan tour".

Relevance of that comment?